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A job can be defined as the set of tasks and
responsibilities of a worker. These tasks and
responsibilities, along with performance
expectations, work conditions (time and place of
work), general skills, and possibly methods to
be used, are normally contained in a written job
description. There is no set formula for
designing jobs that will best fit a production
system. Job design is the consciously planned
structuring of work effort performed by an
individual or a team of persons. There is
increasing evidence that poorly designed jobs
are a pervasive social problem affecting the
mental and physical health of the worker both on
and off the job.
Job design helps to determine: What tasks are
done, how the tasks are done, how many tasks are
done, and in what order the tasks are done. It
takes into account all factors which affect the
work, and organizes the content and tasks so
that the whole job is less likely to be a risk
to the employee. The objective of job design is
therefore, to develop work assignments that meet
the requirements of the organization and the
technology, and at the same time also satisfy
the personal and individual requirements of the
job holder.
Various techniques of job design are
Simplification of Job
Job Enlargement
Job Enrichment
Job Rotation
Simplification of Job
In job simplification jobs are broken in to very
small parts as in assembly line operations and
work can be done by same individual repeatedly
and it will increase productivity and
proficiency of individual. However it produces
boredom and monotony in worked.
Job Enlargement
Job enlargement expands job horizontally. It
increases job scope; that is, it increases the
number of different operations required in a job
and the frequency with which the job cycle is
repeated. By increasing the number of tasks an
individual performs, job enlargement, increases
the job scope, or job diversity. Instead of only
sorting the incoming mail by department, for
instance, a mail sorter’s job could be enlarged
to include physically delivering the mail to the
various departments or running outgoing letters
through the
postage meter. Job enlargement
decreases some boredom but it is not enough to
motivate as nature of work remain same.
Job Rotation
Job rotation is the systematic and
planned rotation of individuals in
pre-determined
jobs (other than their own)
so they can gain additional knowledge or
skills. It is done quite a
bit for developing
managers (because they need to be familiar with
operations overall) and also
used with others who want to advance to a new
role or become more knowledgeable in their
current job role.
Some of the major benefits of job rotation are:
It provides the employees with opportunities to
broaden the horizon of knowledge, skills, and
abilities by working in different departments,
business units, functions, and countries
Identification of Knowledge, skills, and
attitudes required
It determines the areas where improvement is
required
Assessment of the employees who have the
potential and caliber for filling the position
Job Enrichment
Job enrichment is an approach to job
design. The focus is to
increase the depth of the
job (by the amount of
discretion and responsibility the job holder
has). It is different from job enlargement
(which focuses on increasing the number of tasks
a job holder is responsible for performing (more
work
/tasks to do!)
In job enrichment, additional tasks are not the
focus for the goal, but an increase in tasks
could be a result of giving the job holder more
authority, discretion, and responsibility for
decision making in their current role. It is the
most effectively motivating tool used by the
organizations which enhances the decision making
skills of the managers and helps in their
overall development.
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