Job Design Case
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Every organization, to be effective, must have an organizational structure. Robbins et al.defines organizational structure as the formal arrangement of jobs within an organization (2012, p.266).When managers develop or change the structure,they are engaged in organizational design, a process that invoves decisions about key elements:Job design,Departmentalization,chain of command,span of control and centralization/decentralization (Robbins et al.,2012,p. 266)
JOB DESIGN
Job design means to decide the contents of a job. It fixes the duties and responsibilities of the job, the methods of doing the job and the relationships between the job holder (manager) and his superiors, subordinates and colleagues. It also gives information about the qualifications required for doing the job and the reward (financial and non-financial benefits) for doing the job. It is mostly done for managers jobs. While designing the job, the needs of the organisation and the needs of the individual manager must be balanced. Needs of the organisation include high productivity, quality of work, needs of individual managers include job satisfaction. That is, they want the job to be interesting and challenging. Jobs must not be made highly specialised because they lead to boredom.
There are various steps involved in job design that follow a logical sequence, those that were mentioned earlier on. The sequence is as follows:
What tasks are required to be done or what tasks is part of the job?
How are the tasks performed?
What amount are tasks are required to be done?
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 different elements of job design are: 1) job specialization; 2) job rotation, Job enlargement, Job enrichment; and 3) job characteristics.
Job specialization: a job composed of a small part of a larger task or process. It is characterized by simple, easy-to-learn steps, low variety, and high repetition.
Job rotation: periodically moving workers from one specialized job to another to give them more variety and the opportunity to use different skills.
Job enlargement: increasing the number of different tasks that a worker performs within one particular job.
Job enrichment: increasing the number of tasks in a particular job and giving workers the authority and control to make meaningful decisions about their work.
Job characteristics model (JCM): an approach to job redesign that seeks to formulate jobs in ways that motivate workers and lead to positive work outcomes.
Importance of Job Design
Job design is a very important function of staffing. If the jobs are designed properly, then highly efficient managers will join the organisation. They will be motivated to improve the productivity and profitability of the organisation. However, if the jobs are designed badly, then it will result in absenteeism, high labour turnover, conflicts, and other labour problems.
Factors Affecting Job Design
The guidelines influencing or factors affecting job design are depicted below.
1. Proper scope of job: The scope of the job should be proper. If the scope is narrow (less), then the job will not be challenging. It will not give an opportunity for development. The manager will not get satisfaction after completing an easy job. If the scope of the job is very wide, then the manager will not be able to handle it properly. This will cause stress, frustration and loss of control. Therefore, scope of the job must be balanced and proper.
2. Full-time challenge of the job: The job should be so challenging that it takes up the full-time and effort of the manager. So, the service of the manager must be fully utilised. If not, the manager will have a lot of free time. He will use this free time to interfere in the work of his subordinates. This will cause problems and conflicts because subordinates do not like unnecessary interference from their superiors.
3. Managerial skills: The skills of the manager should be considered before designing his job. All managers do not have equal skills. So jobs should be designed after considering the skills of the manager. So, a manager having a high level of skill should be given very challenging jobs while a manager having a low level of skill should be given fewer challenging jobs. Jobs must be made flexible so that it can be changed according to the skills of the manager.
4. Organisations requirements: Jobs must be designed according to the requirements of the organisation. We cannot use the same job design for all organisations.
5. Individual likes and dislikes: People have different likes and dislikes. Some people like to work alone while some people prefer to work in groups. Some people want to do only planning and decision making while other people like to implement these plans and decision. So, individual likes and dislikes must be considered while designing the job.
6. Organisational structure: Organisational structure also affects the job design. Individual jobs must fit into the organisations structure.
7. Technology: The level of technology used by the organisation also affects the job design. An organisation having a high level of technology will have different job designs compared to an organisation having a low level of technology.
Although the academic subjects of organisational behaviour and human resource management deal extensively with all issues concerning people in organisations, the design of peoples jobs is particularly important to operations managers. EXAMPLE
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