Module III: Job design and its techniques

Concept of Job Design

Job design is a core function of human resource management and it is related to the specification of
contents, methods and relationship of jobs in order to satisfy technological and organizational
requirements as well as the social and personal requirements of the job holder or the employee.

Job design is the process of 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.

According to Michael Armstrong, "Job Design is the process of deciding on the contents of a job in terms
of its duties and responsibilities, on the methods to be used in carrying out the job, in terms of
techniques, systems and procedures, and on the relationships that should exist between the job holder
and his superior subordinates and colleagues."

Job design is the process of

a) Deciding the contents of the job.

b) Deciding methods & processes to carry out the job.
c) Making optimize use of job/work-time so that job/work-time should not be wasted as time is money
and time cannot be earned, but can be saved by making efficient use of it.
d) Avoiding manual task if can be handled by machines or automated.
e) Synchronization of work, and no conflict with other jobs
f) Deciding the relationship which exists in the organization.

Approaches to Job Design

The three important approaches to job design are:

1. Engineering Approach
2. Human Approach
3. Job Characteristic Approach

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 be 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

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approach also lays due emphasis on compensating employees appropriately and training them
continuously for work efficiency.

Specialization of labour is the hallmark of job engineering. High level of specialization is intended to

(a) allow employees to team a task rapidly.

(b) permit short work cycles so that performance can be almost automatic and involve little or no
mental effort.

(c) make hiring easier because low-skilled people can be easily trained and paid relatively low wages.

(d) reduce the need for supervision, using simplified jobs and standardization.

This approach offers the following principles for job design:

(a) Task fragmentation means breaking the task in to small manageable units to improve the
efficiency.

(b) Optimization of technology through scientific study and analysis

(c) Standardization through time and motion study

(d) Specialization – Selection of workers should made on the basis of their specialization

(e) Training – Workers who are selected are trained to enable them to work efficiently

(f) Responsibility – Each worker is individually responsible for completion of the work assigned.

(g) Incentives – Monetary incentives are to be used for rewarding the best performance.

Problems with Engineering Approach: After listening to several complaints from employees about their
highly specialized jobs, Walker and Guest indicated the problems with job thus:

 Repetition: Employees performed a few tasks repeatedly. This quickly led the employee to
become very bored with the job. There was no challenge to the employee to learn anything new
or to improve the job.
 Mechanical Pacing: Assembly line workers were made to maintain a certain regular pace of work.
They could not take a break when they needed to, or simply divert their attention to some other
aspect of the job or another individual.
 No End Product: Employees found that they were not turning out any identifiable product,
consequently, they had little pride and enthusiasm in their work.
 Little Social Interaction: Employees complained that because the assembly line demanded
constant attention, there was very little opportunity to interact on a casual basis with other
employees and share their work experiences, beliefs and sentiments.
 No Input: Employees also complained that they had little chance to choose the methods by which
they performed their job, the tools which they use, or the work procedures. This created little
interest in the job because there was nothing which they could improve or change.

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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.

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.

The core job dimensions can be combined into a single predictive index called the Motivating Potential
score. Its computation is as follows:

Motivating potential score = Skill variety + Task identity + Task Significance / 3 x Autonomy x Feedback

Critical psychological states: The model states that core job dimensions are more rewarding when
individuals experience three psychological states in response to job design.

Personal and work outcomes: Jobs are high on motivating potential and must be high at least in one of
the three factors that lead to meaningful work and must be high in both autonomy and feedback and
vice-a-versa.

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Factors Affecting Job Design

There are main three kinds of factors that affect Job Design:

 Organizational Factors
 Environmental Factors
 Behavioural Elements

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.

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 various task elements should be included in accordance with
the employee abilities and capabilities. 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. Therefore, due
consideration should be given to employee ability while determining job design. Henry Ford did
follow it. He made job design simple and requiring little training for assembly line considering that
most potential workers lacked any automobile-making experience.

 Socio economic and cultural expectations: Jobs are nowadays becoming more employee centred
rather than process centred. 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.

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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 centred. 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.

Techniques of Job Design

Job design logically follows job analysis. Job analysis provides job related data as well as the skill and
knowledge expected of the incumbent to discharge the job. Job design involves organizing tasks, duties
and responsibilities into a unit of work to achieve certain objectives.

Job design is the process of deciding on the contents of a job in terms of its duties and responsibilities, on
the methods to be used in carrying out the job in terms of techniques, systems and procedures, and on
the relationships that should exist between the job holders and his supervisors, subordinates and
colleagues.

The main objectives of job design are to integrate the needs of the individuals and the requirements of
the organisation. The needs of the employees include job satisfaction in terms of interest, challenge and
achievement. Organisational requirements are high productivity, technical efficiency and quality of work.
These are the techniques of job design:

 Job Rotation
 Job Simplification
 Job Enlargement
 Job Enrichment

Job Rotation

In this technique, the employee is shifted from one job to another job within a group so that there is
some variety and relief from the boredom of routine work. Job rotation breaks the monotony of
performing a highly specialised job by placing persons on jobs requiring different skills and abilities. The
organisation benefits because employees become competent on several jobs.

This technique has its own advantages and they are as follows:

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 a) Job rotation increases the intrinsic reward potential of the job because of different skills and
abilities needed to perform it.
b) The employees become competent to perform several jobs rather than one.
c) Job rotation also improves interdepartmental cooperation.
d) Through job rotation, employees are able to understand each other’s problems.
e) It relieves the employees from boredom and monotony of doing the same job.
f) It broadens the knowledge and skills of the employees.
g) The employees are provided with variety of work, workplace and peer groups.
h) Employees become more flexible and they are also prepared to assume greater responsibility
especially at other positions.

The disadvantages are:

a) Job rotation may not have much impact on employee efficiency and enthusiasm.
b) The frequent shifting of employees from one job to another may cause interruption in the routine
work of the organisation.
c) The employee feels alienated when he/she is rotated from job to job.
d) The employees who require specific responsibility in a particular field may feel demotivated.
e) Job rotation may lead to increase in cost and decrease in productivity.

Job Simplification

In this technique, a given job is broken or divided in small subparts, and each subpart is assigned to each
employee. It is a technique through which jobs are simplified or specialised. The purpose of job
simplification is to make the job simple for the employee to perform without obtaining any special
training. The time and motion studies are used for job simplification.

Job simplification was popularized by Frederick Taylor. He advocated that complex jobs should be broken
down into simple components. These are small tasks that are relatively easy to learn and execute. The
advantage is that there is a low skill level required, it is cheaper for the organization, and there is less
error due to specialization.

In Taylor’s approach, workers become specialists in their specific area. This approach was implemented
first by Henry Ford, who was able to mass-produce cars at a much cheaper rate than any of his
competition. Another benefit for the employer is that employees are easier to replace as they are highly
specialized and their skills are easy to learn. Employees are thus replaceable cogs in the production
machine. This approach was referred to as the engineering approach, as the output (productivity) was the
main criteria for making these design choices.

The 5 steps for job simplification are as follows:

 Selection of the job or activity to be studied: A good starting point is an activity that is time
consuming or inefficient. Preferably, this is an activity that you are familiar with, otherwise you
should interview people who are familiar with the task to get a better understanding of the
person doing it. This helps in understanding the activity.
 Collection of data and information regarding the selected job: Here the priority is to get all the
facts and lists each individual step involved in doing the job.
 Questioning of everything about the performance of the job: In this phase, you go through all
the steps and facts and analyze everything by asking “why, where, when, who, and how”. Next,
you investigate alternative procedures and circumstances.

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  Development of possible improvements: Here you can use four criteria for all the different tasks.
These are Eliminate, Combine, Rearrange, and Simplify. The goal here is to make work easier,
safer, or more effective. In this phase, you should keep in mind that you can make use of tools,
including physical instruments, digital technology, and automation. After this, write the results
down and create a proposed new method.
 Evaluation of results and implantation of the improved method: Here, you can test your new
prototype, optimize and adjust based on initial results, and implement the improved method. This
may include some stakeholder management or convincing a superior.

Although the above-mentioned approach was published as early as the 1950s, it is highly similar to
today’s design thinking process. You try to understand the job and circumstances (emphasize), define the
problem, analyze the process, prototype solutions, and test results.

Job Enlargement

Job enlargement is the process of expanding the number of related tasks in the job. Enlargement reduces
monotony and utilises a wider range of employee skills. Thus, it is opposite to job simplification. Thus, job
enlargement increases the scope of job of a particular employee by adding more tasks to it. This
enlargement is done on the horizontal level. It means that the job remains the same but becomes of a
larger scale. Job enlargement was popularized in the ’60s and ’70s. During that time there was an increase
in attention on factors that made a job motivational as people realized that the traditional mass
production assembly lines were boring and deeply dissatisfying to work at.

Enlarging highly specialized jobs leads to a number of advantages, which are as follows:

 Creating a wider range of activities: In essence, job enlargement is about adding responsibilities to
existing roles. This makes the job more varied, creating a wider range of activities.

 Reduces monotony: As a result of the wider range of activities, monotony decreases. People don’t
do the same, highly specialized task 30 times an hour for 9 hours straight. Instead, they are more
involved from end-to-end, taking a single product through multiple production phases, or even
managing an automated assembly belt.
 Teaches a variety of skills and helping career growth: Additional job responsibilities require
training and help in building additional experience. This teaches employees additional skills and is
helpful in terms of career growth.

 Earn a higher wage: Adding responsibilities to a role often results in better compensation. Higher
wages are a specific benefit for the employee.

 Gives more autonomy, accountability, and responsibility: The additional responsibilities lead to a
number of motivational factors. Because the person is now responsible for multiple related
activities, the person has more freedom over how they do their work leading to more autonomy.
In addition, they are more accountable for mistakes and product quality as they experience more
ownership and responsibility as they have more interaction with a single product or service
(compared to when they were specialized).

These are the disadvantages of Job Enlargement:

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  Lower efficiency: Job enlargement leads to less specialization, resulting in lower specialization.
Put simply, when you do one activity all day, every day, you get pretty good and fast at doing it.
Job enlargement, therefore, leads to lower efficiency.

 Lower quality: In line with the previous, enlargement could also decrease quality. However, this is
not undisputed. Doing the same thing all day, every day can also lead to boredom. Also, if you’re
only responsible for a small part of the product, you don’t experience responsibility for the whole
product. Employees don’t have a whole product concept, leading to a lack of ownership and
willingness to improve.

 Job creep: Job creep is a continuous increase in workload as more and more tasks are added to a
role. This can result in the job becoming unrealistic and overwhelming. Job creep happens when a
job is continuously enlarged, potentially leading to stress and burnout.

 Increased training levels and costs: Because job enlargement involves the adding of tasks and
responsibilities that the employee didn’t have before, it often requires an increase in training
levels and training costs. In addition, the employee will require some time before reaching the
optimum productivity level.

Cases should therefore individually be assessed on whether or not enlargement makes sense. This will
depend on the unique circumstances of the job.

Job Enrichment

The goal of job enrichment is to create a motivating job. This can be done, for example, by taking a
regular, ‘boring’ job and adding extra responsibilities that make the job more meaningful for the worker.
Job enrichment is, therefore, part of job design and job redesign.

The biggest reason to invest in job enrichment is that it leads to motivation. This makes job enrichment
especially relevant for highly skilled, white-collar service jobs. According to Fein (1986), job enrichment is
less important for blue-collar workers. Here their primary concern is pay, job security, and the rules of the
workplace. Job enrichment is less effective in this context because it does not address these problems.

The Job Enrichment interventions are:

 Creating natural work units: The formation of natural work units is about grouping interrelated
tasks together. This creates ownership of the tasks and allows the employee to see the result of
their work, leading to an increase in ownership, task identity, and perceived task significance.
 Combining tasks: Divided jobs can be put together to create broader, more rewarding jobs.
Cummings & Worley mention Corning Glass Works, a laboratory hotplate assembling plant.
Separate tasks were combined so that each operator would completely assemble, inspect, and
ship a hotplate. This meant that each assembler could identify with a finished product and self-
inspect it, leading to greater task significance, autonomy, and feedback. This resulted in an
increase in productivity of 84%, a drop of controllable rejects from 23 to less than 1%, and
absenteeism dropped from 8 to less than 1%.

 Quality circles: Quality circles, or Kaizen groups, are groups of employees who regularly meet to
consider ways of resolving problems and improving productivity in their organization. These small
groups increase participatory management and lead to more task identity and autonomy.

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  Suggestion programs: In line with quality circles, Employee Suggestion Programs (ESP) encourage
employees to offer suggestions that improve the performance and quality of their work. Usually,
the ESP is overseen by HR. Sometimes cash awards are awarded for employees whose ideas are
implemented or result in savings or revenue.

 Task teams: A task team, task force, or task group is a unit established to work on a single defined
task or activity. Originally introduced by the United States Navy, it is now used in business settings
as well. Similar to the quality circle, a group of employees work together to come up with
improvements related to a specific business activity, often overseen by a manager.

 Feedback: The simple act of giving regular feedback may be the easiest job enrichment
intervention of them all. Feedback, whether it comes from one’s direct manager or peers through
a 360-degree feedback assessment, helps the employee to grow and develop and is a key way to
enrich one’s job.

 Autonomy: Autonomy is another key part of the motivating potential of a job. Any intervention
that can increase autonomy will lead to an increase in motivating potential. Examples include
being able to determine when one takes a break or being made responsible for a project or
process.

 Purpose: We haven’t mentioned Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory yet. Deci and Ryan
propose that motivation is created through three drivers, a need for autonomy, a need for
competence, and a need for relatedness. This was later popularized in Daniel Pink’s book Drive. A
purpose for doing the work can help in creating relatedness to the work. A clearly stated and
identifiable purpose will increase task significance.

 Establish client relationships: Another job enrichment intervention is to establish client

relationships. When jobs are split up, workers have little to no contact with, or knowledge of, the
ultimate user. By establishing client relationships, the task identity and task significance are
increased. Cummings & Worley recommend three steps. First, the client must be identified.
Second, the contact between the worker and the client needs to be as direct as possible. Third,
criteria by which the client judges the product or service should be clear and the client’s judgment
should be relayed back to the worker.

 Vertical loading: Vertical loading may be the most crucial job enrichment and design principle. A
job that is vertically loaded has responsibilities and a large degree of control that was formally
reserved for management. This greatly increases autonomy. Vertical loading is often lost when a
mistake is made. At this point, a supervisor steps in and removes the responsibility, leading to
lower vertical loading and a decrease in autonomy.

 Horizontal loading: Horizontal loading is also referred to as job enlargement. Job enlargement is a
form of job enrichment and will be discussed in the next section.

Advantages of Job Enrichment

The advantages of Job Enrichment are as follows:

 Learning new skills: Providing job enrichment comes with a burden of additional duties and
responsibilities. And to complete those duties and responsibilities of the post of work, the
employees need to be aware of all the additional skills. These additional skills provide details of

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 the work which need to be completed. Most of the time job enrichment can be favourable only
for those employees who are willing to learn new skills for the sake of their own bright future.

 Boosts energy of the employee by reducing boredom: Boosting energy is the answer to the
question how does job enrichment motivate employees. Job enrichment provides additional
responsibilities to the employees of the company. And such kind of responsibilities creates a
differentiation of working pattern. Differentiation in working pattern provides a different type of
energy to perform that particular job. And eventually, it reduces boredom in the daily working
environment. This is one of the important advantages of such job enrichment.

 Creates a positive and better working environment: Providing job enrichment is one of the
decisions of the company where in which it needs to be discussed that such type of job
enrichment can be beneficial for the growth of the company. Once the company experiences
positive vibes from their job enrichment program, then it is quite possible that even employees
can be positive about their new duties and responsibilities. And this kind of environment in the
workplace can be termed as one of the decisions for the betterment of the company and their
employees.

 Increases the chances of recognition and reward: Once the company provides job enrichment for
their employees then there is a mere possibility that those employees can be recognized for the
work allotted or can also be rewarded for their sincere work. And fortunately, these employee
rewarding and recognition process can create some sort of boost among its employees to work
even better for their better future and growth. Therefore, it is necessary for the employees of the
company that they need to make use of their job enrichment in a better manner.

 Provides motivation for the advancement: As per all the key elements of the job enrichment
provided by the company, the employees will be awarded an extra load of duty, but that extra
load of duty comes with an extra baggage of motivation. Most of the time employees will be
motivated to work better in their field of work and this can make things visible for the
advancement of the growth of the company. Therefore, it is possible that a small amount of
motivation can create wonders in one’s professional life.

 It provides a sense of accomplishment: It generates a sense of accomplishment for both the

employee and the company or the employer. Most of the time, the employers of the company
provide job enrichment to their employees, not for the sake of their employees, but actually, it is
one of the strategies that the company delivers to make sure that they can earn better profits and
provide better overall growth of the company. Therefore, the fact is that job enrichment is
beneficial not only for the employee but it is very important for the employer as well.

 Reduces absenteeism: It is possible that after the company goes with a decision of job
enrichment, it can reduce the number of absenteeism in the workplace. And this can eventually
change the outlook of the company. All the employees of the company will be interested to know
more about the new load of work which can reduce the time which can be wasted easily.
Therefore, understanding job enrichment is important for the company which is necessary to
build an empire of successful business.

 Create a professional approach: The decision of providing job enrichment for the employees is
one of the important decisions which need its own time. And once the company takes such a
decision, there are quite a few changes that are going to take place in the company. One of the

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 important and major changes that can happen would be employees’ professionalism. The
employees of the company possibly keep a professional approach in the company.

Disadvantages of Job Enrichment

The followings are the disadvantages of job enrichment technique:

 Not all employees welcome this effort: Not all employees have a welcoming attitude towards this
technique. Some employees are happy and satisfied with doing the same job every day. These
employees don’t look forward to changing and have the least desire to be in the top position. In
case of this type of employees, the job enrichment technique affects the performance of these
employees adversely. They become unhappy when they are asked to perform extra work. As a
result of this, their work performance becomes poor. In worse cases, these employees stay
absent from work to avoid being part of this activity. Therefore, it is important to discuss this
technique with all the employees and to take their consent before applying it.

 Responsibilities do not match the skills of employees: Sometimes, some employees don’t have
those skills or knowledge which is required to perform the work of the top management
properly. There is a reason why these tasks are assigned to upper management and not to their
subordinates. Poor skills or unmatched skills results in poorly performed job duties.

 Overburden on employees: The main principle behind job enrichment technique is assigning
work of top management to their subordinates. Assignment of these job tasks becomes
additional work for the employees and employees are expected to do their work and the work of
the top management. This puts over-burden on the employees and rather than feeling excited
and happy, they feel exhausted and discontent.

 Poor outcomes: When an employee performs a work repetitively, he becomes good at it and
knows the small details of that work. But when an inexperienced person is asked to perform the
work without proper training and guidance, then he is bound to make mistakes. As a result of
this, the quality of outcome of the work will reduce. Therefore, in the place of improved
productivity of the organisation, the productivity will reduce. This might result in not increased
work for managers rather than the shared work responsibilities.

 Increased monitoring: When employees are asked to perform the job of their managers, they are
bound to work with them or near them, and this results in increased monitoring on the work of
employees. Some employees don’t perform well when monitored excessively and this might
result in their poor performance.

 Lack of preparation: Job enrichment technique does not provide sufficient time to employees to
prepare for performing new tasks assigned to them. Because of this might feel anxious to
perform newly assigned work to them.

 Clash of employees: Not all employees like their colleagues giving them orders. They might not
take orders from their colleagues as seriously as they take from their managers. This might cause
altercations between the employees. The altercations between employees create a disturbed
environment in the organisation.

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Job Enlargement vs. Job Enrichment

The techniques of Job Enlargement and Job Enrichment can be confused with each other at times, and
thus, here is a comparison between both:

Job Enlargement Job Enrichment

Job enlargement refers to increasing the number of tasks Job enrichment is that motivational tool which
to be performed by an employee to reduce work related allows more decision making power and work
boredom. related authority to the employees.
The purpose of this technique is reducing boredom and
monotony. This makes the job challenging.
This calls for utilization and development of higher
This may not require the acquisition of higher level skills. level skills.
The work function is expanded horizontally. The work function is expanded vertically.
This technique does not affect the responsibility shared This technique increases the responsibility quotient
by the employee. of the employees
This technique needs more external supervision by a This technique needs lesser supervision and is
superior. more self-directed.

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