Chapter 16 Work Design - Lecture notes c16 PDF

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16 Work Design This chapter is concerned with work design— creating jobs and work groups that generate high levels of employee fulfillment and productivity. This technostructural intervention can be part of a larger employee involvement application, or it can be an independent change program. Work d...

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16 Work Design This chapter is concerned with work design— creating jobs and work groups that generate high levels of employee fulfillment and productivity. This technostructural intervention can be part of a larger employee involvement application, or it can be an independent change program. Work design has been researched and applied extensively in organizations. Recently, organizations have tended to combine work design with formal structure and supporting changes in goal setting, reward systems, work environment, and other performance management practices. These organizational factors can help structure and reinforce the kinds of work behaviors associated with specific work designs. (How performance management interventions can support work design is discussed in Chapter 17.) This chapter examines three approaches to work design. First, the engineering approach focuses on efficiency and simplification, and results in traditional job and work-group designs. Traditional jobs involve relatively routine and repetitive forms of work, where little interaction among people is needed to produce a service or product. Call center operators, data-entry positions, and product support representatives are examples of this job design. Traditional work groups are composed of members performing routine yet interrelated tasks. Member

interactions are typically controlled by rigid work flows, supervisors, and schedules, such as might be found on assembly lines. A second approach to work design rests on motivational theories and attempts to enrich the work experience. Job enrichment involves designing jobs with high levels of meaning, discretion, and knowledge of results. A wellresearched model focusing on job attributes has helped clear up methodological problems with this important intervention. The third and most recent approach to work design derives from sociotechnical systems methods, and seeks to optimize both the social and the technical aspects of work systems. This method has led to a popular form of work design called “self-managed teams,” which are composed of multi-skilled members performing interrelated tasks. Members are given the knowledge, information, and power necessary to control their own task behaviors with relatively little external control. New support systems and supervisory styles are needed to manage them. The chapter describes each of these perspectives on work design, and then presents a contingency framework for integrating the approaches based on personal and technical factors in the workplace. When work is designed to fit these factors, it is both satisfying and productive.

THE ENGINEERING APPROACH The oldest and most prevalent approach to designing work is based on engineering concepts and methods. It proposes that the most efficient work designs can be determined by clearly specifying the tasks to be performed, the work methods to be used, and the work flow among individuals. The engineering approach is based on the pioneering work of Frederick Taylor, the father of scientific management. He developed methods for analyzing and designing work and laid the foundation for the professional field of industrial engineering.1

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The engineering approach scientifically analyzes workers’ tasks to discover those procedures that produce the maximum output with the minimum input of energies and resources.2 This generally results in work designs with high levels of specialization and specification. Such designs have several benefits: They allow workers to learn tasks rapidly; they permit short work cycles so performance can take place with little or no mental effort; and they reduce costs because lower-skilled people can be hired and trained easily and paid relatively low wages. The engineering approach produces two kinds of work design: traditional jobs and traditional work groups. When the work can be completed by one person, such as with bank tellers and telephone operators, traditional jobs are created. These jobs tend to be simplified, with routine and repetitive tasks having clear specifications concerning time and motion. When the work requires coordination among people, such as on automobile assembly lines, traditional work groups are developed. They are composed of members performing relatively routine yet related tasks. The overall group task is typically broken into simpler, discrete parts (often called jobs). The tasks and work methods are specified for each part, and the parts are assigned to group members. Each member performs a routine and repetitive part of the group task. Members’ separate task contributions are coordinated for overall task achievement through such external controls as schedules, rigid work flows, and supervisors.3 In the 1950s and 1960s, this method of work design was popularized by the assembly lines of American automobile manufacturers and was an important reason for the growth of American industry following World War II. The engineering approach to job design is less an OD intervention than a benchmark in history. Critics of the approach argue that the method ignores workers’ social and psychological needs. They suggest that the rising educational level of the workforce and the substitution of automation for menial labor point to the need for more enriched forms of work in which people have greater discretion and are more challenged. Moreover, the current competitive climate requires a more committed and involved workforce able to make online decisions and to develop performance innovations. Work designed with the employee in mind is more humanly fulfilling and productive than that designed in traditional ways. However, it is important to recognize the strengths of the engineering approach. It remains an important work design intervention because its immediate cost savings and efficiency can be measured readily, and because it is well understood and easily implemented and managed.

THE MOTIVATIONAL APPROACH The motivational approach to work design views the effectiveness of organizational activities primarily as a function of member needs and satisfaction, and seeks to improve employee performance and satisfaction by enriching jobs. The motivational method provides people with opportunities for autonomy, responsibility, closure (that is, doing a complete job), and performance feedback. Enriched jobs are popular in the United States at such companies as Wells Fargo, The Hartford, and Hewlett-Packard. The motivational approach usually is associated with the research of Herzberg and of Hackman and Oldham. Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation proposed that certain attributes of work, such as opportunities for advancement and recognition, which he called motivators, help increase job satisfaction.4 Other attributes, which Herzberg called hygiene factors, such as company policies, working conditions, pay, and supervision, do not produce satisfaction but rather prevent dissatisfaction—important contributors because only satisfied workers are motivated to produce. Successful job enrichment experiments at AT&T, Texas Instruments, and Imperial Chemical Industries helped to popularize job enrichment in the 1960s.5

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Herzberg’s motivational and hygiene factors are intuitively appealing. However, they are difficult to put into operation and measure, and that makes implementation and evaluation of the theory difficult. Furthermore, important worker characteristics that can affect whether people will respond favorably to job enrichment were not included in his theory. Finally, Herzberg’s failure to involve employees in the job enrichment process itself does not suit most OD practitioners today. Consequently, a second, wellresearched approach to job enrichment has been favored. It focuses on the attributes of the work itself and has resulted in a more scientifically acceptable theory of job enrichment than Herzberg’s model. The research of Hackman and Oldham represents this more recent trend in job enrichment.6

The Core Dimensions of Jobs Considerable research has been devoted to defining and understanding core job dimensions.7 Figure 16.1 summarizes the Hackman and Oldham model of job design. Five core dimensions of work affect three critical psychological states, which in turn produce personal and job outcomes. These outcomes include high internal work motivation, high-quality work performance, satisfaction with the work, and low absenteeism and turnover. The five core job dimensions—skill variety, task identity, task significance,

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autonomy, and feedback from the work itself—are described below and associated with the critical psychological states that they create. Skill Variety, Task Identity, and Task Significance These three core job characteristics influence the extent to which work is perceived as meaningful. Skill variety refers to the number and types of skills used to perform a particular task. Nurses in an oncology unit must be able to interact successfully with patients, patient families, and physicians. They must also juggle a variety of medical procedures, understand and apply the latest treatment therapies, and perform a variety of charting tasks. The more tasks an individual performs, the more meaningful the job becomes. When skill variety is increased by moving a person from one job to another, a form of job enrichment called job rotation is accomplished. However, simply rotating a person from one boring job to another is not likely to produce the outcomes associated with a fully enriched job. Task identity describes the extent to which an individual performs a whole piece of work. For example, an employee who completes an entire wheel assembly for an airplane, including the tire, chassis, brakes, and electrical and hydraulic systems, has more task identity and will perceive the work as more meaningful than someone who only assembles the braking subsystem. Job enlargement, another form of job enrichment that combines increases in skill variety with task identity, blends several narrow jobs into one larger, expanded job. For example, separate machine setup, machining, and inspection jobs might be combined into one. This method can increase meaningfulness, job satisfaction, and motivation when employees comprehend and like the greater task complexity. Task significance represents the impact that the work has on others. In jobs with high task significance, such as nursing, consulting, or manufacturing something like sensitive parts for the space shuttle, the importance of successful task completion creates meaningfulness for the worker. Experienced meaningfulness is expressed as an average of these three dimensions. Thus, although it is advantageous to have high amounts of skill variety, task identity, and task significance, a strong emphasis on any one of the three dimensions can, at least partially, make up for deficiencies in the other two. Autonomy This refers to the amount of independence, freedom, and discretion that the employee has to schedule and perform tasks. Salespeople, for example, often have considerable autonomy in how they contact, develop, and close new accounts, whereas assembly-line workers often have to adhere to work specifications clearly detailed in a policy-and-procedure manual. Employees are more likely to experience responsibility for their work outcomes when high amounts of autonomy exist. Feedback from the Work Itself This core dimension represents the information that workers receive about the effectiveness of their work. It can derive from the work itself, as when determining whether an assembled part functions properly, or it can come from such external sources as reports on defects, budget variances, customer satisfaction, and the like. Because feedback from the work itself is direct and generates intrinsic satisfaction, it is considered preferable to feedback from external sources.

Individual Differences Not all people react in similar ways to job enrichment interventions. Individual differences—among them, a worker’s knowledge and skill levels, growth-need strength, and satisfaction with contextual factors—moderate the relationships among core dimensions, psychological states, and outcomes. “Worker knowledge and skill” refers to the education and experience levels characterizing the workforce. If employees lack the appropriate skills, for example, increasing skill variety may not improve a job’s meaningfulness. Similarly, if workers lack the intrinsic motivation to grow and develop personally, attempts to provide them with increased autonomy may be resisted.

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(We will discuss growth needs more fully in the last section of this chapter.) Finally, contextual factors include reward systems, supervisory style, and coworker satisfaction. When the employee is unhappy with the work context, attempts to enrich the work itself may be unsuccessful.

Application Stages The basic steps for job enrichment as described by Hackman and Oldham include making a thorough diagnosis of the situation, forming natural work units, combining tasks, establishing client relationships, vertical loading, and opening feedback channels.8 Making a Thorough Diagnosis The most popular method of diagnosing a job is using the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) or one of its variations.9 An important output of the JDS is the motivating potential score, which is a function of the three psychological states—experienced meaningfulness, autonomy, and feedback. The survey can be used to profile one or more jobs, to determine whether motivation and satisfaction are really problems or whether the job is low in motivating potential, and to isolate specific job aspects that are causing difficulties. Figure 16.2 shows two jobs. Job A in engineering maintenance is high on all of the core dimensions. Its motivating potential score is 260 (motivating potential scores average about 125). Job B, the routine and repetitive task of answering frequently asked questions in a call center, has a motivating potential score of 30. The score is well below average and would be even lower except for the job’s relatively high task significance. This job could be redesigned and improved.

[Figure 16.2] The JDS Diagnostic Profile for a “Good” and a “Bad” Job High 7

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2 40 JOB B

*MPS, MOTIVATING POTENTIAL SCORE.

Feedback from t he job

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0 Task identity

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The JDS also indicates how ready employees are to accept change. Employees who have high growth needs will respond more readily to job enrichment than will those with low or weak growth needs. A thorough diagnosis of the existing work system should be completed before implementing actual changes. The JDS measures satisfaction with pay, coworkers, and supervision. If there is high dissatisfaction with one or more of these areas, other interventions might be more helpful prior to work redesign. Forming Natural Work Units As much as possible, natural work units should be formed. Although there may be a number of technological constraints, interrelated task activities should be grouped together. The basic question in forming natural work units is “How can one increase ‘ownership’ of the task?” Forming such natural units increases two of the core dimensions—task identity and task significance—that contribute to the meaningfulness of work. Combining Tasks Frequently, divided jobs can be put back together to form a new and larger one. In a Corning Glass Works plant, the task of assembling laboratory hotplates was redesigned by combining a number of previously separate tasks. After the change, each hotplate was completely assembled, inspected, and shipped by one operator, resulting in an increased productivity of 84%. Controllable rejects dropped from 23 to less than 1%, and absenteeism dropped from 8 to less than 1%.10 A later analysis indicated that the change in productivity was the result of the intervention.11 Combining tasks increases task identity and allows a worker to use a greater variety of skills. The hotplate assembler can identify with a finished product ready for shipment, and self-inspection of his or her work adds greater task significance, autonomy, and feedback from the job itself. Establishing Client Relationships When jobs are split up, the typical worker has little or no contact with, or knowledge of, the ultimate user of the product or service. Improvements often can be realized simultaneously on three of the core dimensions by encouraging and helping workers to establish direct relationships with the clients of their work. For example, when an individual from a support pool is assigned to a particular department, feedback increases because of the additional opportunities for praise or criticism of his or her work. Because of the need to develop interpersonal skills in maintaining the client relationship, skill variety may increase. If the worker is given personal responsibility for deciding how to manage relationships with clients, autonomy is increased. Three steps are needed to create client relationships: (1) The client must be identified; (2) the contact between the client and the worker needs to be established as directly as possible; and (3) criteria and procedures are needed by which the client can judge the quality of the product or service received and relay those judgments back to the worker. For example, even customer-service representatives and data-entry operations can be set up so that people serve particular clients. In the hotplate department, personal nametags can be attached to each instrument. The Indiana Bell Telephone Company found substantial improvements in satisfaction and performance when telephone directory compilers were given accountability for a specific geographic area.12 Vertical Loading The intent of vertical loading is to decrease the gap between doing the job and controlling the job. A vertically loaded job has responsibilities and controls that formerly were reserved for management. Vertical loading may well be the most crucial of the job-design principles. Autonomy is invariably increased. This approach should lead to greater feelings of personal accountability and responsibility for the work outcomes. For example, at an IBM plant that manufactured circuit boards for personal computers, assembly workers were trained to measure the accuracy and speed of production processes and to test the quality of finished products. Their work was more “whole,” they were more autonomous, and the engineers who measure and test were free to design better products and more efficient ways to manufacture them.13

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Loss of vertical loading usually occurs when someone has made a mistake. Once a supervisor steps in, the responsibility may be removed indefinitely. For example, many skilled machinists have to complete forms to have maintenance people work on a machine. The supervisor automatically signs the slip rather than allowing the machinist to either repair the machine or ask directly for maintenance support. Opening Feedback Channels In almost all jobs, approaches exist to open feedback channels and help people learn whether their performance is remaining at a constant level, improving, or deteriorating. The most advantageous and least threatening feedback occurs when a worker learns about performance as the job is performed. In the hotplate department at Corning Glass Works, assembling the entire instrument and inspecting it dramatically increased the quantity and quality of performance information available to the operators. Data given to a...