Solutions to Assignments
MMPC -002 - Human Resource Management
Question No. 5
Discuss the relevance of the understanding of job design for developing organisational effectiveness.
One of the most frequent questions people often ask one another when they
first meet is “What are you doing?” Instead of saying, “I teach in a college” or
“I treat patients”, a person often says, “I am a teacher” or “I am a doctor”
like this. This exhibits the occupation of a person. Occupation provides a
person his identity. It talks a great deal about ones social position. of occupation also implies a set of social relationships (Hughes, 1945). For
instance, the occupation as a professor implies that students , other professors,
and publishers’ representatives are part of the set of their social relationships.
Finally, occupations are by and large linked to the work of adults (Roe, 1956).
The work carried out by teenagers is not often considered as an occupation,
because it does not frame a major part of their identities as individuals.
Taking into account all of these considerations, occupation is defined as “the
social role performed by adult members of society that directly and/or
indirectly yields social and financial consequences and that constitutes a
major focus in the life of an adult” (Hall, 1975).
A job is a person’s occupation at one point in time. A career is the unfolding
sequences of jobs that a person has over the life course.
The term ‘job design’ refers to the way the tasks are combined to form a
complete job. It can be defined as building the specifications of the
position, contents, method and relationships of the job so as to meet with
various technological and organizational requirements as well as meet the
personal needs job holders. According to Bowditch and Buono, job design
refers to “ any set of activities that involve the alteration of specific jobs or
interdependent systems of jobs with the intent of improving the quality of
employee job experience and their on- the-job productivity.”
While designing a job, the following points are to be borne in mind:
Job redesign is an essential allegiance to quality improvement of the
individual, and the organization.
It should be performed from either the bottom up, or top down, depending
upon the hierarchy and responsibility of the position and its relationships
within the organization.
Job design is a process which integrates work content (tasks, functions,
relationships), the reward (extrinsic and intrinsic), and the qualifications
required (skills, knowledge, abilities) for each job in a way that meet the
needs of employees and the organization.
Some jobs are routine because the tasks are consistent and repetitive; other
are non-routine. Some require a large number of varied and diverse skills;
other are narrow in scope. Some jobs constrict employees by requiring
them to follow very clear-cut procedures; others allow employees
considerable autonomy in how they do their work.
Some jobs are most
effectively accomplished by groups of employees working as a team;
whereas other jobs are best done by individuals acting essentially
independently. Thus jobs differ in the way their tasks are combined, and
different combinations produce a variety of job designs in the organization.
There are three objectives of jobs design which are as follows:
- to meet the organizational requirements such as higher productivity,
operational efficiency, quality of product/service, etc.;
- to satisfy the needs of the individual employees like interest, challenge,
achievement or accomplishment, etc.; and
- to integrate the needs of the individual with the organizational requirements.
While designing a job, the following factors are taken into consideration.
i. The volume of work - it will determine by and large the number of
jobs.
ii. The complexity of the work - to be carried out, both in terms of its
variety or breadth and its technical difficulty or depth.
iii. The work processes involved -It might be desirable for one person to be
involved in an entire process, or the work flows may be such that the
work process has to be divide between several different people.
iv. The nature of the people currently employed in the organization- The
extent to which jobs can be redesigned depend largely on the kind of
people employed
v. The sequence of flows in the process- the succession of events and
their timings affect how the work can be organized. Where activities
are carried out over a longer period, this is likely to be the cause of
greater complexity.
vi. The timescales - where immediate responses are required, specific jobs
may have to be earmarked to provide such responses. Work requiring
longer planning horizons is likely to be more complex and needs
therefore to be done at a higher level.
vii. The geographical scattering of the organization’s activities .
viii. The involvement of other parts of the organization in the overall
process- there may be a need for extensive communication and
coordination and the design of jobs should take account of the way this
is to be achieved.
ix. The effect of information technology (Cushway and Lodge, 2001).
In recent years, as computers and high technology become more and more
ingrained in the modern workplace, the basic problem arises how to
successfully fit technological advancements into job designs.
Automation
Highly simplified jobs often cause problems because they offer little intrinsic
motivation for the worker. The tasks have been defined so narrowly that they
lack challenge and cause boredom when someone repeats them over and over again. Given the high technology available today, one way to deal with this
problem is by complete automation-allowing a machine to do the work
previously accomplished through human effort. This approach increasingly
involves the use of robots, which are becoming more and more useful and
reliable.
Flexible Manufacturing
Flexible manufacturing cells, teams of workers using special technology, exploit
adaptive and integrated job designs to shift work among alternative products.
This approach is gradually more widespread. Under this system, a cellular
manufacturing system hold a number of automated production machines that
cut, shape, drill, and fasten together various metal components. Each machine
is attached to the others by convertible conveyor grids that allow quick change
from manufacturing one product to another-such as from air-conditioner
compressors to engine crankshafts.
Workers in the cells perform very few routine assembly-line tasks. As an
alternative, they dedicate most time to make certain that operations are carried
out correctly and to handling changeovers from one product configuration to
another. Above and beyond, to keep production flowing slickly, each worker
needs to improve expertise across a wide range of tasks. In this way flexible
manufacturing cells comprise jobs that are often enriched on the core
characteristics.
Electronic Offices
Electronic office technology was the key when U.S. Healthcare, a large,
private-practice based health maintenance organisation (HMO), became
interested in improving the quality of its health-care services. The company
installed large electronic bulletin boards that monitored progress toward a range
of performance goals. It also installed an electronic main (e-main) system,
used robots to dispense paper mail, and installed a computerized telephone
answering machine. Fundamentally, the company tried to automate as many
tasks as possible to free employees for more challenging work.
Continuing development in these electronic offices present many new job
opportunities for those with the necessary abilities and interests, but they can
be stressful and difficult for those who lack the necessary education or skills.
Clearly, today’s high technologies must be carefully integrated with the human
factor, and continuing education and training are still needed to equip people to
deal with emerging workplace technologies.
Work-Flow and Process Reengineering
One of the most recent approaches for upgrading job designs and organisational
performance is based on the concept of process reengineering. Process
engineering means the analysis, reshuffling, and reconfiguration of actions and
tasks required to reach a work goal. This approach methodically breaks work
processes down into their specific components and subtasks, analyses each for
relevance and simplicity, and then does everything possible to reconfigure the
process to eliminate wasted time, effort, and resources.
Job redesign through process reengineering focus on every step in the process,
from the seeking out for items and vendors, to the obtaining of bids, to the
completion of necessary forms, to the securing of required signatures and
approvals, to the actual placing of the order, and so on to the point at which
the new computer actually arrives, is checked in, is placed into an equipment
inventory, and is finally delivered to the workplace.
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