Job Design

What Will Be Covered The topic The tools Brainstorming Inner workings How it works A real world example An exercise Summary

What is Job Design? By using a variety of tools and techniques

we try to find the best way to keep employees satisfied while maintaining as high as possible productivity, monetary or otherwise.

Job Design What is the goal of Job design? The goal is job satisfaction, it is the key to

successful job design. Everything is contingent upon job satisfaction.

The Topic • We will engineer a job design by using previous

work experiences. • We will briefly discuss the resistance to change.

And discuss a few of the pros and cons of our actions.

The Tools• Job enlargement• Job rotation• Job enrichment Skill variety

The Tools cont’ Task variety Task significance Compensation Autonomy: level of freedom Feedback: lucid communication on performance

Brainstorming Exercise Break up into groups of three to five people.

Designate a note taker. Choose one person to speak for the group.

Brainstorming cont’ Discuss your past jobs, specifically those that

you did not like. Choose one job from the entire group that was or

is most disliked. That job is going to be the focal point of your

brainstorming session.

Brainstorming cont’ Use your imagination…

Why did you dislike this job? What were some of the negative effects of working in an

unsatisfying job? i.e. absenteeism, tardiness, sub-par-productivity, depression, sore

back, etc…

Did other employees feel the same way you did?

Brainstorming cont’ How do you think your performance as well as those

around you affected the company? What did you like about this job?

Keep this in mind for later. Narrow down your dislikes to list of four.

Brainstorming cont’ Solutions to your dissatisfaction…

Brainstorm on some ideas that would improve this job?

Let your imagination flow; do not censor your ideas, creativity is key.

Brainstorming cont’ Narrow down your ideas.

Discard the ideas that you all agree are not usable; use your best judgment.

Choose four ideas from these.

Compare your four solutions to your four dislikes. Did you discover four solutions?

Brainstorming cont’ Implementing your solutions, the pros and cons…

Discuss amongst yourselves how you are going to implement these changes.

Do you think you can design a satisfying job with this new information?

Will the employees accept your new idea? What are some of the monetary and mental difficulties of

implementation? i.e. Learning curves will initially slow down production.

Brainstorming cont’ Keep in mind your solutions as we go through

the rest of the presentation. At the end of the session we will compare your

solutions with some of the Job Design topics that follow.

Nuts and Bolts Job enlargement involves adding more

tasks(variety), ideally the worker could do all the tasks involved. This keeps thing interesting.

Job rotation is exactly that. It requires skill variety.

Nuts and Bolts cont’ Job enrichment gives the employee more

responsibility, thus creating a greater level of freedom or autonomy.

Compensation doesn’t play as large of a part in job satisfaction as we might think, but it does play a part. We want to be paid fairly, whether it is profit sharing, salary, commission, or piece rate.

How It Works Plain and simple

A happy employee is a productive employee, satisfaction equals production.

It works by Balancing the organization’s goal(s) with the employees

wants and needs, thereby designing a job that creates job satisfaction, which should increase production (companies goal) and satisfy the employee.

A Real World Example Visioneering LLC is a new computer animation

company with three employees. Each employee knows his or her specific job, however, they have been running into a few problems.

Visioneering LLC The problem

They all speak a different computer language, the language of their software.

Each employee is trained to use a particular piece of software. Jason knows how to do computer modeling using 3D studio. Ted knows how to use adobe premier. Christa knows a little of both, but most of her time is spent running the business.

Lack of concise communication stalls the work process.

Visioneering LLC The solution

Have everyone trained on all the software, job enlargement.

What changed? The first noticeable change wasn’t clearer communication, although

that was solved. What really took them by surprise was how much quicker they could get a project done.

They now had more immediate access to information.

Visioneering LLC If Jason couldn’t figure out how to do something with the software he

could easily ask Christa or Ted; between the three of them they rarely had to take the time to search reference books, or the internet, which takes considerable amounts of time.

If a project needed more computer animation they could all work on it.

This balanced the work load, and kept one person from feeling like they are doing all the work.

Visioneering LLC Now they each have a greater appreciation for what

the others do, job enrichment. Collaboration has helped move from one part of a

project to another with greater efficiency. Due to their greater efficiency they no longer have as

much stress about deadlines.

An Exercise• Find one thing in your life that you wish you could do better

or more often then apply one or two of the job design tools to it.

• For example, Sarah likes the idea of being able to play the guitar. She has tried teaching herself in the past, now her guitar has become a dust collecting device.

• A few things she didn’t have in the past were variety, feedback, and enrichment.

Exercise A few simple changes and she was on her

way again. First, she joined with a few friends who play the

guitar; They get together every Thursday evening. Second, her friends show her new things to try;

This variety keeps things fresh and exciting.

Exercise Third, she has more motivation to practice throughout the week because she

wants to share her improvements with her friends. Fourth, their feedback as well as her feedback make learning the guitar that

much more enriching, enrichment through praise and results.

• Take this exercise home and put it to work; Try it for yourself.

• What does it all get back to?– Employee satisfaction…– Successful job design will take into account:

• Skill variety/job rotation• Task variety/job enlargement• Task significance/job enrichment• Autonomy/job enrichment/freedom• Feedback/cooperation

Summary How do these job design tools fit in with your

brainstorming solutions? Discuss…