CHAPTER 4
Job Design &
Work Method
Analysis
Job Design
Job Design
1) Job Specialization
The term specialization describe jobs that have a very narrow scope.
The main rationale for specialization is the ability to concentrate one’s efforts &
thereby become proficient at that type of work.
The knowledge or training required of a specialist.
The advantage of these high specialized jobs is that they yield high productivity
& relatively low unit costs & they are largely responsible for the high standard of
living.
Unfortunately, many of the lower-level jobs can be described as monotonous or
downright boring, & are the source of much of the dissatisfaction among many
industrial workers.
Many workers are frustrated & this manifests itself in turnover & absenteeism.
The seriousness of these problems caused job designers & others to seek ways
of alleviating them. Some approaches are discussed in the following sections.
Job Design
2) Behavioral Approaches to Job Design
(Job rotation, Job enlargement, Job enrichment)
❖ Having workers periodically exchange jobs.
❖ Shifting of cross trained workers to other tasks.
❖ When the employee is allowed to move from one specialized job to another.
❖ Increase the job range & the perception of variety of in job content
❖ This allows workers to broaden their learning experience & enables them to
fill in for others in the event of sickness or absenteeism.
Job Enlargement
VS
Job Enrichment
❖ Giving a worker a larger portion of the total task, by horizontal loading.
❖ Horizontal expansion of the job through the additional work is on the same
level of skill & responsibility as the original job.
❖ Add tasks requiring similar skill to an existing job.
❖ Increase job range (number of tasks) but not dept.
❖ The goal is to make the job more interesting by increasing the variety of skills
required & providing the worker with more recognizable contribution to the
overall output.
❖ A person hired to handle the reception work is
responsible for handling customer enquiries, queries and
calls on the front desk. She kept on doing the same work for
two years and got bored. Few more task were added to her
job profile like interacting with the clients and making
outbound calls to create new customers for the company.
These added tasks reduced her monotony.
❖ Giving a worker a larger portion of the total task, by horizontal loading.
❖ Horizontal expansion of the job through the additional work is on the same
level of skill & responsibility as the original job.
❖ Involves an increase in the level of responsibilities for planning &
coordination tasks, by vertical loading.
❖ Vertical expansion of the job through increased the cognitive or intellectual
requirement for worker responsibility.
❖ Adding work planning or inspection or control to a routine assembly task.
❖ Able to motivate potential of worker satisfaction.
❖ A human resource executive was initially responsible for maintaining the employees’ record and calling
the candidates for interviews as directed by the HR manager. To add more value to the HR executive’s job
profile, the manager gave him some authority related
to the work already assigned to him.
The new responsibilities included providing the
employees’ provident fund details to the accounts
department, keeping contact with the provident fund
office and initial scrutinizing of the candidates for the
interviews. These additional responsibilities hold
authority and accountability.
❖ Involves an increase in the level of responsibilities for planning &
coordination tasks, by vertical loading.
❖ Vertical expansion of the job through increased the cognitive or intellectual
requirement for worker responsibility.
Job Enlargement
VS
Job Enrichment
Job Design
3) Motivation
❖ Key factor in many aspects of life
❖ Motivation not only can it influence quality & productivity, it also contributes
to the work environment.
❖ Awareness of motivation factor can help management to develop a motivational
framework that encourages workers to respond in a positive manner to the
goals of the organization.
❖ Why people work?
a) Salary
b) Socialization
c) Self-actualization
d) Status
e) Physiological aspect of work
f) Sense of purpose & accomplishment
Job Design
4) Team
❖ Team members may be drawn from the same functional area or from several
functional areas, depending on the scope of the problem.
❖ Self-Directed Teams referred to as Self-Management Teams, are designed to
achieve a higher level of teamwork & employee involvement.
❖ Team members work through consensus to plan, manage, & control their
assigned work flow.
❖ Although such teams are not given absolute authority to make all decisions, they are
typically empowered to make changes in the work process under their control.
❖ Because they have a vested interest & personal involvement in changes, they
tend to work harder to ensure that the desired results are achieved than they would
if management had implemented the changes.
A group of empowered individuals working together through consensus to
reach a common goal.
❖ Can be for short term or long term
❖ Effective because:
(a) provide employees empowered,
(b) ensure core job characteristics
(c) meet individual psychological needs
To maximize effectiveness, managers should:
❖ Ensure those who have legitimate contributions are on the team
❖ Provide management support
❖ Ensure the necessary training
❖ Endorse clear objectives and goals
❖ Financial and non-financial rewards
❖ Supervisors must release control
Many organizations have adopted teams to foster mutual trust & commitment &
provide the core job characteristics.
Team are easily provide employee empowerment, ensure core job
characteristics, and satisfy many of the psychological needs of individual team
members.
A job design continuum is shown below:
❖ For these teams to function properly, team members must be trained in quality,
process improvement and teamwork.
❖ Provide improved responsiveness to problems, they have a personal stake
in making the process work, and they require less time to implement
improvements.
❖ Higher quality, higher productivity, and greater worker satisfaction.
❖ Higher levels of employee satisfaction can lead to less turn-over &
absenteeism, resulting in lower costs to train new workers & less need to fill
in for absent employees.
1) Clearly stated & commonly held vision & goals
2) Talent & skills required to meet goals
3) Clear understanding of team members’ roles & functions
4) Efficient & shared understanding of procedures & norms
5) Effective & skilled interpersonal relations.
6) A system of reinforcement & celebration.
7) Clear understanding of the team’s relationship to the greater organization.
Job Design
5) Ergonomics
❖ Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the
understanding of interactions among humans & other elements of a
system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data & methods to
design in order to optimize human well-being & overall system performance.
❖ It contributes to the design & evaluation of tasks, jobs, products, environments
& systems in order to make them compatible with the needs, abilities &
limitations of people.
❖ It helps to increase productivity by reducing worker discomfort & fatigue.
❖ Many examples of ergonomics applications can be found in operations
management.
❖ Technological changes have broadened the scope of
ergonomics, as hand-eye coordination & decision making
become more important in the workplace.
Ergonomics is defined as “the study of work”.
❖ Understanding ergonomics helps improves human performance.
❖ Male & female adults have limited configurations (pattern / structure),
thus design of tools & workplace depends on the study of people.
❖ The design of the workplace can ease the work or can make it
impossible.
❖ Current trend is the usage of computer modeling to analyze human
motions and efforts.
➢ E.g : height of a writing desk
✓
Operator input to machines
❖ Operator responses to machines like hand tools pedals, levers need to be
elevated.
❖ Managers need to ensure operators have the strength, reflexes, perception,
& mental capacity to use the equipment.
❖ Poor design can cause “carpal tunnel syndrome” = Doing any work that puts
a lot of strain on your hands or wrists could lead to carpal tunnel syndrome.
e.g., a badly designed keyboard
Work
Method
Analysis
A detailed step-by-step analysis how a work is done or accomplished.
A system that involves developing work procedures that are safe & produce quality
products efficiently.
From general to specific details of the job, concentrating on arrangement of the
workplace and movements of materials and workers.
Can be good source of productivity improvements.
The needs of method analysis can come from different sources:
1) Change in tools & equipment
2) Change in product design & introduction of new product
3) Change in materials or procedures
4) Government regulations & contractual agreements
5) Other factors (e.g., accident, quality problems)
Method analysis is done for both existing jobs and new jobs.
Identify the operation to be studied & gather all pertinent facts about tools,
equipment, materials and so on.
For existing job, discuss the job with the operator & supervisor to get their input.
Study & document the present method of an existing job using process charts.
For new jobs, develop chart based on info about the activities involved.
Analyze the job.
Propose new methods.
Install new methods.
Follow up implementation to assure that improvements have been achieved.
CHAPTER 4
Job Design &
Work Method
Analysis