JOB DESIGN THEORIES

Job Design Theories 

Figure 1- Job Design Theories

“The job needs to be designed so that the tasks have a clear purpose and relate to the company mission.”(DeCenzo et al.,2016)

There are three theories of good job design for human motivation and to have a sense of accomplishment in their day today work 

• job relevance, 
• job enlargement, 
• job enrichment. 
• Job Rotation

Job Relevance

Job relevance is referred as the fittingness between the specific job role and the person skill and the capability on that job role. This is mainly focus on specialization and standardization of man as a machine. If the job is relevance to the person, that person feel that their skills, knowledge can meet the job description and understand how to meet their customers or subordinates needs. Scientific management has been yielded productivity and profitability but at a cost. Although specialization can increase quality.

Job Enlargement 

Job enlargement is referred as addressing issue by expanding the number of tasks one person is responsible for than the person is capable. For example, instead of performing one task in a series, a worker would be responsible for a series of tasks. Job enlargement must be done with training to develop competency to perform the additional tasks. If effectively designed the job enlargement encourage the satisfaction. Quality may remain high or increase since there’s a greater understanding of dependencies. If job enlargement is perceived to be simply an addition of more rote tasks with no emotional return, satisfaction and productivity will not increase and may in fact decrease further and it may cause the employee turnover as well. (Lumen,n.d)

Job Enrichment

The theory of job enrichment was described by Frederick Herzberg, who famously stated that “if you want people to do a good job, give them a good job to do.” Herzberg believed that “employee satisfaction can be enhanced through ‘job enrichment’–the addition of different tasks associated with a job that provides greater involvement and interaction with that job.” Specifically, he proposed that: “the job must use the full ability of the employee and provide them with sufficient challenge and any employee who demonstrates an increasing level of ability should be given correspondingly increasing levels of responsibility.”(Jones et al., 2014)

Job enrichment involves creating meaningful roles through feedback, encouragement, communication, and autonomy by the leadership and it aims is to create a healthy work environment and employee work-life balance that inherently motivates employees.

Job Rotation

Job rotation is referred as moving from one specialized job to another after certain period of time in order to do multiskilling the employees. It helps to increase the worker flexibility and easier scheduling

McGregor theory of X and Y

Figure 2- Mc Gregor's Theory of  X & Y (Toppr,n.d)

Theory X and Theory Y was developed by McGregor in 1960. He believed and described that there are two fundamental approaches to get things done and beneficial to organization or workplace. This motivational theory is used by managers or the leadership to encourage or increase the performance of their subordinates (Toppr,n.d)

X Theory- Employees dislike to work and try to avoid their responsibilities. Managers have to be forced, controlled and threatened to employees to deliver their work. Employees are working only for money and personal benefits

Y Theory-Employees are self motivated and independent to work with a happy working environment. People are independently trying to achieve their goals and outcomes by making decisions without supervision and they are expecting reach their highest potential and give great value to their organizations instead of focusing on money (Toppr,n.d)

References

DeCenzo, D. Robbins, S. Verhulst, S.(2016) Fundamentals of Human Resource Management. John Wiley & SonsBinder [Online]. https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=-V4BCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (Accessed:25 November 2023)

Jones, DeEtta (2014) [Online]Available at:  "Want to Motivate Your Staff? Give Them a Good Job to Do." DeEtta Jones Blog(Accessed:25 November 2023)

Lume (n.d) Job Design Theories. Human Resources Management. [Online]Available at:   https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-humanresourcesmgmt/chapter/job-design-theories/#return-footnote-1269-1 (Accessed:25 November 2023)

Toppr.(n.d) McGregor’s Model of Motivation. Toppr. [Online]Available at:https://www.toppr.com/guides/fundamentals-of-economics-and-management-cma/leadership-and-management/mcgregors-model-of-motivation/#:~:text=Theory%20X%20stresses%20on%20the,individual%20is%20valued%20and%20appreciated (Accessed:25 November 2023)