Whats the meaning of job design?
Definition: Job design is the process of grouping the responsibilities and tasks that better describe a job position as well as the qualifications required to adequately perform it. Job design aims to properly divide the whole work needed in an organization to accomplish its mission among the structured positions and to define the key capabilities that each occupant should have. Show
What Does Job Design Mean?Job design must follow job analysis and should produce job descriptions. When designing jobs, the company distributes all activities that must be done among well-defined positions. Key responsibilities must be clearly stated as well as secondary tasks that also have to be accomplished. Job design aims to properly assign tasks under a logical, coherent way. The process likewise should contain definitions of the most relevant skills and aptitudes required in each job position. A proper job design supports adequate organizational climate because every employee knows accurately what others expect from him. It similarly facilitates hiring processes due to concise requirements that should be met by the applicants. It also allows appropriate performance evaluation and training because each job position points to well-defined standards. ExampleAllan James is a young professional recently graduated in Business Administration. He attended a job interview at a well-established multinational manufacturer. The interviewer clearly described the job that Allan would do thanks through a complete job description that showed a comprehensive job design. Allan knew that his primary responsibility would be to evaluate effectiveness and cost of marketing campaigns developed by marketing departments operating at eight subsidiaries around the world. He likewise had to recommend changes, to define best practices, to unify methods and to train people personally in relation to the redesigned procedures. Reports, relationships and complementary activities were carefully described as part of the job design. The recruiter finally selected Allan as the most adequate applicant because of the key qualifications required by the position were satisfactory found in him. Who decides how many people should be working in a certain role in a company? How do businesses decide on the types of roles that should be created within the organisation? These types of questions are often addressed by human resource (HR) managers. Job design is the process of establishing the duties and responsibilities that will be included in employees' roles. Human Resource (HR) managers aim is to design work duties specific to the individual so that it allows the employee to maximise their performance and stay engaged and motivated. HR managers must take time to design each duty included in the job role in a way where it could be performed most effectively and efficiently possible. The key elements of job designThe main elements of job design that HR managers are concerned with include: Fig. 1 - Key elements of job design
Aspects of job designThe four key aspects of job design (see Figure 1 below) include:
Fig. 2 - Key aspects of job design Importance of job designJob design is important for every organisation, as each designed job is guidance that employees will follow when performing their role. An effectively designed job communicates all the duties involved in the role clearly to employees so that they understand their responsibilities and expectations. A well-designed job should be structured following key elements that involve task, motivation, resource allocation and rewards. Also should incorporate these techniques such as job rotation, job simplification, job enrichment and job enlargement. The structure and techniques incorporated in the job design will help to increase employees’ motivation, skills and maximise their performance. The key benefit of a well-designed job is that it will have a positive impact on organisational goals and objectives. Motivated and skilled employees are more likely to achieve set targets. On the other hand, poorly designed jobs can bring negative results to the company. If the duties that are listed in the job description are unclear, involve too many or too few tasks, it will make employees’ jobs chaotic, inefficient and boring. If techniques such as job rotation, enrichment and enlargement are not put in place employees may feel demotivated to perform the same duties every day, which can lead to low-performance rates and high staff turnover. Job design processThe job design process is aimed to guide HR managers to design effective jobs that will assist in maximising employees’ performance, increase their engagement and avoid repetitive and boring tasks. The job design process follows key steps. They are: 1. First managers need to decide what important content will be displayed on the job description 2. Then managers need to consider skills and techniques that are required to perform a job 3. Managers need to decide on the job length if the job can be done in full time or part-time hours. The working hours must be set precisely as that will cost money to the organisation. For example, If the job can be done in part-time hours but the company sets full-time hours for it, the company will be wasting money paying a full-time salary for unnecessary hours. 4. Managers should try and avoid listing tasks that can be done by machines. 5. There should be no occurring conflicts with other jobs. 6. Establishing relationships in the organisation that job role will involve. For example, employees working in the marketing department will require to have some sort of relationship with colleagues working in the same department. Fig. 3 - Job design process The techniques such as job rotation, job simplification, job enrichment and job enlargement should also be incorporated in the job ensign process to make the jobs more motivating for employees and allow them to learn additional skills. After following this process managers should be able to design an effective job. Models of job designThis section will cover models of the job design from the theoretical perspective. The key models of job design involve Taylorism and the Socio-technical systems approach. Fig. 4 - Models of job design Job Design: TaylorismTaylorism is also referred to as scientific management. This job design model includes scientific methods and mainly focuses on efficiency. There are key principles that managers should follow when designing a job according to this model. These principles are:
Job Design: Socio-technical systems approachThis job design model incorporates social and technical aspects of the job and highly focuses on making a job that will fulfil employees’ needs. The key principles of this job design model include:
Job characteristicsThis job design model involves five key principles of job characteristics that are aimed to motivate employees in the way that they feel that their contribution is important to the organisation. These five principles are:
These five key principles can lead employees to experience psychological states. Which are:
These positive experiences will lead to positive outcomes such as increased motivation and job satisfaction will lead to more productivity and overall increased organisational performance. Job characteristics modelThe job characteristics model also called The Job Characteristics Theory (JCT) and core characteristics model was designed by Hackman and Oldham. This job characteristics model involved five principles that are required to be incorporated into job design. These are:
Fig. 5 - Job characteristics model Job characteristics can be incorporated into the job design so that employees can experience positive psychological states. Psychological states include:
Find out more about job characteristics in our explanation on Hackman & Oldham's Model! Job Design - Key takeaways
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