The job design model

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A model of job design is presented in Exhibit 23. This model incorporates the basic managerial concepts, critical dimensions of the job and psychological states, and expected outcomes. Understanding the motivational assumption behind this model and the program's expected consequences will permit an examination of the desired changes; then we can explore what steps management can take to effect those desired changes and create the desired outcomes.

The assumption behind the successful application of this tool is that intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, motivation works best in the long run, and proper application will result in more productive workers. The ultimate reward for an employee who is motivated intrinsically is completing a challenging piece of work and knowing he or she did a good job.

If job redesign is properly applied, it will result in the creation of more interesting jobs. Employees will enjoy the work more. Productivity, in terms of quality and perhaps quantity, will increase while turnover and absenteeism will be reduced.

Figure 8.1 Exhibit 23: A model of job design. 

(Source: Craig Eric Schneier and Richard W Beatty, Personnel Administration Today, Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1978, 383.)  

On the other hand, not all employees want more challenging jobs. For those who are primarily motivated by money and other external factors, designing more interesting and challenging jobs may actually produce confusion and concern. Productivity is likely to go down. Some employees also may lack the ability to handle more complicated jobs. For them, the results in terms of production are liable to be negative. Some managers believe that employees who are involved in redesigning jobs may also feel they should be able to exert more influence over the workplace than the managers want or are willing to allow. In addition, if we redesign jobs to make them more challenging and complex, presumably we will need to hire more educated and experienced people to staff them. This will tend to increase the wages paid for those positions.

Behavioral scientists have found that three factors are critical to satisfaction and motivation on the job. First, employees must feel that what they are doing is meaningful in terms of their own set of values. The waiter who feels that serving food is demeaning will be satisfied with neither himself nor his job. Second, employees must feel personally responsible for the outcome. Third, employees must learn fairly regularly how well their jobs are being performed. When employees are not told, they feel as if they are in a vacuum. They are given no chance to improve because they do not know whether they need to improve. For maximum satisfaction, jobs should be ranked high in all three of these areas.

Five core job characteristics have been identified that affect the three psychological states to produce positive or negative outcomes.

How meaningful a job appears to the person doing it depends on three of the job dimensions: the variety of skills used, the extent to which the job entails doing something from beginning to end, or task identity, and the extent to which the job affects others in a substantial way, or task significance.

The more skills are called into use in performing a task, the more meaningful the task is to the employee performing it. The job seems more important because it requires more skills. It also is less boring because of the variety of skills required.

With task identity, it is more meaningful for an employee to be responsible for the preparation of a complete dinner salad than to be given the task of solely preparing lettuce for all salads. Similarly, employees who feel that what they do has an impact on whether guests enjoy themselves will think their jobs are more significant than employees who perceive that customers will not notice their efforts.

A fourth core job dimension deals with the amount of autonomy in the job. The more autonomy workers experience, the more personal responsibility they will feel for the outcome of the work. Employees in highly autonomous jobs know that they are responsible for success or failure. The management trainee who is urged to consult the manual for the answer to problems can use the book as a crutch in place of initiative and judgment. The manager then is not responsible for guest satisfaction or dissatisfaction; the manual is.

The fifth core characteristic of the job is feedback. The more feedback employees have, the better they know how they are performing. Feedback is most effective when it comes from the work itself.

Research has been conducted to determine the extent to which job satisfaction is moderated by how strong an individual's need for growth is. It was thought that for those who have a low need to grow in the job, job redesign would have little positive or perhaps even a negative impact. That is, employees who had all the responsibility and meaningfulness they could handle or wanted to handle would experience reduced productivity when jobs were enhanced. In fact, the results of the research have been mixed. While some results show that the strength of growth needs does moderate the amount of job satisfaction experienced, other studies show no effect. It appears that job satisfaction can be increased for all employees, but the increase is greater for those who have strong needs for growth.