The Future of Work -Job Design in Human Resource Management

 Crafting Role for Success: An Advanced Guide to Job Design

Job design is the deliberate optimization of the planning of work to increase its value for

employers and employees and to make work meet organizational objectives. Proper job

design has been further explained as a situation whereby an employee’s tasks match his or her

competencies as well as organizational objectives, giving the employee challenging and

interesting tasks to perform. In this blog, we focus on discussing the general conception of

job design, consider the existing theories, and discuss job design’s relevance to organizational

performance.

What is Job Design?

Job design is the process of specifying the tasks, roles, and related working methods that are

connected with responsibility, thus defining the working experience for any employee (Grant

and Parker, 2009) . This is not only about deciding on what work ought to be performed but

also how it is done, on the returns it yields concerning the motivation of its personnel and the

overall satisfaction of an employee. Proper job design can enhance the level of task

satisfaction, decrease turnover intent, and thus have the potential to increase productivity

(Wood et al., 2012) .

The Purpose of Job Design:

The first objective of job design is to achieve increased employee efficiency and satisfaction.

It matches a set of quantifiable task-related demands to qualitative aspects of employment

including motivation, interest variety, and importance of the task. Well-thought-out

employment can improve morale, reduce truancy, and improve performance in any

organization, all of which translates to higher efficacy (Baker‐McClearn et al., 2010) . Job

design too is essential to employee well-being since it prevents work-related stress and gives

a sense of job advancement.

Theoretical Approach to Job Design:

1. Job Characteristics Model (JCM)

The JCM is a framework developed by Working that defines the job characteristics.

One of the most widely known models in job design was developed by Hackman and

Oldham in 1976 and called the Job Characteristics Model (JCM) (Kleinbeck, 1990) .

JCM suggested that certain characteristics can have a bearing on job satisfaction,

motivation, and performance. As provided in JCM, five significant variables,

including skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback result

in psychological states important for motivation and job satisfaction (Zaman et al.,

2020) .

 Skill Variety: The variety of competencies that may be expected from a job

can raise the level of interest of employees applying for the positions, as they

feel more competent and stimulated.

 Task Identity: Comprises carrying out a whole task or piece of work from

beginning to end and is satisfying in that way.

 Task Significance: Interpersonal influence, or the degree to which a job can

affect others, can make employees feel that they are contributing towards

changing something for the better.

 Autonomy: The supervision that the employee has over the jobs; the extent to

which the employees can take responsibility for the jobs.

 Feedback: Every time performance information is given to the employee, they

are motivated as they know how they are being assessed and what they need to

do to do a better job.

When five characteristics are present in a job, the employee finds the job meaningful,

has some responsibility, and has knowledge of results, which enhance motivation,

performance, and job satisfaction.

2. Job Enrichment and Job Enlargement

Job enrichment and job enlargement are two techniques often used in job design to

improve employee satisfaction and motivation:

 Job Enrichment: This involves enhancing the scope of a job so as to provide it

with more challenge and deciding to make authority, which in some ways

makes work more meaningful (Yukl and Becker, 2006) .

 Job Enlargement: Expanding a job by adding more tasks to narrow down the

repetitiveness of tasks to avoid exhaustion of the employees. However, in

contrast to job enlargement, it does not raise the degree of explained

responsibility but may enhance involvement by variety (Parker, 2014) .

Benefits of Effective Job Design:

1. Increased Employee Motivation

If job designs contain components of the JCM motivating factors, motivation is likely

to be improved. The fact that employees feel that they are being challenged and

valued with clear purposes for their work with them to do, they will perform better on

the job.

2. Higher Productivity and Efficiency

This is because well-designed jobs allow employees to harness their skills to the

optimum, eliminate unnecessary and tiresome repetition, and enable the employees to

work smart. Thus, the employees who are engaged in such positions that are designed

for variety, autonomy, and meaningfulness come out to be more productive and

accurate.

3. Reduce Turnover and Absenteeism

A purposeful, worthy employment will lower the likelihood of the worker looking for

another job and increase his attendance. Having content employees provides benefits

in that you lose less money on turnover as current employees are more likely to stay if

they are happy with what they are doing and the pay they receive.

4. Enhanced Employee well-being

Organizational job design, which addresses the social and psychological requirements

of employees, enhances their mental and physical health. Consequently, the

organizations that pay attention to how jobs are designed end up having a healthier

employee population.

Conclusion

Job design is not simply the rationing of tasks but the purposeful construction of parts of the

organization that engage and fulfill employees. It can be deduced that job design is by nature

complex and involves several aspects such as the Job Characteristics Model and Job

Enrichment & Job Enlargement address various aspects of job design. Therefore, in order to

foster a motivated and productive workforce and to arrive at work solutions that are

sustainable in the long run, it is essential for Companies to set up roles that address

institutional as well as personal constituencies’ requirements.

References

Baker‐McClearn, D. et al. (2010) ‘Absence management and presenteeism: the pressures on

employees to attend work and the impact of attendance on performance’, Human Resource

Management Journal, 20(3), pp. 311–328. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-

8583.2009.00118.x.

Grant, A.M. and Parker, S.K. (2009) ‘7 Redesigning Work Design Theories: The Rise of

Relational and Proactive Perspectives’, Academy of Management Annals, 3(1), pp. 317–375.

Available at: https://doi.org/10.5465/19416520903047327.

Kleinbeck, U. (1990) Work motivation. Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.

Parker, S.K. (2014) ‘Beyond Motivation: Job and Work Design for Development, Health,

Ambidexterity, and More’, Annual Review of Psychology, 65(1), pp. 661–691. Available at:

https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115208.

Wood, S. et al. (2012) ‘Enriched job design, high involvement management and

organizational performance: The mediating roles of job satisfaction and well-being’, Human

Relations, 65(4), pp. 419–445. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726711432476.

Yukl, G.A. and Becker, W.S. (2006) ‘Effective Empowerment in Organizations’,

Organization Management Journal, 3(3), pp. 210–231. Available at:

https://doi.org/10.1057/omj.2006.20.

Zaman, U. et al. (2020) ‘Having a whale of a time: Linking self-determination theory (SDT),

job characteristics model (JCM) and motivation to the joy of gig work’, Cogent Business &

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