Significance of Job Design

Job design specifies the contents of jobs to satisfy work requirements and meet the personal needs of the job holder.

According to Ali & Aroosiya, (2013), job design is the “functions of arranging task, duties, and responsibilities into an organizational unit of work”.

Another definition by Davis(1966),  ‘The specification of the contents, methods, and relationships of jobs in order to satisfy technological and organizational requirements as well as the social and personal requirements of the job holder’.

📌 Jobs and roles

According to Armstrong (2014), the difference between Jobs and Roles is as follows.

📌 The model for job characteristics

Figure 1: Source: Hackman and Oldham's Job Characteristics Model(1974)

📌 Supportive techniques for job design

Figure 2: Source: Techniques of job design (Belias & Sklikas, 2013)

① Job Rotation

Job rotation is a system, which allows employees to rotate from one job to another, in a predetermined way (Durai, 2010).

② Job Enlargement

Job enlargement “transforms the jobs to include more and/or different tasks” (Durai, 2010, p. 96).

③ Job Enrichment

Job enrichment refers to “the development of work practices that challenge and motivate employees to perform better” (Durai, 2010, p. 92)

④ Self-managing teams (autonomous workgroups)

A self-managing team enlarges individual jobs to include a wider range of operative skills (multiskilling) (Armstrong, 2014).

📌 Job design decisions

📌 Designing Efficient Jobs

If workers perform tasks as efficiently as possible, not only does the organization benefit from lower costs and greater output per worker, but workers should be less fatigued. This point of view has for years formed the basis of classical industrial engineering, which looks for the simplest way to structure work to maximize efficiency. Typically, applying industrial engineering to a job reduces the complexity of the work, making it so simple that almost anyone can be trained quickly and easily to perform the job. Such jobs tend to be highly specialized and repetitive.

In practice, the scientific method traditionally seeks the "one best way" to perform a job by performing time-and-motion studies to identify the most efficient movements for workers to make. Once the engineers have identified the most efficient sequence of motions, the organization should select workers based on their ability to do the job, then train them in the details of the "one best way" to perform that job. The company also should offer pay structured to motivate workers to do their best.

Despite the logical benefits of industrial engineering, a focus on efficiency alone can create jobs that are so simple and repetitive that workers get bored. Workers performing these jobs may feel their work is meaningless. Hence, most organizations combine industrial engineering with other approaches to job design

📌 Conclusion

 Increasing an organization’s ability to meet its goals effectively and providing job satisfaction to the employees is the main purpose of job design. This is effective for the enhancement of employees’ job satisfaction, motivation of workers, and ultimately the increase of employees’ performance and productivity.

References:

Aroosiya, M.A.C.F. & Hussain Ali, M.A.M., (2013). Impact of job design on employees’ performance: with special reference to school teachers in the Kalmunai Zone.

Davis, L. E. (1966) The design of jobs, Industrial Relations, 6.

Hackman, J.R. & Oldham, G. R. (1974) Motivation through the design of work: test of a theory, Organizational Behaviour and Human Performance, 16(2), pp 250–79.

Belias, D. & Sklikas, D., (2013). ASPECTS OF JOB DESIGN: International Journal of Human Resource Management and Research (IJHRMR). 3. 85-94.

Durai P.(2010). Human Resource Management. New Delhi: Pearson Education.

Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S., (2014). Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice.