[Solution] Job Design
Created at:
Author: Sarah Bennett
A manager figures out the responsibilities of people in the organization through job design. There are a number of approaches to job design.
Job Specialization
Job specialization, which evolved from Adam Smith's concept of division of labor, concerns the degree to which the work of the organization is divided into smaller tasks. At one extreme, an unspecialized job would be held by a self-employed entrepreneur with no employees who does all of the work of the business alone. At the other extreme, a very large organization may have thousands of specialized jobs that each do a very small part of the work of the organization.
Job specialization helps organizations in four ways:
- Employees who do small, simple tasks become good at them.
- Employees lose less time to task switching since they are doing fewer tasks.
- Specialized equipment can be developed to help with a very specific job.
- It is easy and inexpensive to train replacement workers.
Job specialization also has downsides:
- Employees with very narrow jobs tend to become bored and thus unhappy.
- When each worker does only a small part of the work, work must be handed off many times, each time resulting in some loss of efficiency.
Spectrum of Job Specialization
Self-employed entrepreneur doing all tasks
Employee with varied responsibilities
Assembly line worker doing one repetitive task
Alternatives to Job Specialization
Several approaches have been developed to address the limitations of job specialization:
- Job rotation: Employees move from one specialized job to another, reducing boredom while maintaining efficiency
- Job enlargement: Increasing the number of tasks in a job to provide more variety
- Job enrichment: Adding planning and evaluating responsibilities to increase the employee's control over their work
Job Characteristics Approach
The job characteristics model identifies five core dimensions that can make jobs more satisfying:
- Skill variety: The degree to which a job requires different skills
- Task identity: The degree to which a job involves a whole, identifiable piece of work
- Task significance: The degree to which a job impacts other people's lives
- Autonomy: The degree of freedom and independence in the job
- Feedback: The degree to which the employee gets clear information about performance
Select the terms that best complete the following sentences.
The degree to which work is divided into smaller tasks is known as .
View Explanation
Breaking down the work of the organization into smaller tasks is called job specialization. The goal is to improve efficiency.
Job rotation is an alternative to job specialization in which employees move from job to job. Task significance and task identity are characteristics of jobs that can promote employee satisfaction.
If an organization uses job rotation, employees .
View Explanation
In job rotation, employees are intentionally moved from one job to another. This is in contrast to some other approaches to job design in which an employee stays in their position but their tasks are changed. Job rotation does not work well when high-skill tasks are involved, since these take longer to learn. Employees do not become highly experienced at their job when they change jobs frequently.
Select the correct responses to each of the following questions about the job characteristics approach to job design.
A position that emphasizes the five core dimensions of a job is likely to be more satisfying to which employee?
- An employee who is content with the skills they already have
- An employee with high growth-need strength
- An employee who is content with their current level of accomplishment
View Explanation
Enhancing the core dimensions of a job tends to make it more satisfying for employees with high growth-need strength. These employees enjoy learning new skills and accomplishing more challenging tasks.
If management designs jobs so that they have employees accomplishing recognizable, complete units of work, these jobs are emphasizing which core dimension of job design?
- Task significance
- Skill variety
- Task identity
View Explanation
Task identity concerns the degree to which the employee can see the tasks they do as a complete piece of work. For example, an employee who first responds to a customer's online chat message and then continues to interact with that customer until the customer's problem is resolved can look at that interaction as a complete piece of work: "I resolved the customer's problem." In contrast, if the employee's job is to respond to the chat by filling out a ticket to pass resolution of the problem to tech support and then disconnect from the customer, the employee experiences less task identity.
Task significance concerns how important the employee believes the work is to others, and skill variety relates to the number of different tasks performed.
