PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

What is job design?

Introduction
The nature of work and its organization has interested managers, economists and social
scientists for as long as people have been employed by others to engage in productive
activity.

Managers have largely been interested in maximizing output from available resources.

Economists and social scientists have raised questions about the organization of work in
relation to issues of the individual and society in general. The aims of this section are to:

 Define selected terms applicable to job design and work organization

 Examine the aspects of traditional thinking applicable to job design and work
organization
 Propose alternative factors to be considered that take cognizance of employees needs
 Generate some ideas on how these factors may be applied in work situations in
existing and new organizations
 Stress the importance of fitting the work to the worker, in order to achieve the
productivity benefit

Job Design Defined

 Job design and work organization is the specification of the contents, method and
relationships of jobs to satisfy technological and organizational requirements as well
as the personal needs of job holders.

 According to Michael Armstrong, "Job Design is the process of deciding on the

contents of a job in terms of its duties and responsibilities, on the methods to be used
in carrying out the job, in terms of techniques, systems and procedures, and on the
relationships that should exist between the job holder and his superior subordinates
and colleagues."

Factors Affecting Job Design:

Job Design is affected by 3 categories of factors:

Organizational Factors:
The organizational factors that affect job design are characteristics of task, work flow,
ergonomics and work practices.
  Characteristic of task:

Each task consist of 3 elements, namely, planning, executing and controlling. Job design
involves the assembly of a number of task into a job or a group of jobs. A job may
require an employee to perform a variety of connected task. All these characteristics of
jobs are taken into consideration for job design.

 Workflow:

The flow of work in an organization is strongly influenced by the nature of the product.
This product usually suggests the sequence and balance between jobs if the work is to be
completed efficiently.

 Ergonomics:

Ergonomics is concerned with the designing and shaping of jobs as per the physical
abilities and characteristics of individuals so that they can perform their jobs effectively.

 Work Practices:

Work practices are the set methods of performing work. This can affect the job design as
there is little flexibility in designing the job especially if the work practices are approved
by employee unions.

Environmental Factors:
Environmental factors affect job design. Environmental factors include employee abilities &
availability and Social & Cultural expectations.

 Employee Abilities & Availability:

Abilities and availability of people plays an important role while designing jobs. Due
attention needs to be given to the employee who will actually perform the job.
 Social And Cultural Expectations:

Jobs should be designed keeping the employees in mind. Due to increase in literacy rate
and knowledge, employees are now more aware and only perform jobs that are to their
liking and matches their profile.

Behavioral Factors:

Behavioral factors are related to human needs and they need to be satisfied properly.
Behavioral elements include the following:

 Feedback:
 Employee should be given proper feedback about his job performance. This will enable
the employee to improve his performance and complete the job in a proper manner.

 Autonomy:

Employee should be given proper autonomy required to perform the work. The absence
of autonomy may lead to poor performance on the part of employees.

 Use Of Abilities:

The job should be designed in such a manner that an employee will be able to use his
abilities fully and perform the job effectively.

 Variety:

Absence of variety in the job assigned may lead to boredom. Adequate scope to variety
factor should be given while designing a job.

Techniques of Job Design

 Job Simplification:

In the job simplification technique, the job is simplified or specialized. A given job is
divided into small sub-parts and each part is assigned to one individual employee. Job
simplification is introduced when job designers feel that the jobs are not specialized
enough.

 Job Rotation:

Job rotation implies systematic movement of employees from one job to the other. Job
remains unchanged but employees performing them shift from one job to the other. With
job rotation, an employee is given an opportunity to perform different jobs, which
enriches his skills, experience and ability to perform different jobs.

 Job Enlargement:

Job enlargement means expanding the scope of the job. Many tasks and duties are
aggregated and assigned to a single job. It is opposite to job simplification.

 Job Enrichment:

Job enrichment means making the job rich in its contents so that an employee will get
more satisfaction while performing that job. Job enrichment means upgrading of
responsibility, scope and challenge.
Open systems approach to job design
The approaches to the design of jobs considered to this point have taken as their focus the
individual job. We have already identified some of the weaknesses of this type of approach.

At the same time that job redesign techniques were being developed and implemented in the
USA progress was being made, particularly in Europe and Scandinavia, on the development
of the socio-technical systems approach where the focus of attention is at the level of the
working group and the aim is to develop a match between the needs of the group and the
organization in relation to the technology.

Organization as an open system

This approach is based upon the concept of the organization as an open system with the
primary work group as a subsystem of the total organization. Organizations can be compared
to other living systems such as biological cells in that they are engaged in active transactions
with the environment

Raw materials or customers form the input to the organizational system and finished goods or
services form the output. The environment through competition, the influence of suppliers,
and customers and government legislation will all exert pressure on the organization to
comply with certain rules and organize in certain ways. The changing economic situation,
changing values in society, new alternative products or services, and many other factors
demand adaptation within the organization if it is to survive.

Since these factors have an impact on the internal design and functioning of an organization it
is important that the organization be aware of environmental changes when seeking an
optimal design of its social and technical systems.

Guiding Principles

A sociotechnical systems approach to designing organizations is based upon a set of guiding

propositions:

 The design of the organization must fit its goals.

 Employees must be actively involved in designing the structure of the organization.
 Control of variances in production or service must be undertaken as close to their
source as possible.
 Subsystems must be designed around relatively self-contained and recognizable units
of work.
 Support systems must fit in with the design of the organization.
 The design should allow for a high quality of working life.
 Changes should continue to be made as necessary to meet the changing environmental
pressures.

Motivation Factors

It has been suggested that four categories of job characteristic are significant in terms of
motivation and performance:
  responsible autonomy- the group's acceptance of responsibility for the production
cycle, output rate, quality, and quantity of output;
 adaptability;
 variety;
 participation.

Autonomous behavior includes the self-regulation by the group of work content, critical self-
evaluation of work group performance, self-adjustment to cope with changes, and
participation in goal setting.

Limitations

The socio-technical systems approach is not without its limitations. Whilst many advantages
can result from focusing on the work group rather than the individuals and their jobs,
autonomous group working does not seem to have widespread appeal.

 Certainly the roles of both supervision and specialist advisers are considerably
affected and in some cases eliminated.
 Movement of personnel between work groups with high levels of autonomy may be
difficult, hence removing some of management's flexibility.
 Difficulties are often experienced in implementation in existing work situations.
 A participative design process is not acceptable in many organizations and can be
very time-consuming.
 Alternative ways of organizing work are not always apparent where existing
technology has to be employed.
 Management are often not prepared to take the risk of introducing radically different
approaches to organizing work alongside other changes which already have a high
element of disruption and associated risk.