Job Design

2010

Erasmus University Rotterdam, Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, Woudestein, T12-59, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands Keywords: employee engagement; individual job redesign; JD–R model; job crafting; positive organisational behaviour

Job design is an effective tool which is used in order on the one hand to meet the needs of the employees and on the other to satisfy the interests of the organisation. Three of the main job design techniques that discussed in this paper are job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment. Job rotation enables the development of the employees' skills, their organizational retention, reduces job boredom, while at the same time it controls the work-related musculoskeletal disorders and reduces the exposure of workers to work-related injuries. Job enlargement adds more tasks to the existing tasks of the employee, thus increasing employee participation in the decision-making process. Job enrichment makes jobs more challenging and interesting and also enables the participation of employees in the decision-making process. The main conclusion of the literature review is that job design, if effective, manages to stimulate employees' interest to work and to increase their job satisfaction, leading to high levels of employee performance and productivity.

Organizations encounter the challenge of ensuring that the jobs are designed identifying the skills and motivation factors of employees. It is essential to design jobs so that stress can be reduced, motivation can be enhanced, and satisfaction of employees and their performance can be improved so that organizations can effectively compete in the global marketplace. The nature and characteristics of employees' work have a great impact on worker motivation and the way they perform at work. The present study aims to identify the key issues of job design research and practice. To provide the context for the account that follows, the researcher first takes a backward glance at job design. A conceptual framework has been proposed to show the construct of job design by job rotation, job enrichment and job enlargement and relationship of job design with employee performance. Then a brief description about the approaches to job design with emphasis on the job characteristics approach is discussed. The research study mainly focuses on understanding the role of job design on employee motivation and the subsequent impact on their productivity. The findings indicate that positive correlation exists between job design, motivation and performance of employees. INTRODUCTION Job deign came about with swift scientific and industrial advancements at the turn of the 20th century when mass production and assembly line operations emerged. As jobs have been more specialized, the need for a motivated management of employees has become essential. It is also important for the HR departments of organizations to understand the importance of job design because better is the job design more will be the motivation there for the employee to perform better. The idea behind this research is to identify factors which play an important role in job design and secondly to know that whether these concepts of job design will be helpful to motivate employees, increase employee performance and productivity. As stated by Cook (1997) the objective of good job design is to design jobs which allow people to perform tasks in a safe, efficient and economical manner which facilitate the realization of various organizational goals such as profit and increased production. According to Knapp and Mujtaba (2010) job design can be defined as changing the content and processes of a job to increase an employee's satisfaction, motivation and productivity. Buchanan (1979) defined job design as specifying the contents or methods of any job in such a way that various requirements of the job holder can be effectively satisfied. Effective job design is measure of the degree to which the employee is involved in his tasks and assignments. Outcomes of an effectively designed job according to likes and dislikes of the employee are involvement, commitment, motivation, and satisfaction which ultimately lead to performance maximization and goals achievement.

The survival of any organization in the competitive society lies in its ability to train its human resource to be creative, innovative, inventive will invariably enhances performance and increase competitive advantage. Training has been recognized as one of managerial tools that enhance job satisfaction globally.