Work design and its Impact
Work design is an elemental function of an organization's human resource management. Its concepts are geared towards how the nature of work affects the employees’ attitudes and behaviors, particularly their autonomy and skill variety. Job design aims to improve the satisfaction of job, quality, and to reduce the problems of employees. Similarly, the work design has impacts on employees’ motivation by igniting behaviors of real knowledge-sharing and teamwork in the organizations. According to Mayfield (2013), design can be created by the management to influence variables like the task identity, autonomy, and degree of feedback received by the employees. Such characteristics impact the motivation of employees to share knowledge improving the team spirit among them. A well-designed job enhances motivational power, performance, and satisfaction of the employees as well as promoting teamwork increasing the productivity of the organization. This paper focuses on the importance and the impacts of the ABC Construction Inc.'s work design on the employees' motivation, satisfaction, and the development of teamwork to achieve productivity.
Behavioral Approach to Work Design
Job enlargement
Job enlargement involves increasing the scope of the job done by the employee through the extension of the range of its responsibilities and duties, particularly within the same periphery and level. It entails the combination of many job activities at the same level and including them into the existing job in the organization. This approach is also referred to as “horizontal job loading” and reverses the job specialization process (Katz, 2015). Typically, it replaces the lines of assembly with modular work by performing a single item on several tasks rather than repeating similar steps on each piece. This design is implemented by retraining the employees on new fields to understand how each of them works.
Job rotation
Job rotation entails temporarily assigning a position or department to an employee for a given period to execute specific duties of another department (Katz, 2015). The assignment is usually treated as voluntary, and the employee takes the responsibility as part of the regular duties. The job rotation design enables the employees to develop their thoughts, attitudes, skills, and capabilities. The workers are also able to serve and mobilize their tasks at different levels in the organization increasing the ability to evaluate their capabilities in the organization.
Job enrichment
Job enrichment involves assembling specialized tasks to give employees the responsibilities of completing the work from beginning to end (Mayfield, 2013). This approach increases the autonomy of the employee over planning and execution of their task. The work assigned is usually the work reserved for employees at a higher level. Such action stimulates the perception that their work is important and highly regarded in the company. The approach is based on the employees' premise that they are eager to succeed or be trusted with more significant responsibilities in the company.
Increased Use of Mechanization
Mechanization involves changing the working methods, typically evolving from working manually to employing the use of a machine to perform the same task. Use of tools to achieve mechanical operations enables the employees to undertake multitasks and deliver results within a short period of time. Machinery reduces the energy spent by the employee in performing duties and increases the level of the output of each employee in the organization. In a construction like excavation works, machinery increases the level of safety and accuracy for the employees in a task that could be done manually as well as improving the working standards for the satisfaction of the workers.
Importance and Potential Effects of Work Design
Motivational power
Job design influences employees' motivation, satisfaction, and performance by affecting their expectancy that the performance increase leads to rewards preferences for the individual. It gives them more responsibility for their resources and their work and engagements in organizational learning and training opportunities. According to Katz (2015), work design is a central component of motivation. When the workers are involved in the decision-making process, they manage to control their professional and personal growth or development, as well as improve performance in the work setting.
Work design specifies the concepts and responsibilities of a job meeting the requirements of employees like personal, social, organizational, and technological desires. The employees who are satisfied become more motivated to perform their tasks appropriately, achieving the goals of the company as well as increasing their performance. According to Shantz et al. (2013), when a job is being designed, the employee's expectations should be kept in mind. Job rotation helps the employee to gain flexibility and explore various departments in a given period, increasing their productivity. Job enrichment helps the employee to build responsibility, recognition, and improve their capabilities through learning.
A well-designed work can help increase the employee's satisfaction and involvement and perform giving the best of their effort to the work. It helps the employees to become more productive and increase their loyalty towards the management and the company. Through the involvement of workers, they can forecast their output, productivity of the department, and the success of the organization as a whole (Parker, 2014). Where a job is organized correctly, the involvement of employees is increased which, in turn, meets the psychological needs of the workers as well as enabling them to enjoy their work and input all their energies into achieving the organizational goals. A job design created with the employees' involvement, they would be willing to bear the pain and invest extra time to complete their work or achieve goals. The workers develop a belief that they have been given what they needed in a job and work hard to fulfill their responsibilities as an ethical worker.
On the other hand, the employees who are unsatisfied or poorly aligned are frustrated, exhausted, and unwilling to perform the duties well. They fail to utilize their skills appropriately and spend most of their time on non-productive activities affecting the profit margin of the organization negatively. Such underperformance destroys the culture of the organization. The employee’s turnover cost can be hampered by workers who are dissatisfied. The ABC Company can increase its employees' productivity by reorganizing job designs and tasks. For instance, allowing the employees to perform functions that are more defined to invest their energy and time in improving their specialties. However, by assigning defined tasks that are broad or multitasking, it also enhances productivity by facilitating the flexibility of the employees. According to Parker (2014), when designing a job to increase satisfaction and motivation, a company needs to focus on:
v Identity – It involves the job completeness level; that is, end-to-end work responsibility.
v Skill variety – The level of usage of the employee’s skills.
v Significance – It refers to the effect that a job has on the company and the overall productivity contributed by that job.
v Autonomy – The level of employee’s involvement in making decisions on what to do and how to do it.
v Feedback – It refers to data or information allied to the job performance required.
These core aspects lead to employees' positive attitudes towards work, loyalty towards the company, and high performance. Autonomous employees are more responsible and invest their extra effort and time into their duties (Shantz et al., 2013). Autonomy leads to psychological ownership of the employees in their work since the results of the job rely on their individual decisions and efforts, rather than the management. When the workers are responsible for their work, they perceive it as more critical and invest more energy into it, and as a result, they experience a sense of pride to outperform and achieve their goals.
Mechanization
The increased use of machines in construction is a design that motivates the employees and also increases the company’s productivity in ways like:
v Devices like robots enable safety of workers in dangerous and mundane tasks and make the job more desirable for the employees
v Employees can minimize repetition and errors in their functions increasing productivity in the organization.
v Construction work is dangerous for a human and use of machines enables the workers to perform tasks in the hazardous and hostile environment.
v Creation of efficiency throughout the construction process and cost-effectiveness.
v Machines like robots can be programmed to operate continuously.
v For complex tasks that need employee engagement, machines can be customized to perform the work.
v Automation of construction activities has enabled the companies to become more competitive.
Teamwork Development
The incentives offered by the company to employees in the environment of work design enhance their personal growth and organizational learning. The implementation of team awards to employees as recognition of their extraordinary performance and achieved common goals strengthens teamwork. It is counterproductive awarding a few people in the organization because it creates resentments among other employees, killing the team spirit. According to (Stevenson & Sum, 2015), employee satisfaction is attained when operating in a teamwork environment. Teamwork facilitates the exchange of knowledge and growth regarding job skills and the overall performance of the team. Similarly, the company increases its rate of retention. A well-designed job has a healthy teamwork environment that motivates the employees to work focused on the common goal of the organization of increasing the profit margin. For instance, the interaction of the manager with the team, team members' compatibility, and the nature of the work given to the team and the process of the approach of the team towards work determines the success of the company.
Flow Chart: Job Designs, Motivation, and Teamwork for a High-profit Margin
The job design; that is, job rotation, job enhancement, job enlargement, and mechanization, contributes to the employees’ motivation and teamwork. The overall outcome of the job design is the increased profit margin of the company.
Conclusion
Work design fulfills the purposes of increased productivity, operational efficiency, team spirit, and satisfaction of the employees' needs and interests. A job that is well-designed has a strong link between the characteristics of the job and maintenance of the balance of the employees' work-life. It is an effect that helps enhance the employees' job satisfaction and motivation, increasing their productivity and performance in the organization. Moreover, the job design impacts the employees positively by raising their morale and effect on their psychological needs and their behavior of feedback-seeking. This means that the managers of the company can increase the productivity of the employee without monetary rewards; problem-solving; acknowledgment for achieving targets and increased responsibility by concentrating on the work designs.
References
Katz, J. (2015). Implementing the Three Block Model of Universal Design for Learning: Effects on teachers' self-efficacy, stress, and job satisfaction in inclusive classrooms K-12. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 19(1), 1-20.
Mayfield, C. O. (2013). Promoting organizational citizenship behavior through job design: Job characteristics versus job satisfaction. Journal of Business Disciplines, 11(1), 36-64.
Parker, S. K. (2014). Beyond motivation: Job and work design for development, health, ambidexterity, and more. Annual review of psychology, 65, 661-691.
Shantz, A., Alfes, K., Truss, C., & Soane, E. (2013). The role of employee engagement in the relationship between job design and task performance, citizenship, and deviant behaviors. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(13), 2608-2627.
Stevenson, W. J., & Sum, C. C. (2015). Operations management. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
