What are the methods of job design?

Goals can be in many difference areas and include:

Task Variety

To alleviate boredom, avoid both excessive static body positions and repetitive movements. Design jobs to have a variety of tasks that require changes in body position, muscles used, and mental activities.

Two methods are job enlargement and job rotation. For example, if an employee normally assembles parts, the job may be enlarged to include new tasks such as work planning, inspection / quality control, or maintenance. Alternatively, the tasks may include working in the same department, but changing tasks every hour. For example, in a laundry facility employees can rotate between various stations (sorting, washer, dryer, iron, etc) as long as it provides for a change in physical or mental expenditure.

Skill Variety

Through job enlargement and job enrichment, often new skills are required.  Learning skills is often linked to job satisfaction, good mental health, and well-being.

Work Breaks / Rest Breaks

Rest breaks help alleviate the problems of unavoidable repetitive movements or static body positions. More frequent but shorter breaks (sometimes called "micro breaks") are sometimes preferable to fewer long breaks.

During rest breaks, encourage employees to change body position and to exercise. It is important that employees stretch and use different muscle groups. If the employee has been very active, a rest break should include a stationary activity or stretching.

Allowance for an Adjustment Period

When work demands physical effort, have an adjustment period for new employees and for all employees after holidays, layoffs, or illnesses. Allow time to become accustomed to the physical demands of work by gradually "getting in shape." Employees who work in extreme hot or cold conditions also need time to acclimatize.

Provide Training

Training in correct work procedures and equipment operation is needed so that employees understand what is expected of them and how to work safely. Training should be organized, consistent and ongoing. It may occur in a classroom or on the job.

Vary Mental Activities

Tasks should be coordinated so that they are balanced during the day for the individual employee as well as balanced among a group of employees. You may want to allow the employee some degree of choice as to what types of mental tasks they want to do and when. This choice will allow the employee to do tasks when best suited to their 'alertness' patterns during the day. Some people may prefer routine tasks in the morning (such as checklists or filling in forms) and save tasks such as problem solving until the afternoon, or vice versa.

There are various methods of job design. Some of them are explained below:

1. Scientific Management Approach:

This method is suggested by F.W Taylor. Under this method, jobs are narrowly defined. The job is simplified by breaking down the job into tasks. This task specifies not only what is to be done, but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing This further helps in work specialization.

Taylor suggested that, job should be designed first and then finding or fitting people to the job should be done next. He further argued that doing so; it not only decreases the cost of training and development but also motivates the people toward work. This approach is job oriented which can be used mostly in assembly line where same job are done repeatedly.

2. Herzberg’s Motivation –Hygiene Theory:

This method is suggested by Frederick Herzberg. He and his associates found that people like to work in those organizations where two factors – hygiene and motivator are presents.

Hygiene factors are pay, working condition (heating, lighting and ventilation), company policy and quality of supervision. These factor lead to an increase in Motivators are the feeling of self improvement, recognition, achievement and a desire for an acceptance of a greater responsibility.

Presence of motivator factors motivates the employees and leads to job satisfaction. However, presence of hygiene factors in job not necessarily motivates the employees but absence causes dissatisfaction in the ob and lead to low productivity. Since, dissatisfaction can be minimized by providing adequate salary, improving working condition. However, motivate factors are totally related to job itself.

Thus job should be designed in following ways.

1. 1. Employees should be made more accountable for his/her job by delegating some
   2. Individual are given opportunity to plan and schedule their own
   3. There should be as far as possible direct or face to face communication while working on that
   4. Work should design in such that the worker can consider doing his/her own
   5. Reward system should match the work

3. Job Rotation:

Job Rotation is the process of motivating employees by moving them from one job to another job for a shorter period of time. It is normally used to train different skills and techniques to the workers, so that one can work in different jobs at the time of urgency and It also helps to avoid the boredom and frustration caused by similar and repetitive jobs.

4. Job Enlargement:

Job Enlargement is the process of increasing the work load by adding the same nature of jobs or tasks into a job. E.g. the various tasks like operating camera, check sound, prepare lighting and report story can be added to video journalist job.

5. Job Enrichment:

Job enrichment is one of the mostly used techniques to motivate the employees at work. Under this technique, employees are free to set their goals, supervise their subordinates and enjoy power over others by planning and controlling their work and work related activities. This will enhance the employees’ commitment and and satisfaction.

Techniques of job enrichment are as follows:

1. Specific task: Assign specific task to the individual to develop
2. Combine task: Add similar job to one to increase job
3. Self-set standard: Allow the employees to set their own standard and
4. Minimal control: Provide greater autonomy to work and work related
5. Employee accountability: Make employee accountable for their
6. Feedback: Provide feedback to employees about performance

6. Job Characteristics Approach:

This approach is suggested by Hackman and This approach is based on premise (idea) that it is possible to alter a job’s character and create conditions of high work motivation, satisfaction and performance by recognizing that people respond differently to the same job. This method states that specific job characteristics affect job design. They are :-

1. 1. Skill Variety or the degree to which a job requires a job variety of different
   2. Task Identity or the degree to which a job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work.
   3. Task significance or degree to which a job provides substantial impact on the lives or work of other
   4. Autonomy or the degree to which job provides substantial freedom, independence and discretion to the individual in scheduling the work and in determining the procedures used to carry it out.
   5. Feedback or the degree to which carrying out the activities required by a job result in the individual obtaining direct and clear information about the effectiveness of his/her

7. The Open Social –Technical System Approach:

This approach is useful to design jobs to satisfy team or group employees. This approach implies that the work setting has to be seen in terms of two interrelated system: a social and technical system.

The open system denotes the constant interaction of the organization and the work group as units with a larger environment. The major elements of job designing by using an open social technical system includes:-

1. 1. Variation in the inputs and outputs of
   2. Estimates of relative importance of different
   3. Description of work roles, status, recruitment and
   4. Analysis of attitude to
   5. Analysis of the system of remuneration, wages
   6. Analysis of communication

8. Autonomous Work Group (Self-Managed Team):

Under this method, the group or team is assigned, who has full autonomy to take any decision related to work and work activities.

They are free to decide about the working methods, people involvement, people responsibility, leadership etc.

This method focused on group achievement rather than individual achievement. Due to freedom and the performance based reward system, employees are more motivated towards works and thus enhance productivity.

Job Simplification:In the job simplification technique, the job is simplified or specialized. A given job is divided into small sub-parts and each part is assigned to one individual employee. Job simplification is introduced when job designers feel that the jobs are not specialized enough.

Job Rotation: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. It is the process of preparing employees at a lower level to replace someone at the next higher level. It is generally done for the designations that are crucial for the effective and efficient functioning of the organization. By this to some extent boredom is reduced. However for this people interest is primary importance. By this they can also learn new things, new techniques, and new ways of doing better work. It may also happen that over a period of time they will be finding a job for which they are better suitable. They can also contribute in a better way to achieve the goals of the organization.

This aspect of job rotation can be seen widely applied in Retail scenario, where end user or consumer is in direct presence all through. This has for large extent reduced boredom, reduced irregularities due to familiarity, acquired new skills & assuming new and varied responsibilities. In other words it will lead to better job satisfaction, which is the ultimate goal for better contribution.

Job Enlargement:Job enlargement means expanding the scope of the job. Many tasks and duties are aggregated and assigned to a single job. It is opposite to job simplification. Job enlargement is an extension of Job rotation, exposing the people to several jobs without changing the job duties to be performed. He is taken off the boring job for a while & is allowed to take up a related task & so on. Monotony is relieved temporarily. Critics are of the opinion that this approach involves nothing more than having to perform several boring jobs rather than one. Job enlargement is to expand in several tasks than just to do one single task. It is also 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. This would also be considered multi tasking by which one person would do several persons jobs, saving the company money and man hours that normally would be paid to additional workers.   Small companies may not have as many opportunities for promotions, so they try to motivate employees through job enlargement. For example when I worked at a restaurant. I would bus the tables, wash the dishes, and run food upstairs. If they had just one person doing each job on the same night, it would cost the management three times the money. This adds more functions; increases variety of tasks and this is short lived. It cannot enrich the human content of job. The ultimate answer is Job Enrichment.

Job Enrichment:Job enrichment means making the job rich in its contents so that an employee will get more satisfaction while performing that job. It upgrades the responsibility, scope and challenge. A vast majority of the jobs are repetitive and monotonous in nature. This results in reducing the motivational content and human element of the job with repercussions on performance. 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.

Job Enrichment tries to embellish the job with factors of motivation: Achievement – Recognition – Increased Responsibilities – Self Involvement – Opportunities for Growth – Advancement – Increased Competence. Job Enrichment is concerned with redesigning the job to include a variety of work content; that gives the person more autonomy & responsibility for planning, directing & controlling his own performance & provide opportunity for personal growth & meaningful work experience. Job Enrichment also for decentralization of decision making rights to individual over areas that directly affect his task functions.

The emphasis is on the result of efforts rather than the procedure to carry out the work, thus making the job result oriented. This also results in motivation, satisfaction in believing oneself to be personally accountable for results & being able to know how satisfactory ones efforts are. By Job Enrichment, condition or state of human capabilities which were not fully utilized & creation of frustration among the individual is removed to the extent possible.

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