JOB DESIGN

MEANING AND DEFINITION

Job design involves conscious efforts to organize tasks, duties and responsibilities into a unit of work to achieve certain
objectives. Job design follow job analysis. Job design means deciding the contents of a job. It fixes the duties and
responsibilities of the job, the methods of doing the job, and the relationships between the job holder (manager) and his
superiors, subordinates, and colleagues.
Job design follows job analysis i.e. it is the next step after job analysis. It aims at outlining and organising tasks, duties
and responsibilities into a single unit of work for the achievement of certain objectives. It also outlines the methods and
relationships that are essential for the success of a certain job. In simpler terms it refers to the what, how much, how
many and the order of the tasks for a job/s.

Job design essentially involves integrating job responsibilities or content and certain qualifications that are required to
perform the same. It outlines the job responsibilities very clearly and also helps in attracting the right candidates to the
right job. Further it also makes the job look interesting and specialised.

Job design helps to determine:

 what tasks are done,
 how the tasks are done,
 how many tasks are done and
 In what order the tasks are done.
Through job design, organizations try to raise productivity levels by offering nonmonetary rewards such as greater
satisfaction from a sense of personal achievement in meeting the increased challenge and responsibility of one’s work.

The whole process of job design is aimed to address various problems within the organisational setup, those that pertain
to ones description of a job and the associated relationships. More specifically the following areas are fine tuned:

 Checking the work overload.

 Checking upon the work under load.
 Ensuring tasks are not repetitive in nature.
 Ensuring that employees don not remain isolated.
 Defining working hours clearly.
 Defining the work processes clearly.

TECHNIQUES OF JOB DESIGN

1. Job Simplification.
2. Job Rotation.
3. Job Enlargement.
4. Job Enrichment.
5. Job Reengineering.

1. Job Simplification
Job is simplified or specialized. The job is broken down into small parts, and each part is assigned to an individual.
To be more specific, work simplification is mechanical pacing of work, repetitive work processes, working only on one
part of a product, predetermining tools and techniques, restricting interaction amongst employees, few skills
requirements.
Work simplification is used when jobs are not specialized.

2. Job Rotation
Job rotation means systematically moving workers from one job to another.
When incumbents become bored with routine jobs, job rotation is an answer to it. Here jobs remain unchanged, but the
incumbents shift from one job to another.
On the positive side, it increases the intrinsic reward potential of a job because of the different skills and abilities needed
to perform it. Workers become more competent in several jobs, know various jobs, and improve the self-image and
personal growth.
Further, the worker becomes more valuable to the organization. On the negative side, it may not be much enthusiastic, or
efficiency may not be more.
Besides, jobs may not improve the relationships between tasks, while activities and objectives remain unchanged.
Further training costs also rise, and it can also de-motivate intelligent and ambitious trainees who seek specific
responsibilities in their chosen specialties.

3. Job Enlargement
Job enlargement means assigning workers additional same-level activities. Job enlargement changes the jobs to include
more and/or different tasks. It means expanding the number of tasks or duties assigned to a given job. Job enlargement is
naturally opposite to work simplification.
Adding more tasks or duties to a job does not mean that new skills and abilities are needed. There is only horizontal
expansion.
It is with the same skills taking additional responsibilities like extending working hours etc. Job enlargement may
involve breaking up the existing work system and redesigning a new work system.

4. Job Enrichment
Job enrichment is the improvisation of both task efficiency and human satisfaction by building into people’s jobs,
specifically, greater scope for personal achievement and recognition, more challenging and responsible work, and more
opportunity for individual advancement and growth.
An enriched job will have more responsibility, more autonomy (vertical enrichment), more variety of tasks (horizontal
enrichment), and more growth opportunities. The employee does more planning and controlling with less supervision but
more self-evaluation.

5. Job Reengineering
Reengineering means redesigning a business process so that small multidisciplinary self-managing teams get the task
done together, all at once. Reengineering identifies the desired outcome of a system or subsystem and restructures jobs
and even departments to increase performance radically.
Often this is done by eliminating unneeded steps and clustering related responsibilities into one job or team organized
around the process.

FACTORS AFFECTING JOB DESIGN

Broadly speaking, the various factors that affect a job design can be classified under three heads.

They are:
 1. Organizational Factors.
2. Environmental Factors.
3. Behavioral Factors.

1. Organizational Factors

Organizational factors that affect job design can be work nature or characteristics, workflow, organizational practices,
and ergonomics.

Work Nature: There are various job elements, and job design is required to classify various tasks into a job or a coherent
set of jobs. The various tasks may be planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, etc., and all these are to be considered
while designing a job.
Ergonomics: Ergonomics aims to design jobs so that the physical abilities and individual traits of employees are taken
into consideration to ensure efficiency and productivity.
Workflow: Product and service type often determines the sequence of a workflow. A balance is required between the
various product or service processes, and a job design ensures this.
Culture: Organizational culture determines the way tasks are carried out at the workplace. Practices are methods or
standards laid out for carrying out a certain task. These practices often affect the job design, especially when the
practices are not aligned to the interests of the unions.

2. Environmental Factors

Environmental factors affect job design to a considerable extent. These factors include both internal as well as external
factors.
They include factors like employee skills and abilities, their availability, and their socio-economic and cultural prospects.

Employee availability and abilities: Employee skills, abilities, and availability play a crucial role in designing jobs. The
above-mentioned factors of employees who will perform the job are taken into consideration. Designing a more
demanding job and above their skill set will lead to decreased productivity and employee satisfaction.
Socio-economic and cultural expectations: Jobs are nowadays becoming more employee-centered rather than process-
centered. They are, therefore, designed to keep the employees into consideration. In addition, the literacy level among
the employees is also on the rise. They now demand jobs that are to their liking and competency and which they can
perform the best.

3. Behavioural Factors

Behavioural factors or human factors pertain to human needs and need to be satisfied to ensure productivity at the
workplace. They include elements like autonomy, diversity, feedback, etc. A brief explanation of them is given below:

Autonomy: Employees should work in an open environment rather than one that contains fear. It promotes creativity,
independence and leads to increased efficiency.
Feedback: Feedback should be an integral part of the work. Each employee should receive proper feedback about his
work performance.
Diversity: Repetitive jobs often make work monotonous, which leads to boredom. A job should carry sufficient diversity
and variety so that it remains as interesting with every passing day. Job variety/diversity should be given due importance
while designing a job.
Use of Skills and abilities: Jobs should be an employee rather than process-centered. Though due emphasis needs to be
given to the latter, jobs should be designed so that an employee can make full use of his abilities and perform the job
effectively.

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