Job Design: Process, Benefits or Objectives, Methods in HRM?

What is Job Design in HRM?

Job design is the process of formation of structure to work activities. This is a systematic process of organizing specific job. It is thus, the logical sequence of job analysis which provides the job related data and skill requirement of the incumbent.

It is the management function of organizing tasks, duties and responsibilities into a unit of work. It helps to set the purpose, fix and task characteristics and duties. Job design is another words, can be defined as the integration of job content and the method of doing the job. This combines the qualification, skills and experience required for the job intrinsic and extrinsic rewards associated with job, and the basic relationship between organizational needs and employee needs.

Job design affects the productivity of employees and hence organization. Scientifically designed job becomes the basis of employee motivation. Poorly designed job decreases the productivity or organization as they discourage employees.

Job design is the subject matter to change. It may be affected by so many factors like job factors, organizational factors, behavioral factors, technological factors and environmental factors. So, it should be changed or modified from time to time.

The main purpose of job design is to increase the productivity of organization. Some of the major purpose of job design is to improve quality and quantity of goods/services, reduce operation costs and reduce turnover and training costs.

For our purpose, job design is the process of collecting job related information and grouping them in such a way that a manageable job can be created with sufficient motivational reward system. This prepares not only the job package but also the qualification, skills, experience and additional qualities required for the job. Job design, in this way, prepare the job description (What to do?), job specifications (what are required to accomplish the job?) and the job evaluation (whether the jobs are ranked or structured properly?). In broader sense, job design is the process of creating organizational structure so that the basis of evaluation of job and hierarchy is estimated. It is the basis of functional relationship between various areas of functions.

Job Design Process in HRM:

Job design is the process of creating identical jobs with sufficient information regarding work activities to be carried out including the skills, experience and qualification required to conduct the job more efficiently and effectively. It designs the sufficient intrinsic and extrinsic reward system associated with the job. A typical job design process consists of following parts:

1. Specification of individual tasks:

At beginning, all the tasks to be conducted are identified. On the basis of nature, special skills or abilities required  to perform the tasks, relation and interdependency with other tasks, complexities etc. of tasks need to be classified. In this step, individual tasks are simplified as far as possible.

2. Combination of task into jobs:

Job is the group of similar tasks in terms of nature and responsibilities as well as skills combined together to form different jobs. Jobs need to be simple in the sense that they need to be scientific systematic. In this step, jobs are prepared and assigned to the concerned department and employees.

3. Specification of methods:

After designing jobs, specific methods to conduct these are identified. Specification of methods not only provides the basic guidelines to perform the job but also helps to get the similar jobs done uniformly. This can be changed with the change in technology as well as advancement in the methods.

Benefits or Objectives of Job Design in HRM:

Job design is the basis of motivation to employees. Scientifically designed job increase the productivity of the organization. This is the very first condition to perform the organizational activities in an effective and efficient way to attain the organizational goals. Following major benefits can be attained because of job design:

1. Organizational structure:

Job design collects the similar activities into a package i.e. job. This helps to prepare the logical relation between different job responsibilities. Job design designs different position in the organization. This ultimately helps to prepare the organizational structure. Job design provides the basic information for designing the organizational structure.

2. Help in HR Planning:

Human resource planning requires some fundamental information regarding the job. Job design not only prepares the jobs but it estimates the minimum skills qualification and experience required to different jobs. It determines the number of jobs available in an organization. This helps to plan regarding the human resource acquisition, development, utilization and maintenance.

3. Human resource acquisition and selection:

Getting right man at the right job is another important purpose of job design. It prepares the information regarding skills, qualification, experience and the expertise required to accomplish the job in best possible way. This determines the things to be done as well as its specification. This helps to search and select right man at the right job. Perfect job design reduces the risk of selecting wrong employees to the job.

4. Employee motivation and commitment:

Job design helps to allocate job responsibilities according to interest, skills, and expertise of employees. This limits the job responsibilities upto skills and expertise. Job design makes the job more interesting and challenging. It provides the avenue of personal growth. All these things provide the motivation to employees and increase the level of satisfaction too. Motivated employees commit for best performance. Productivity and efficiency of such motivated and committed employees remains the maximum level.

5. Good industrial relation:

Industrial relation is being vital in modern business age. Success or failure of organization largely depends upon the relation between management, employees and government. Properly designed job increases the job satisfaction in employees. There will be no conflict in responsibilities and goals in between jobs if they are designed scientifically. Such job decreases the employees grievances, indisciplinary actions, employees and management. This ensures the success of organization.

6. Better quality of life:

Quality of work life indicates the state of working condition. This is one of the most important indicators to increase the job satisfaction. Quality of work life is the relationship between employees and working environment. Better quality work life increases the job satisfaction and helps to create harmonious relationship between employees and management. Properly designed job increases the quality of work life. It provides the interrelationship between different jobs, makes the area of responsibility clear, provides clear schedule of work, creates group of employee right for the appropriate job. All these things help to improve the quality of work life. Positive changes in job design also help to change the attitude and belief of employees to make them favorable for organizational benefits.

7. Easy supervision:

Properly designed jobs become scientific for responsibility distribution, skills requirement and inter job relationship. Job design helps to select right man at right job. Employee job satisfaction and commitment in such case become high. Self motivated and directed employees need less supervision. This helps to reduce supervision cost.

8. Environment adaptation:

Business environment is ever changing. With the change in technology, market segment customer's expectations, organizational objectives etc. jobs need to be changed. To grab the business opportunities from the competitive market, organizations must change their products, technology, way of doing things, etc. So, job once created may not be effective forever. They need to be improved and empowered. Such activities in job are done through job design and hence organization creates goods and products with greater customer expectation. So, job design helps to adopt the changing environment.

9. Organizational goal attainment:

Job designed scientifically will motivate employees for job commitment. Such jobs reduce the absenteeism, turnover, grievance, frustration and lower productivity. Committed employees pay their total effort for organizational betterment. These things help to attain organizational goal as per planning.

Methods of Job Design in HRM:

Job should be designed in such a way that job requirement and job specification should be balanced. Organizations should conduct variety of jobs ranging from simple to complex. Job should not be over loaded as well as under loaded. They need to balance the responsibility and authority. Jobs need to be linked vertically and horizontally. There are different methods or techniques available for job design. Some of them are classical approach, socio-technical system approach and Behavioral approach. Here is a brief description about these methods:

1. Classical approach/Methods:

Classical approach of job design is initiated by F.W Taylor with his well known Scientific Management Theory. He focused in the balance among work, motion and time at work. Taylor focused to design the jobs in such a way that the productivity can be increased significantly. Scientific management theory believes in excessive use of scientific tools, techniques and materials. Main focus of this approach is to increase the organizational productivity by effective planning for improving human efforts and skills. Classical approach of job design popularly uses the following methods:

i. Work Simplification:

This is the method in which complex job is first divided into number of small simple activities or units. Similar activities need to be grouped into a work unit and each work unit is assigned to a worker. Jobs and assigned to employees on the basis of specialization so that the productivity can be improved through work specialization. Work units into a job are estimated to be repetitive. This further increases the work efficiency. This method is appropriate to the lower level employees.

Merits of Work Simplification:

• Jobs are made more simple therefore no need to have training and development expenses. 
• This method focuses on job specialization so that the productivity can be improved. 
• Less supervision can be sufficient to supervision employees. 

Demerits of Work Simplification:

• There will be high chance of over specialization of skills. 
• Repetitive job create boredom in workers. 
• Monotony at work may increase absenteeism, turnover and accidents. 

ii. Job Rotation:

Job rotation is the most popular method of job design in which employees working in one responsibility or job will be transferred to other job. This means, under this method, jobs are created in such a way that employee should work all the responsibility one after another at certain interval of time. But level or position of employees remains same. Main purpose of this method is to remove monotony or boredom due to repetitive jobs of employees. This methods provides the opportunity to work in different jobs of similar job description at different working station with different people. Employees can handle their job with the same skills, knowledge and experience.

Merits of Job Rotation Method:

• It reduces monotony and boredom among workers. 
• It provides opportunity to work in different situations so that employees can enhance their social relationship. 
• Employees can handle varieties of tasks without adding new knowledge, skills and expertise. 
• It helps to fulfill the vacancies at different places through internal source. 
• It helps to handle employee grievances. 

 Demerits of Job Rotation method:

• Tendency of seeking transfer because of personal reason can be increased. 
• Employees need to time to adjust in new environment which may interrupt regular performance. 
• Orientation, socialization and training cost will be increased. 

Also read: Human Resource Planning:  Need and Importance, Characteristic/Features 

iii. Job enlargement:

Job enlargement is the process of expanding the job responsibilities within the same job. This means, under this method, different tasks or activities having similar nature and characteristics should be added to create new job. In another words, job enlargement is the horizontal expansion of job. For example, an accountant responsible to collect cash can be assigned to deposit cash in bank, preparing salary sheet, etc. as additional task.

Merits of Job enlargement method:

• Additional taks motivate employees for better efforts:
• It reduces monotony and boredom among workers. 
• It increases job satisfaction with extended scope of job. 
• It provides greater opportunity of personal growth. 
• It reduces operation cost by reducing employees. 

 Demerits of Job Enlargement method:

• Training is essential for additional responsibility which increase the cost. 
• Already monotonous job will be more monotonous with additional tasks. 
• This is substituting one zero with the another zero - Herzberg. This means one more boring job to another. 
• Additional task at same job without additional pay and benefits may reduce the motivation of employees. 
• Additional task may extend the completion time. 
• There may be chance of shifting responsibility. 

Socio-Technical System Approach:

Employer's motivation is the most important factor in organizational productivity. Various researches have found that employee motivation is the function of socio-factor. There needs guide them for the better result. In this ground, jobs can be designed to the employee's individual needs and technical requirements i.e. according to individual needs and organizational requirements. This approach thus, considers the social aspects and technical system of the job. Peer supervisor relationship, need of group work and creation of supportive environment are some key elements of socio-cultural approach of job design. Jobs are created to deal with the situational demand of technical and social needs.

Merits of Socio-Technical system approach:

• Jobs designed under this approach provide greater employee job satisfaction because of fulfilling social needs of employees.
• This method gives more emphasis in participation of employees. So, the overall productivity of organization is expected to be increased.
• Employees can relate their output and social benefits. This helps to increase the tenure of employees.
• Jobs create learning environment. So, employees will be more skillful.

Demerits of Socio-Technical system approach:

• Jobs give more emphasis on employee needs rather than on organizational needs. 
• Most of operating level employees may not be efficient for the decision making. So, decision made by employees may sometimes mislead the organizational objectives. 
• Employee union for sake of union only may influence overall planning of organization. 

Behavioral Approach:

Effectiveness of jobs depends on the behavior of employees toward that job. Job itself should be sufficient to motivate employees. So, the behavioral aspects of the employees should be included while designing jobs. This approach of job design is called behavioral approach. This means, behavioral approach of job design analyzes the considers some behavioral aspects of employees like autonomy, variety, task identity, task significance, feedback mechanism, etc. Behavioral approach of job design includes following popular method:

i. Job enrichment method:

Job enrichment is the method of job design in which some higher order responsibilities are added in the job. This means, under this method, jobs are designed including task demanding higher order skills, greater experience and better expertise. Job enrichment method integrates the task or activities vertically. Therefore, this method can also be said as vertical expansion of job. Specially, to those employees who desire opportunities of personal growth, jobs need to be designed with enrichment method. Enriched jobs motivate employees by adding challenging and interesting features in the job. 

Enriched jobs provide not only the challenging jobs but greater authority to accomplish jobs. With such practices, organization can prepare employees for the upper positions required to fulfill in the future. Such jobs reduce monotony among employees. 

Merits of Job enrichment method:

• Employees with high ambition and seeking greater personal growth can satisfied and motivated. 
• This will be beneficial for succession planning. 
• Absenteeism and turnover rate can be reduced. 
• Productivity can be easily improved. 

 Demerits of Job Enrichment method:

• This method is not appropriate to the employees with low self esteem, confidence and pessimistic employees. 
• This method is not suitable for complex job consisting of many production processes. 
• This is risky to assign higher order responsibilities to the employees without training. 
• Employees may reject the additional responsibilities because of resistivity toward change. 
• Manager may be unwilling to delegate authority with responsibilities which creates problems in decision making. 
• Decision made by lower level employees under enrichment may be risky.  

ii. Autonomous team:

Autonomous work teams are the groups of self directed, self managed and self motivated employees who work for inter related and interdependent works. Such groups set the standard for output, set the working procedure, take actions, evaluate the outputs and take full responsibility of outputs. They select the team members, prepare the team norms and values, fix responsibility, plan and carryout the activities, evaluate the performance, and take corrective actions if necessary.

Jobs can be designed for the autonomous team. Normally, if the nature of job demands to be conducted in a group and employees are self motivated, this method becomes fruitful. In this method, area of job performance is given to group in bulks; the group sets the group goal, fixes responsibility to each member, sets the working procedure and schedule, conducts activities and evaluates the outputs. Such jobs can be designed only to those employees who have strong feeling of group goal, and are self motivated for higher level performance.
Merits of Autonomous team method:

• Team spirit can be developed. 
• With self motivated and self directed team members, management achieves goal with less supervision. 
• Team productivity becomes greater than the individual productivity. 
• Employees become self responsible. So, administrative cost becomes low. 
• This method provides the opportunity for personal growth. 
• Reward is tied with team performance. So, all the team members perform for team. 

 Demerits of Autonomous team method:

• This method is not suitable to the normal employees with no personal growth objectives. 
• Team conflict may reduce the productivity of team. 
• Dominating tendency of employees negatively affects on the team productivity. 
• In general, managers become reluctant to form team of employees in organization. 
• Independent jobs cannot be conducted in teams. So, this method can be applied only to the interrelated and interdependent jobs. 
• Personal traits of employees play significant role to the group productivity where by the method may not be suitable. 
• There can be the possibility of responsibility shift in case of mistake. 
• It is very difficult to find self motivated and self directed employees. Termination of one employee can also affect the team performance significantly. 

iii. Job Characteristics:

Job characteristics method considers three psychological aspects i.e. experienced meaningfulness, experience determine the level of motivation, satisfaction and performance on the job. Following characteristics are suggested to include in the job:

Skill variety:

Different talents and skills required to conduct different activities. 

Task identity:

Identifiable work unit is supposed to do by applying different skills and talents. 

Task significance:

Impact of job on work and lives of other employees. 

Autonomy:

Degree of freedom, independence and discretion to the individual in planning and performing job. 

Feedback:

Clear and direct information to individual regarding job performance.

Merits of job Characteristics method:

• This method gives focus to job characteristics. So, jobs become distinct from one another. 
• Feedback system provides information regarding job performance. This helps to improve performance timely. 
• Autonomy for planning and performing the job motivates employees. 
• Clearly distinguishable jobs do not create conflict in role. 

Demerits of job characteristics method: 

• Autonomy of planning and conducting jobs may create disciplinary problems. 
• Job cannot be made clear with clearly distinguishable job characteristics only. 
• Redesigning the job time to time may demotivate the employees. 

iv. Modified work schedule method:

Modified work schedule method is the one in which work schedule, timing, shift, or routine of the work is rescheduled as per the convenience or demand of workers. Normally, the jobs which need to be conducted in different shifts in regular basis can be designed under this method. Shorter work week, flex time, job sharing, home work, etc. are common methods of job design under this method. Some of them are discussed briefly as under:

Shorter work week:

In this method, number of working days in a week can be reduced. But total working hours remain same. For example, job of an employee working 40 hours in 5 days a week working 8 hours a day can be rescheduled as a 40 hours in 4 days working 10 hours a day. This helps to reduce administrative cost as well as one day release to the worker.

Flex time:

In this method, different working shifts are prepared and employees are given option to choose to work in their convenient time shift. Hotels, hospitals, telecommunication office, etc. need to operate 24 hours a day. In such organizations work shifts are prepared like morning shift, day shift and night shifts having 8 hours in each shift. Employees are given freedom to chose their convenient shift to work.

Job sharing:

In this method, a particular full time job is shared between two or more part time employees. Full work or job is here, divided into number of jobs.

Home work:

In this method, employees are not required to come to the organization or work place for accomplishing their duty. They can complete their tasks at their home or any convenient place as well. Typing writing, painting, etc. jobs can be done in this way. Nowadays, this method is being popular for tele center jobs. Employees get reward or remuneration on the basis of the volume or unit of work done by them.

Merits of modified work schedule method:

• Employees can work at their convenient time and place. So, this method gives full employee motivation. 
• Time and space can be utilized at maximum limit. So, there will be no space and time limitation for work. 
• Employee can give time for their personal work. So, they will be more productive. 
• Non-human resources can be utilized at the maximum extent. So, organization can attain maximum profitability with less resource. 

 Demerits of modified work schedule method:

• Control and supervision becomes less effective. 
• In case of mistake or problem, there may be chance of shifting the responsibility. 
• All the employees try to work in their convenient time so there may be problem of getting job done at regular basis. 
• Job sharing has low degree of job accountability.  

ob Design

Job design is the process of Work arrangement (or rearrangement) aimed at reducing or overcoming job dissatisfaction and employee alienation arising from repetitive and mechanistic tasks. Through job design, organizations try to raise productivity levels by offering non-monetary rewards such as greater satisfaction from a sense of personal achievement in meeting the increased challenge and responsibility of one's work. Job enlargement, job enrichment, job rotation, and job simplification are the various techniques used in a job design exercise. 

 ---businessdictionary.com

Although job analysis, as just described, is important for an understanding of existing jobs, organizations also must plan for new jobs and periodically consider whether they should revise existing jobs. When an organization is expanding, supervisors and human resource professionals must help plan for new or growing work units. When an organization is trying to improve quality or efficiency, a review of work units and processes may require a fresh look at how jobs are designed.

These situations call for job design, the process of defining the way work will be performed and the tasks that a given job requires, or job redesign, a similar process that involves changing an existing job design. To design jobs effectively, a person must thoroughly understand the job itself (through job analysis) and its place in the larger work unit's work flow process (through work flow analysis). Having a detailed knowledge of the tasks performed in the work unit and in the job, a manager then has many alternative ways to design a job. As shown in Figure , the available approaches emphasize different aspects of the job: the mechanics of doing a job efficiently, the job's impact on motivation, the use of safe work practices, and the mental demands of the job.

Definitions: -

Job design is the process of
a) Deciding the contents of the job.
b) Deciding methods to carry out the job.
c) Deciding the relationship which exists in the organization.
Job analysis helps to develop job design and job design matches the requirements of the job with the human qualities required to do the job.

According to Michael Armstrong, "Job Design is the process of deciding on the contents of a job in terms of its duties and responsibilities, on the methods to be used in carrying out the job, in terms of techniques, systems and procedures, and on the relationships that should exist between the job holder and his superior subordinates and colleagues."

Job analysis helps to develop job design and job design matches the requirements of the job with the human qualities required to do the job.

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Nature of Job Design

Identifying the components of a given job is an integral part of job design. Designing or redesigning jobs encompasses many factors, and a number of different techniques are available to the manager. Job design has been equated with job enrichment, a technique developed by Frederick Herzberg, but job design is much broader than job enrichment alone.

Designing Efficient Jobs

If workers perform tasks as efficiently as possible, not only does the organization benefit from lower costs and greater output per worker, but workers should be less fatigued. This point of view has for years formed the basis of classical industrial engineering, which looks for the simplest way to structure work in order to maximize efficiency. Typically, applying industrial engineering to a job reduces the complexity of the work, making it so simple that almost anyone can be trained quickly and easily to perform the job. Such jobs tend to be highly specialized and repetitive.

In practice, the scientific method traditionally seeks the "one best way" to perform a job by performing time-and-motion studies to identify the most efficient movements for workers to make. Once the engineers have identified the most efficient sequence of motions, the organization should select workers based on their ability to do the job, then train them in the details of the "one best way" to perform that job. The company also should offer pay structured to motivate workers to do their best.

Despite the logical benefits of industrial engineering, a focus on efficiency alone can create jobs that are so simple and repetitive that workers get bored. Workers performing these jobs may feel their work is meaningless. Hence, most organizations combine industrial engineering with other approaches to job design.


Designing Jobs That Motivate

Especially when organizations have to compete for employees, depend on skilled knowledge workers, or need a workforce that cares about customer satisfaction, a pure focus on efficiency will not achieve human resource objectives. These organizations need jobs that employees find interesting and satisfying, and job design should take into account factors that make jobs motivating to employees.

The quest for meaningful work draws people to such career paths as teaching and public service. For example, when Patrick Bernhardt was laid off from his job as a marketing executive, he seized on the chance to switch fields. Bernhardt became a computer science teacher and enrolled in evening classes. When he switched to this job, Bernhardt took a 50 percent pay cut, but he doesn't mind: "This is the hardest thing I've ever done, but the sense of satisfaction makes it worth it."

Facts [+]

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A recent Money Magazine and Salary.com survey of 26,000 workers found that workers who considered themselves extremely satisfied with their jobs were putting in a lot more time at work than others. The most satisfied group in the survey reported eleven more weekly work hours than the least satisfied group. Generally, as satisfaction rose, workers reported longer hours worked.

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A job satisfaction study compiled by CareerJournal.com asked satisfied workers to describe their jobs. The study found that highly satisfied employees consistently listed four factors: intellectual stimulation, job security, high levels of control and autonomy, and direct contact with clients and customers.

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A model that shows how to make jobs more motivating is the Job Characteristics Model, developed by Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham. This model describes jobs in terms of five characteristics:

1. Skill variety. The extent to which a job requires a variety of skills to carry out the tasks involved.
2. Task identity. The degree to which a job requires completing a "whole" piece of work from beginning to end (e.g., building an entire component or resolving a customer's complaint).
3. Task significance. The extent to which the job has an important impact on the lives of other people.
4. Autonomy. The degree to which the job allows an individual to make decisions about the way the work will be carried out.
5. Feedback. The extent to which a person receives clear information about performance effectiveness from the work itself.

As shown in Figure , the more of each of these characteristics a job has, the more motivating the job will be, according to the Job Characteristics Model. The model predicts that a person with such a job will be more satisfied and will produce more and better work. This approach to designing jobs includes such techniques as job enlargement, job enrichment, self-managing work teams, flexible work schedules, and telework.

Reference : HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Sandra L. Steeh University of Regina Raymond A. Nog Ohio State University John R. Hollenbeck Michigan State University Barry Gerhart University of Wisconsin-Madison Patrick M. Wright Cornel/ University

Facts [+]

Companies introducing creative concepts in naming key roles

2012:Corporate India is tossing out the old, stodgy nomenclature in favour of creative, personalised designations. At Bangalore-based start up Teleradiology Solutions, the CEO is called the 'chief pusher', quite simply because he pushes and nudges employees into delivering the goods.

The organisation also has a chief listening officer (HR head) and chief enabler (technology head). "It creates an environment where designations do not matter," says chief dreamer, Sunita Maheshwari.

Companies like Aegis want to prevent any dilution of ethics. Three months ago, they created the post of a 'chief ethics officer', whose job is to keep a check on any kind of fraudulent behaviour.

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Theories of job design

The basis for job design theory is organization theory, which can be classified broadly into three strains of thought: the classical, the behavioral, and the situational.

Classical theory was expounded in early writings of Max Weber and Henri Fayol. For the classicist, any organization achieves efficiency through its division of labor. Managers identify the overall purpose of the organization. They then divide this overall purpose into jobs, each rationally related to the whole. Jobs are, in turn, grouped to create work groups, divisions, and departments. Finally, each group is assigned a supervisor, who is responsible for overseeing the work of subordinates and reporting the results to his or her own superior.

Behavioral theory is quite different. Unlike the classicist, the behavioralist is much less interested in allocating specific tasks to specific jobs, making sure that the authority matches the position, and then trying to attain higher efficiency through specialization of labor. Behavioralists prefer simple organizational structure, decentralized decision-making, and informal departmentalization. In an organic structure, subordinates feel free to discuss their performance problems with superiors and have a positive view of the organization. They participate in decision-making and communicate with those whose views are needed to solve immediate problems. These characteristics are in stark contrast to conditions in a traditional organization, where subordinates are guarded and negative about the organization, do not feel sufficient trust to communicate openly with those of higher status, and are not permitted to participate in decision-making.

Situational theory differs from both classical and behavioral theories. Advocates stress the influence of the external environment on the allocation of responsibilities and tasks within the organization, work groups, and jobs. Allocating responsibilities and tasks means creating a structure. Appropriate structures differ according to technology, markets, production, research, and information.

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Techniques Of Job Design
There are various Techniques /methods in which job design can be carried out. These methods help to analysis the job, to design the contents of the and to decide how the job must be carried out these methods are as follows 

Job rotation is a management technique that assigns trainees to various jobs and departments over a period of a few years.

A job design technique in which employees are moved between two or more jobs in a planned manner. The objective is to expose the employees to different experiences and wider variety of skills to enhance job satisfaction and to cross-train them.

-------BusinessDictionary.com

Job rotation implies systematic movement of employees from one job to the other. Job remains unchanged but employees performing them shift from one job to the other. With job rotation, an employee is given an opportunity to perform different jobs, which enriches his skills, experience and ability to perform different jobs

Facts of Job Rotation

• In some businesses, the object is to educate employees, giving them information about other operations in the company. Not only does this peak the interest of many on the payroll, but it can also allow employees to ask questions and suggest improvements in areas they wouldn’t normally see.

• At another level of a larger company, managers and supervisors are sometimes moved, in a series of planned job rotations. Business owners and operating officers might use a rotation plan so that management personnel are familiar with various sections of the business. Then, when the time comes to fill a vacant position due to retirement, for example, there may be more than one candidate familiar with the duties of that slot.

• In certain industries and with work that involves physical labor, job rotation may be used to avoid over-stressing some workers. The constant, repetitive use of the same muscles can be one of the hazards of the workplace. Wise use of rotation may help workers stay healthy, and maintain a good work atmosphere as well. Safety is often a key consideration in this situation.

• Job rotation involves shifting a person from one job to another, so that he is able to understand and learn what each job involves. The company tracks his performance on every job and decides whether he can perform the job in an ideal manner. Based on this he is finally given a particular posting.

Job rotation is done to decide the final posting for the employee e.g. Mr. A is assigned to the marketing department whole he learns all the jobs to be performed for marketing at his level in the organization .after this he is shifted to the sales department and to the finance department and so on. He is finally placed in the department in which he shows the best performance

Job rotation gives an idea about the jobs to be performed at every level. Once a person is able to understand this he is in a better understanding of the working of organization

LG Electronics, IBM, TATA STEEL, McDonald's are a few companies which practice Job Rotation.

There are few Drawbacks of Job Rotation -

1. Rigid employees not ready for it quits.
2. Adjustment problem in new job scenario with increased challenges and difficulties.
3. Adjustment problem with the timings if the company works in shifts.
4. Increased stress and peer pressure.

Advantages of job rotation

1. Avoids monopoly :- Job rotation helps to avoid monopoly of job and enable the employee to learn new things and therefore enjoy his job
2. Provides an opportunity to broaden one’s knowledge: - due to job rotation the person is able to learn different job in the organization this broadens his knowledge.
3. Avoiding fraudulent practice: - In an organization like bank jobs rotation is undertaken to prevent employees from doing any kind of fraud i.e. if a person is handling a particular job for a very long time he will be able to find loopholes in the system and use them for his benefit and indulge ( participate ) in fraudulent practices job rotation avoids this.

Disadvantages of Job Rotation

1. Frequent interruption :- Job rotation results in frequent interruption of work .A person who is doing a particular job and get it comfortable suddenly finds himself shifted to another job or department .this interrupts the work in both the departments.
2. Reduces uniformity in quality :- Quality of work done by a trained worker is different from that of a new worker .when a new worker I shifted or rotated in the department, he takes time to learn the new job, makes mistakes in the process and affects the quality of the job.
3. Misunderstanding with the union member :- Sometimes job rotation may lead to misunderstanding with members of the union. The union might think that employees are being harassed and more work is being taken from them. In reality this is not the case. Job enrichment
   
   is an attempt to motivate employees by giving them the opportunity to use the range of their abilities. It is an idea that was developed by the American psychologist Frederick Hertzberg in the 1950s. It can be contrasted to job enlargement which simply increases the number of tasks without changing the challenge. As such job enrichment has been described as 'vertical loading' of a job, while job enlargement is 'horizontal loading'. An enriched job should ideally contain:
4. A range of tasks and challenges of varying difficulties (Physical or Mental)
5. A complete unit of work - a meaningful task
6. Feedback, encouragement and communication

Job enrichment is a type of job redesign intended to reverse the effects of tasks that are repetitive requiring little autonomy. Some of these effects are boredom, lack of flexibility, and employee dissatisfaction (Leach & Wall, 2004). The underlying principle is to expand the scope of the job with a greater variety of tasks, vertical in nature, that require self-sufficiency. Since the goal is to give the individual exposure to tasks normally reserved for differently focused or higher positions, merely adding more of the same responsibilities related to an employee's current position is not considered job enrichment.

Definition: Job Enrichment is the addition to a job of tasks that increase the amount of employee control or responsibility. It is a vertical expansion of the job as opposed to the horizontal expansion of a job, which is called job enlargement.

------About management.com

A job design technique that is a variation on the concept of job enlargement. Job enrichment adds new sources of job satisfaction by increasing the level of responsibility of the employee.

While job enlargement is considered a horizontal restructuring method, job enrichment is a vertical restructuring method by virtue of giving the employee additional authority, autonomy, and control over the way the job is accomplished. Also called job enhancement or vertical job expansion.                                                              

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Job enrichment is a way to motivate employees by giving them increased responsibility and variety in their jobs. Many employers traditionally believed that money was the only true motivating factor for employees and that if you wanted to get more work out of employees, offering them more money was the only way to do it. While that may be true for a small group of people, the majority of workers today like to work and to be appreciated for the work they do. Job enrichment— allowing the employees to have more control in planning their work and deciding how the work should be accomplished—is one way to tap into the natural desire most employees have to do a good job, to be appreciated for their contributions to the company, and to feel more a part of the company team.

Job enrichment has its roots in Frederick Herzberg's two-factor theory, according to which two separate dimensions contribute to an employee's behavior at work.

• The first dimension, known as hygiene factors, involves the presence or absence of job dissatisfactors, such as wages, working environment, rules and regulations, and supervisors. When these factors are poor, work is dissatisfying and employees are not motivated. However, having positive hygiene factors does not cause employees to be motivated; it simply keeps them from being dissatisfied.

• The second dimensionof Herzberg's theory refers to motivators, which are factors that satisfy higher-level needs such as recognition for doing a good job, achievement, and the opportunity for growth and responsibility. These motivators are what actually increase job satisfaction and performance. Job enrichment becomes an important strategy at this point because enriching employees' jobs can help meet some of their motivational needs. There are basically five areas that are believed to affect an individual employee's motivation and job performance: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. Job enrichment seeks to find positive ways to address each of these areas and therefore improve employee motivation and personal satisfaction.

Skill variety involves the number of different types of skills that are used to do a job. This area is important because using only one skill to do the same task repeatedly can be quite boring, typically causing the employee's productivity to decrease after a period of time. However, using a variety of skills in a job will tend to keep the employee more interested in the job and more motivated.

One way businesses are focusing on this area is through job rotation, that is, moving employees from job to job within the company, thereby allowing employees a variety of tasks in their work and helping prevent boredom. While this process can be costly to the company because employees must be trained in several different areas, the cost tends to be balanced by the increase in morale and productivity. Job rotation also gives each employee the opportunity to see how the different jobs of a company fit together and gives the company more flexibility in covering tasks when workers are absent. However, while job rotation is a good way to enrich employees' jobs, it can also hinder performance: Having to know several different jobs in order to rotate, can prevent employees from becoming proficient at any of the jobs. Therefore, the advantages and disadvantages of job rotation as an enrichment strategy have to be carefully weighed.

Task identity is a matter of realizing a visible outcome from performing a task. Being able to see the end result of the work they do is an important motivator for employees. One way to make task identity clearer is through job enlargement, which means adding more tasks and responsibilities to an existing job. For example, instead of building just one component part of a humidifier, a team of employees builds the entire product from start to finish. When using job enlargement as an enrichment strategy, it is important that enlarging the job gives the employee more responsibility and more variety, not just more work.

Task significance involves how important the task is to others in the company, which is important in showing employees how the work they do fits in with that done in the rest of the organization. If employees can see how their work affects others, it will be a motivator to do the best job they can.

Many companies take new employees on a tour of the company and provide training sessions on how each part of the company works together with the other parts. In order to accept and handle responsibility, it is important that employees know how the various areas of the company work together; without this knowledge, it is very difficult for them to handle decision-making responsibilities. Putting employees from different areas of the company into planning teams can also help them see the significance of the tasks they perform.

Autonomy involves the degree of freedom, independence, and decision-making ability the employee has in completing assigned tasks. Most people like to be given responsibility; it demonstrates trust and helps motivate employees to live up to that trust. Responsibility can also help speed up work processes by enabling the employee to make decisions without having to wait for management approval. Autonomy is a very important part of job enrichment because it gives the employee power and a feeling of importance.

A type of job enrichment that restructures work to best match the employee to the job is job redesign. Job redesign can focus on combining existing jobs, forming work groups, and/or allowing closer contact between employees and individual suppliers or customers. The idea behind job redesign is to match employees with a job they like and are best qualified to perform. Self-managed teams are a type of job design whereby employees are grouped into teams and given certain guidelines to follow as well as goals to accomplish—and then left alone to accomplish those goals. Self-managed teams demonstrate the company's faith in the employees and give employees a feeling of power and pride in the work they accomplish.

Feedback describes how much and what type of information about job performance is received by the employee. It is one of the most important areas for motivation. Without feedback, employees have no way of knowing whether they are doing things correctly or incorrectly. Positive feedback helps to motivate employees by recognizing the efforts they have put into their work. While monetary rewards for doing a good job can be a strong incentive, sometimes saying "you did a really good job on that project" can mean just as much. Corrective feedback is also important because it lets employees know what areas need improvement.

Job Enrichment Options

The central focus of job enrichment is giving people more control over their work (lack of control is a key cause of stress, and therefore of unhappiness.) Where possible, allow them to take on tasks that are typically done by supervisors. This means that they have more influence over planning, executing, and evaluating the jobs they do.

In enriched jobs, people complete activities with increased freedom, independence, and responsibility. They also receive plenty of feedback, so that they can assess and correct their own performance.

Here are some strategies you can use to enrich jobs in your workplace:

• Rotate Jobs – Give people the opportunity to use a variety of skills, and perform different kinds of work. The most common way to do this is through job rotation. Move your workers through a variety of jobs that allow them to see different parts of the organization, learn different skills and acquire different experiences. This can be very motivating, especially for people in jobs that are very repetitive or that focus on only one or two skills.

• Combine Tasks – Combine work activities to provide a more challenging and complex work assignment. This can significantly increase "task identity" because people see a job through from start to finish. This allows workers to use a wide variety of skills, which can make the work seem more meaningful and important. For example, you can convert an assembly line process, in which each person does one task, into a process in which one person assembles a whole unit. You can apply this model wherever you have people or groups that typically perform only one part of an overall process. Consider expanding their roles to give them responsibility for the entire process, or for a bigger part of that process.

• Identify Project-Focused Work Units – Break your typical functional lines and form project-focused units. For example, rather than having all of your marketing people in one department, with supervisors directing who works on which project, you could split the department into specialized project units - specific storyboard creators, copywriters, and designers could all work together for one client or one campaign. Allowing employees to build client relationships is an excellent way to increase autonomy, task identity, and feedback.

• Create Autonomous Work Teams – This is job enrichment at the group level. Set a goal for a team, and make team members free to determine work assignments, schedules, rest breaks, evaluation parameters, and the like. You may even give them influence over choosing their own team members. With this method, you'll significantly cut back on supervisory positions, and people will gain leadership and management skills.

• Implement Participative Management – Allow team members to participate in decision making and get involved in strategic planning. This is an excellent way to communicate to members of your team that their input is important. It can work in any organization - from a very small company, with an owner/boss who's used to dictating everything, to a large company with a huge hierarchy. When people realize that what they say is valued and makes a difference, they'll likely be motivated.

• Redistribute Power and Authority – Redistribute control and grant more authority to workers for making job-related decisions. As supervisors delegate more authority and responsibility, team members' autonomy, accountability, and task identity will increase.

• Increase Employee-Directed Feedback – Make sure that people know how well, or poorly, they're performing their jobs. The more control you can give them for evaluating and monitoring their own performance, the more enriched their jobs will be. Rather than have your quality control department go around and point out mistakes, consider giving each team responsibility for their own quality control. Workers will receive immediate feedback, and they'll learn to solve problems, take initiative, and make decisions.

Job enrichment provides many opportunities for people's development. You'll give them lots of opportunity to participate in how their work gets done, and they'll most-likely enjoy an increased sense of personal responsibility for their tasks.

Implementing a Job Enrichment Program

• Step One – Find out where people are dissatisfied with their current work assignments. There's little point to enriching jobs and changing the work environment if you're enriching the wrong jobs and making the wrong changes. Like any motivation initiative, determine what your people want before you begin.
• Surveys are a good means of doing this. Don't make the mistake of presuming that you know what people want: Go to the source - and use that information to build your enrichment options.
• Step Two – Consider which job enrichment options you can provide. You don't need to drastically redesign your entire work process. The way that you design the enriched jobs must strike a balance between operational need and job satisfaction. If significant changes are needed, consider establishing a "job enrichment task force" - perhaps use a cross-section of employees, and give them responsibility for deciding which enrichment options make the most sense.
• Step Three – Design and communicate your program. If you're making significant changes, let people know what you're doing and why. Work with your managers to create an enriching work environment that includes lots of employee participation and recognition. Remember to monitor your efforts, and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of what you're providing.

Advantages of job enrichment

1. Interesting and challenging job :- When a certain amount of power is given to employees it makes the job more challenging for them, we can say that job enrichment is a method of employee empowerment.
2. Improves decision making :- Through job enrichment we can improve the decision making ability of the employee by asking him to decide
3. vation speaks of these higher order needs e.g. Ego and esteemed needs, self-actualization etc. These needs can be achieved through job enrichment.
4. Reduces work load of superiors :-Job enrichment reduces the work load of senior staff. When decisions are taken by juniors the seniors work load is reduced.

Disadvantages of job enrichment

1. Job enrichment is based on the assumptions that workers have complete knowledge to take decisions and they have the right attitude. In reality this might not be the case due to which there can be problems in working.
2. Job enrichment has negative implications ie. Along with usual work decision making work is also given to the employees and not many may be comfortable with this.
3. Superiors may feel that power is being taken away from them and given to the junior’s. This might lead to ego problems.
4. This method will only work in certain situations. Some jobs already give a lot of freedom and responsibility; this me thod will not work for such jobs.
5. Some people are internally dissatisfied with the organization. For such people no amount of job enrichment can solve the problem.

Key Points:

Job enrichment is a fundamental part of attracting, motivating, and retaining talented people, particularly where work is repetitive or boring. To do it well, you need a great match between the way your jobs are designed and the skills and interests of the employees working for you.

When your work assignments reflect a good level of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback, members of your team are likely be much more content, and much less stressed. Enriched jobs lead to more satisfied and motivated workers.

Your responsibility is to figure out which combination of enrichment options will lead to increased performance and productivity. 

Job Enlargement

Job enlargement is another method of job design when any organization wishes to adopt proper job design it can opt for job enlargement. Job enlargement involves combining various activities at the same level in the organization and adding them to the existing job. It increases the scope of the job. It is also called the horizontal expansion of job activities.

Definition: Job Enlargement is the horizontal expansion of a job. It involves the addition of tasks at the same level of skill and responsibility. It is done to keep workers from getting bored. It is different than job enrichment.

Examples: Small companies may not have as many opportunities for promotions, so they try to motivate employees through job enlargement.

Job enlargement can be explained with the help of the following example - If Mr. A is working as an executive with a company and is currently performing 3 activities on his job after job enlargement or through job enlargement we add 4 more activities to the existing job so now Mr. A performs 7 activities on the job.

It must be noted that the new activities which have been added should belong to the same hierarchy level in the organization. By job enlargement we provide a greater variety of activities to the individual so that we are in a position to increase the interest of the job and make maximum use of employee’s skill. Job enlargement is also essential when policies like VRS are implemented in the company.

Job enlargement is doing different tasks and not just the same thing all the time. It may involve taking on more duties and adds variety to a person's job. Horizontal loading is often used which is giving people more jobs to do that require the same level of skill.

Job enlargement  contradicts the principles of specialisation and the division of labour whereby work is divided into small units, each of which is performed repetitively by an individual worker. Some motivational theories suggest that the boredom and alienation caused by the division of labour can actually cause efficiency to fall. Thus, job enlargement seeks to motivate workers through reversing the process of specialisation. A typical approach might be to replace assembly lines with modular work; instead of an employee repeating the same step on each product, they perform several tasks on a single item. In order for employees to be provided with Job Enlargement they will need to be retrained in new fields which can prove to be a lengthy process. However results have shown that this process can see its effects diminish after a period of time, as even the enlarged job role become the mundane, this in turn can lead to similar levels of demotivation and job dissatisfaction at the expense of increased training levels and costs. The continual enlargement of a job over time is also known as 'job creep,' which can lead to an unmanageable workload.


Advantages of job enlargement

• Variety of skills :- Job enlargement helps the organization to improve and increase the skills of the employee due to organization as well as the individual benefit.
• Improves earning capacity :- Due to job enlargement the person learns many new activities. When such people apply foe jobs to other companies they can bargain for more salary.
• Wide range of activities :- Job enlargement provides wide range of activities for employees. Since a single employee handles multiple activities the company can try and reduce the number of employee’s. This reduces the salary bill for the company.

Disadvantages of job enlargement

• Increases work burden :- Job enlargement increases the work of the employee and not every company provides incentives and extra salary for extra work. Therefore the efforts of the individual may remain unrecognized.
• Increasing frustration of the employee :- In many cases employees end up being frustrated because increased activities do not result in increased salaries.
• Problem with union members :- Many union members may misunderstand job enlargement as exploitation of worker and may take objection to it.

Difference Between Job Enlargement and Job Enrichment

The difference between job enrichment and job enlargement is quality and quantity. Job enrichment means improvement, or an increase with the help of upgrading and development, whereas job enlargement means to add more duties, and an increased workload. By job enrichment, an employee finds satisfaction in respect to their position and personal growth potential, whereas job enlargement refers to having additional duties and responsibilities in a current job description.

Job enlargement is a vehicle employers use to put additional workload on employees, perhaps in economical downtime. Due to downsizing, an employee might feel lucky to have a job at all, despite the fact that his duties and responsibilities have increased. Another approach is that by adding more variety and enlarging the responsibilities will provide the chance of enhancement and more productivity. Job enrichment involves organizing and planning in order to gain more control over their duties and work as a manager. The execution of plans and evaluation of results motivates workers and relieves boredom. Job enlargement and job enrichment are both useful for motivating workers to perform their tasks enthusiastically.

Although job enlargement and enrichment have a relationship with each other, they also possess some distinct features that differentiate them, such as area of expansion, mutual reliance, allocation of duties and responsibilities, motivation and profundity. Job enrichment is largely dependent on job enlargement, whereas job enlargement has no such dependency. Job enlargement expands horizontally when compared to job enrichment, which expands vertically. Vertical growth of job or augmentation is helpful to obtain managerial rights.

In spite of mutual dependency, managerial duties are sanctioned, as in the case of enhancement. The employee focuses more on job depth, which does not happen in job enlargement. Job enrichment has a greater motivational impact than job enlargement.

The job enlargement theory involving horizontal expansion to increase job satisfaction and productivity is relatively simple, and applied in numerous situations. Job enrichment, when compared to job enlargement, not only includes more duties and responsibilities, but also gives the right of decision making and control.