2) Define Job design. Discuss the impact of job enlargement and job enrichment for designing the Job.
Answer :Job Design- Definition
Work arrangement (or rearrangement) aimed at reducing or overcoming job dissatisfaction and employee alienation arising from repetitive and mechanistic tasks. Through job design, organizations try to raise productivity levels by offering non-monetary rewards such as greater satisfaction from a sense of personal achievement in meeting the increased challenge and responsibility of one's work. Job enlargement, job enrichment, job rotation, and job simplification are the various techniques used in a job design exercise.
Job Enlargement
Job enlargement expands job horizontally. It increases job scope; that is, it increases the number of different operations required in a job and the frequency with which the job cycle is repeated. By increasing the number of tasks an individual performs, job enlargement, increases the job scope, or job diversity. Instead of only sorting the incoming mail by department, for instance, a mail sorter’s job could be enlarged to include physically delivering the mail to the various departments or running outgoing letters through the postage meter.
Efforts at job enlargement have met with less than enthusiastic results. As one employee who experienced such a redesign on his job remarked, “ Before I had one lousy job. Now, through enlargement, I have three!”. So while job enlargement attacks the lack of diversity in overspecialised jobs, it has done little to provide challenge or meaningfulness to a workers’ activities
Job Enrichment
Job enrichment, as it is currently practiced in industry, is a direct outgrowth of Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory of motivation. It is, therefore, based on the assumption that in order to motivate personnel, the job itself must provide opportunities for achievement recognition, responsibility, advancement and growth. The basic idea is to restore to jobs the elements of interest that were taken away under intensive specialisation. At this stage it may be necessary to draw a distinction between job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment. Job enrichment tries to embellish the job with factors that Herzberg characterised as motivators: Achievement, recognition, increased responsibilities, opportunities for growth, advancement and increased competence. There is an attempt to build into jobs a higher sense of challenge and achievement, through vertical job loading.
Vertical job loading entails redesigning jobs to give:
1. Greater responsibility,
2. Greater autonomy,
3. More immediate feedback to the individual or group. This might include transferring some of the superior’s activities to subordinates.
Horizontal job loading might be applied by having workers perform some of the steps that precedes and follow them in the work flow. A single operator might fit on all four fenders, be responsible for the car’s entire front end, or do both rough and finished painting
How to make job enrichment effective
Whether job enrichment really pays off or not is not a simple question to answer in view of the above (difficulties) research findings. But one thing clearly emerges: Job enrichment is not a cure-all for all the human problems presently facing modern management. There is no use jumping on the job enrichment bandwagon without carefully considering all the above factors. Despite these criticisms, the evidence still shows that the job enrichment works for some groups of people. If we assume that individual employees wish to have more variety, complexity and responsibility in their jobs, job enrichment looks like a very promising and effective way to make workers – and the total organization – more effective. In this connection it may be necessary to answer one final question: What is needed to make job enrichment effective?
I. Use job enrichment selectively after taking into account situational variables (job characteristics, personal characteristics of employees, organization level, etc.).
Ii. Provide a supportive climate for innovation and change.
Iii. Job enrichment demands a development effort. Managers must have a better understanding of what people want. They must be genuinely interested in job enrichment programme. People like to see that their managers are really concerned about their welfare.
Iv. Develop the skill of the participants first in a job enrichment programme. If you do not provide the man the skills to carry out the decision making and goal setting responsibilities under a job enrichment programme he gets more frustrated. Perhaps, an example might be the non-swimmer who sees someone drown. The objective is clear, you have to get that person out of the lake, but, if you do not have the skills to go out there and get the person then the frustration is intolerable.
Answer :Job Design- Definition
Work arrangement (or rearrangement) aimed at reducing or overcoming job dissatisfaction and employee alienation arising from repetitive and mechanistic tasks. Through job design, organizations try to raise productivity levels by offering non-monetary rewards such as greater satisfaction from a sense of personal achievement in meeting the increased challenge and responsibility of one's work. Job enlargement, job enrichment, job rotation, and job simplification are the various techniques used in a job design exercise.
Job Enlargement
Job enlargement expands job horizontally. It increases job scope; that is, it increases the number of different operations required in a job and the frequency with which the job cycle is repeated. By increasing the number of tasks an individual performs, job enlargement, increases the job scope, or job diversity. Instead of only sorting the incoming mail by department, for instance, a mail sorter’s job could be enlarged to include physically delivering the mail to the various departments or running outgoing letters through the postage meter.
Efforts at job enlargement have met with less than enthusiastic results. As one employee who experienced such a redesign on his job remarked, “ Before I had one lousy job. Now, through enlargement, I have three!”. So while job enlargement attacks the lack of diversity in overspecialised jobs, it has done little to provide challenge or meaningfulness to a workers’ activities
Job Enrichment
Job enrichment, as it is currently practiced in industry, is a direct outgrowth of Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory of motivation. It is, therefore, based on the assumption that in order to motivate personnel, the job itself must provide opportunities for achievement recognition, responsibility, advancement and growth. The basic idea is to restore to jobs the elements of interest that were taken away under intensive specialisation. At this stage it may be necessary to draw a distinction between job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment. Job enrichment tries to embellish the job with factors that Herzberg characterised as motivators: Achievement, recognition, increased responsibilities, opportunities for growth, advancement and increased competence. There is an attempt to build into jobs a higher sense of challenge and achievement, through vertical job loading.
Vertical job loading entails redesigning jobs to give:
1. Greater responsibility,
2. Greater autonomy,
3. More immediate feedback to the individual or group. This might include transferring some of the superior’s activities to subordinates.
Horizontal job loading might be applied by having workers perform some of the steps that precedes and follow them in the work flow. A single operator might fit on all four fenders, be responsible for the car’s entire front end, or do both rough and finished painting
How to make job enrichment effective
Whether job enrichment really pays off or not is not a simple question to answer in view of the above (difficulties) research findings. But one thing clearly emerges: Job enrichment is not a cure-all for all the human problems presently facing modern management. There is no use jumping on the job enrichment bandwagon without carefully considering all the above factors. Despite these criticisms, the evidence still shows that the job enrichment works for some groups of people. If we assume that individual employees wish to have more variety, complexity and responsibility in their jobs, job enrichment looks like a very promising and effective way to make workers – and the total organization – more effective. In this connection it may be necessary to answer one final question: What is needed to make job enrichment effective?
I. Use job enrichment selectively after taking into account situational variables (job characteristics, personal characteristics of employees, organization level, etc.).
Ii. Provide a supportive climate for innovation and change.
Iii. Job enrichment demands a development effort. Managers must have a better understanding of what people want. They must be genuinely interested in job enrichment programme. People like to see that their managers are really concerned about their welfare.
Iv. Develop the skill of the participants first in a job enrichment programme. If you do not provide the man the skills to carry out the decision making and goal setting responsibilities under a job enrichment programme he gets more frustrated. Perhaps, an example might be the non-swimmer who sees someone drown. The objective is clear, you have to get that person out of the lake, but, if you do not have the skills to go out there and get the person then the frustration is intolerable.
