Notes On Job Design

Job Design - Meaning, Steps and its Benefits

Job design follows job analysis i.e. it is the next step after job analysis. It aims at outlining and organising tasks, duties and responsibilities into a single unit of work for the achievement of certain objectives. It also outlines the methods and relationships that are essential for the success of a certain job. In simpler terms it refers to the what, how much, how many and the order of the tasks for a job/s.

Job design essentially involves integrating job responsibilities or content and certain qualifications that are required to perform the same. It outlines the job responsibilities very clearly and also helps in attracting the right candidates to the right job. Further it also makes the job look interesting and specialised.

There are various steps involved in job design that follow a logical sequence, those that were mentioned earlier on. The sequence is as follows:

1.     What tasks are required to e done or what tasks is part of the job?

2.     How are the tasks performed?

3.     What amount are tasks are required to be done?

4.     What is the sequence of performing these tasks?

All these questions are aimed at arriving upon a clear definition of a specific job and thereby make it less risky for the one performing the same. A well defined job encourages feeling of achievement among the employees and a sense of high self esteem.

The whole process of job design is aimed to address various problems within the organisational setup, those that pertain to ones description of a job and the associated relationships. More specifically the following areas are fine tuned:

• Checking the work overload.
• Checking upon the work under load.
• Ensuring tasks are not repetitive in nature.
• Ensuring that employees don not remain isolated.
• Defining working hours clearly.
• Defining the work processes clearly.

The above mentioned are factors that if not taken care of result into building stress within the employees.

Benefits of Job Design

The following are the benefits of a good job design:

1.     Employee Input: A good job design enables a good job feedback. Employees have the option to vary tasks as per their personal and social needs, habits and circumstances in the workplace.

2.     Employee Training: Training is an integral part of job design. Contrary to the philosophy of “leave them alone’ job design lays due emphasis on training people so that are well aware of what their job demands and how it is to be done.

3.     Work / Rest Schedules: Job design offers good work and rest schedule by clearly defining the number of hours an individual has to spend in his/her job.

4.     Adjustments: A good job designs allows for adjustments for physically demanding jobs by minimising the energy spent doing the job and by aligning the manpower requirements for the same.

Job design is a continuous and ever evolving process that is aimed at helping employees make adjustments with the changes in the workplace. The end goal is reducing dissatisfaction, enhancing motivation and employee engagement at the workplace.

Approaches to Job Design

Job design is the next step after job analysis that aims at outlining, and organizing tasks and responsibilities associated with a certain job. It integrates job responsibilities and qualifications or skills that are required to perform the same. There are various methods or approaches to do this. The important ones are discussed below

Human Approach

The human approach of job design laid emphasis on designing a job around the people or employees and not around the organizational processes. In other words it recognizes the need of designing jobs that are rewarding (financially and otherwise) and interesting at the same time.

According to this approach jobs should gratify an individual’s need for recognition, respect, growth and responsibility. Job enrichment as popularized by Herzberg’s research is one the ways in human approach of job design. Herzberg classified these factors into two categories - the hygiene factors and the motivators.

Motivators include factors like achievement, work nature, responsibility, learning and growth etc that can motivate an individual to perform better at the work place.

Hygiene factor on the other hand include things like working conditions, organizational policies, salary etc that may not motivate directly but the absence of which can lead to dissatisfaction at the work place.

Engineering Approach

The engineering approach was devised by FW Taylors et al. They introduced the idea of the task that gained prominence in due course of time. According to this approach the work or task of each employee is planned by the management a day in advance. The instructions for the same are sent to each employee describing the tasks to e undertaken in detail. The details include things like what, how and when of the task along with the time deadlines.

The approach is based on the application of scientific principles to job design. Work, according to this approach should be scientifically analyzed and fragmented into logical tasks. Due emphasis is then laid on organizing the tasks so that a certain logical sequence is followed for efficient execution of the same. The approach also lays due emphasis on compensating employees appropriately and training them continuously for work efficiency.

The Job Characteristics Approach

The job characteristics approach was popularized by Hackman and Oldham. According to this approach there is a direct relationship between job satisfaction and rewards. They said that employees will be their productive best and committed when they are rewarded appropriately for their work. They laid down five core dimensions that can be used to describe any job - skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback.

• Skill variety: The employees must be able to utilize all their skills and develop new skills while dealing with a job.
• Task Identity: The extent to which an identifiable task or piece or work is required to be done for completion of the job.
• Task Significance: How important is the job to the other people, what impact does it create on their lives?
• Autonomy: Does the job offer freedom and independence to the individual performing the same.
• Feedback: Is feedback necessary for improving performance.

These are different approaches but all of them point to more or less the same factors that need to be taken into consideration like interest, efficiency, productivity, motivation etc. All these are crucial to effective job design.

Issues in Job Design

As we know, job design is a systematic organization of job-related tasks, responsibilities, functions and duties. It is a continuous process of integration of content related to job in order to achieve certain objectives. The process plays a vital role as it affects the productivity of employees and organizations. However, there are a number of existing issues emerged recently while designing the jobs in organizations. These are alternative work patterns that are equally effective in handling organization’s functions.

Telecommuting / Work from Home: Telecommuting or work from home is considered as the best alternative of working from the actual office. The concept of virtual office is gaining more and more popularity because of ease and convenience associated with it. By using computer networks, fax machines, telephones and internet connection, employees can communicate and perform the job from home. It eliminates the need of coming to office everyday and offers employees the convenience to work at the comfort of their home.

Though there are lots of advantages associated with this working style but it suffers from many limitations. It allows employees to stay at home and manage their job tasks and functions without actually being present in the office but it doesn’t allow them to communicate with other employees and establishing relationships with them. They only deal with machines whole day, thus lose creativity. Moreover, it is a great hindrance in their way as it does not allow skill upgradation.

Job Sharing: It is the second most preferable alternative of traditional working styles where two or more individuals share the responsibilities of a full time job. They divide the tasks, responsibilities and compensation according to their mutual consent. This option is generally used by women who are on maternity leave or have family and kids to look after but want to continue their job. These days, organizations are open to this kind of working style where two or more individuals can share a job.

Flexi-Working Hours: These days, organizations allow their employees to work according to the timings that suit them best. There are 3-4 working schedules and individuals can choose any one of them depending upon their availability. Employees can work in early hours as well as night hours. This is good for those individuals who have colleges or some other engagements during the day or specific hours of the day. The best part is that unlike telecommuting, flexi-timings give them chance to communicate with other employees too.

Alternative Work-Patterns: Companies these days allow their employees to work on alternate months or seasons. Though the concept is not that common in India but can be seen in European and American world of work. They also have the option of working two to three full days and can relax after that.

According to the latest concept, employees can work for fixed number of hours and then can attend to their personal needs during the left days.

Technostress: Technostress is the latest technology to keep a check on employees’ performance even when they choose to work from home. Because of the introduction of new machines, there performance can be electronically monitored even when they are not aware of it.

Task Revision: Task revision is nothing but modification of existing work design by reducing or adding the new job duties and responsibilities to a specific job.

Factors affecting Job Design

A well defined job will make the job interesting and satisfying for the employee. The result is increased performance and productivity. If a job fails to appear compelling or interesting and leads to employee dissatisfaction, it means the job has to be redesigned based upon the feedback from the employees.

Broadly speaking the various factors that affect a job design can classified under three heads. They are:

1.     Organizational Factors

2.     Environmental Factors

3.     Behavioural Factors

1. Organizational Factors

Organizational factors that affect job design can be work nature or characteristics, work flow, organizational practices and ergonomics.

• Work Nature: There are various elements of a job and job design is required to classify various tasks into a job or a coherent set of jobs. The various tasks may be planning, executing, monitoring, controlling etc and all these are to be taken into consideration while designing a job.
• Ergonomics: Ergonomics aims at designing jobs in such a way that the physical abilities and individual traits of employees are taken into consideration so as to ensure efficiency and productivity.
• Workflow: Product and service type often determines the sequence of work flow. A balance is required between various product or service processes and a job design ensures this.
• Culture: Organizational culture determines the way tasks are carried out at the work places. Practices are methods or standards laid out for carrying out a certain task. These practices often affect the job design especially when the practices are not aligned to the interests of the unions.

2. Environmental Factors

Environmental factors affect the job design to a considerable extent. These factors include both the internal as well as external factors. They include factors like employee skills and abilities, their availability, and their socio economic and cultural prospects.

• Employee availability and abilities: Employee skills, abilities and time of availability play a crucial role while designing of the jobs. The above mentioned factors of employees who will actually perform the job are taken into consideration. Designing a job that is more demanding and above their skill set will lead to decreased productivity and employee satisfaction.
• Socio economic and cultural expectations: Jobs are nowadays becoming more employee centered rather than process centered. They are therefore designed keeping the employees into consideration. In addition the literacy level among the employees is also on the rise. They now demand jobs that are to their liking and competency and which they can perform the best.

3. Behavioural Factors

Behavioural factors or human factors are those that pertain to the human need and that need to be satisfied for ensuring productivity at workplace. They include the elements like autonomy, diversity, feedback etc. A brief explanation of some is given below:

• Autonomy: Employees should work in an open environment rather than one that contains fear. It promotes creativity, independence and leads to increased efficiency.
• Feedback: Feedback should be an integral part of work. Each employee should receive proper feedback about his work performance.
• Diversity: Repetitive jobs often make work monotonous which leads to boredom. A job should carry sufficient diversity and variety so that it remains as interesting with every passing day. Job variety / diversity should be given due importance while designing a job.
• Use of Skills and abilities: Jobs should be employee rather than process centered. Though due emphasis needs to be given to the latter but jobs should be designed in a manner such that an employee is able to make full use of his abilities and perform the job effectively.

Job Redesign - Meaning, Process and its Advantages

Restructuring the elements including tasks, duties and responsibilities of a specific job in order to make it more encouraging and inspiring for the employees or workers is known as job redesigning. The process includes revising, analyzing, altering, reforming and reshuffling the job-related content and dimensions to increase the variety of assignments and functions to motivate employees and make them feel as an important asset of the organization. The main objective of conducting job redesigning is to place the right person at the right job and get the maximum output while increasing their level of satisfaction.

Job Redesign Process

• Revising the Job Content: Job redesigning process involves recollecting and revising job-related information to determine the inconsistency between person and the job.
• Analyzing Job-related Information: Once the job analyst is through with recollecting and revising the job content, analyzing the discrepancies is the next step. It is done to determine the hindrances in performing job-related tasks and duties and investigate why an employee is not able to deliver the expected output.
• Altering the Job Elements: The next step is to amend the job elements. It may include cut back on extra responsibilities or addition of more functions and a higher degree of accountability. The basic aim of altering the job content is to design a job in such a manner that encourages employees to work harder and perform better.
• Reformation of Job Description and Specification: After altering the job elements, a job analyst needs to reform the job description and specification in order to make sure that the worker placed at a particular place is able to deliver what is expected of him.
• Reshuffling the Job-related Tasks and Duties: Next is to reallocation of new or altered tasks and functions to employees. It may be done by rotating, enriching, enlarging and engineering the job. The idea is to motivate the performers while increasing their satisfaction level.

Advantages of Job Redesigning

• Enhances the Quality of Work-Life: Job redesigning motivates the employees and enhances the quality of their work life. It increases their on-the-job productivity and encourages them to perform better.
• Increases Organization’s and Employees’ Productivity: Altering their job functions and duties makes employees much comfortable and adds to their satisfaction level. The unambiguous job responsibilities and tasks motivate them to work harder and give their best output. Not only this, it also results in increased productivity of an organization.
• Brings the Sense of Belongingness in Employees: Redesigning job and allowing employees to do what they are good at creates a sense of belongingness in them towards the organization. It is an effective strategy to retain the talent in the organization and encouraging them to carry out their responsibilities in a better fashion.
• Creates a Right Person-Job Fit: Job Redesigning plays an important role in creating a right person-job fit while harnessing the full potential of employees. It helps organization as well as employees in achieving their targets or goals.

Therefore, the purpose of job redesigning is to identify the task significance and skill variety available in the organization and reallocating the job-related tasks and responsibilities according to the specific skills possessed by an employee.