PME MAGAZINE

Job Design

There are three important influences on job design. One is work-flow analysis, which (you will  recall) seeks to ensure that each job in the organization receives work as an input, adds value to  that work, and then passes it on to another worker. The other two influences are business and the organizational structure that best fits that strategy. For example, an emphasis on highly  specialized jobs could be expected in a bureaucratic organizational structure because work in bureaucratic organizations is built around the division of labor.

We will examine five approaches to job design: work simplification, job enlargement, job rotation, job enrichment, and team-based job design.

WORK SIMPLIFICATION Work simplification assumes that work can be broken down into simple, repetitive tasks that maximize efficiency. This approach to job design assigns most of the thinking aspects of work (such as planning and organizing) to managers and supervisors, while giving the employee a narrowly defined task to perform. Work simplification can utilize labor effectively to produce a large amount of a standardized product. The automobile assembly line, where workers engage in highly mechanical and repetitive tasks, exemplifies the work simplification approach.

Although work simplification can be efficient in a stable environment, it is less effective in a changing environment where customers demand custom-built products of high quality. Moreover, work simplification often leads to high levels of employee turnover and low levels of employee satisfaction. (In fact, where work simplification is used, employees may feel the need to form unions to gain some control over their work.) Finally, higher-level professionals subjected to work simplification may become so specialized in what they do that they cannot see how their job affects the organization’s overall product or service. The result can be employees doing work that has no value to the customer. Many professional employees in highly specialized jobs became casualties of corporate restructurings over the last decade because organizations discovered such work did not provide value to consumers.

Work simplification is not to be confused with work elimination. Companies trying to eliminate work challenge every task and every step within a task to see if there is a better way to get the work done. Even if parts of the work cannot be eliminated, some aspect of the job may be simplified or combined with another job. Oryx—a Dallas, Texas–based oil and gas producer— saved $70 million in operating costs in one year after it set up teams to take a fresh look at its operations. The teams discovered many procedures, reviews, reports, and approvals that had little to do with Oryx’s business and could easily be eliminated. Work elimination is similar to BPR, though it differs in that work elimination typically focuses on particular jobs and processes rather than on overhauling the entire company.

JOB ENLARGEMENT AND JOB ROTATION Job enlargement and job rotation are used to redesign jobs to reduce fatigue and boredom among workers performing simplified and highly specialized work. Job enlargement expands a job’s duties. For example, auto workers whose specialized job is to install carpets on the car floor may have their job enlarged to include the extra duties of installing the car’s seats and instrument panel.

Job rotation rotates workers among different narrowly defined tasks without disrupting the flow of work. On an auto assembly line, for example, a worker whose job is installing carpets would be rotated periodically to a second workstation where she would install only seats in the car. At a later time period she might be rotated to a third workstation, where her job would be to install only the car’s instrument panels. During the course of a day on the assembly line, the worker might be shifted at two-hour intervals among all three workstations.

Both job enlargement and job rotation have limitations because these approaches focus mainly on eliminating the demotivating aspects of work and, thus, improve only one of the five core job characteristics that motivate workers (skill variety).

JOB ENRICHMENT Job enrichment is an approach to job design that directly applies job characteristics theory to make jobs more interesting and to improve employee motivation. Job enrichment puts specialized tasks back together so that one person is responsible for producing a whole product or an entire service.

Job enrichment expands both the horizontal and the vertical dimensions of a job. Instead of people working on an assembly line at one or more stations, the entire assembly line process is abandoned to enable each worker to assemble an entire product, such as a kitchen appliance or radio.

For example, at Motorola’s Communications Division, individual employees are now responsible for assembling, testing, and packaging the company’s pocket radio-paging devices.

 Previously, these products were made on an assembly line that broke the work down into 100 different steps and used as many workers.

Job enrichment gives employees more opportunities for autonomy and feedback. It also gives them more responsibilities that require decision making, such as scheduling work, determining work methods, and judging quality.

However, the successful implementation of job enrichment is limited by the production technology available and the capabilities of the employees who produce the product or service. Some products are highly complex and require too many steps for one individual to produce them efficiently. Other products require the application of so many different skills that it is not feasible to train employees in all of them. For example, it could take an employee a lifetime to master all the skills necessary to assemble a Boeing 777 aircraft.

Job enrichment can provide opportunities for increased interactions with customers and others who are affected by the results of the work. A job design that has provisions for contact with customers is likely to increase the meaningfulness of an employee’s work when he or she learns in the customer’s own voice how the customer uses the product and how it affects him or her.

For example, putting software engineers in contact with groups of customers on a frequent basis to see how they use the software can motivate the software engineers to create a future version of the software that is easier to use and that has more applications that customers want.

TEAM-BASED JOB DESIGNS Team-based job designs focus on giving a team, rather than an individual, a whole and meaningful piece of work to do. Team members are empowered to decide among themselves how to accomplish the work. They are cross-trained in different skills, then rotated to do different tasks within the team. Team-based job designs match best with flat and boundary less organizational structures. McDonald’s uses team-based job designs in the operations of a fast-food restaurant. A team of McDonald’s employees performs various functions such as food preparation; order taking; operating the cash register; keeping the kitchen and customer areas of the restaurant clean; taking out the trash; and refilling dispensers with napkins, straws, and utensils for the customers to use. Team members are cross-trained on different functions and participate in determining the allocation of work responsibilities for each work shift.