Third, the studies had to be kept confidential to avoid the well-known tendency of people to behave in an artificial way when they know they are the subject of a controlled study. The best evidence of development came, however, not from the experimental groups in the studies, but from the managers who put the studies into effect. Job enrichment expands your work setting and allows you to gain new talents. Highly skilled managers and professionals jobs come in a variety of degrees and provide a lot of challenges and opportunities for success. Wherever a direct measure of performance was possible, an immediate gain was registered. In his pioneering article, One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?1 Frederick Herzberg put forward some principles of scientific job enrichment and reported a successful application of them involving the stockholder correspondents employed by a large corporation. Examples of job enrichment include adding extra tasks (also called job enlargement), increasing skill variety, adding meaning to jobs, creating autonomy, and giving feedback. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Cloud based solution, designed for small and medium scale businesses. Three staff assessments on EOs were carried outat the beginning, middle, and end of the trial period. Apart from the difficulties in implementing job enrichment into reality, it does not deliver the expected outcomes. Which other skills would they like to learn? Aside from. Two of the studiescovering laboratory technicians in an R&D department and sales representatives in three companies-will be examined in some detail. Our experience merely suggests that it would be unwise to pin too many hopes to itor the wrong hopes. After all, adding new tasks for even each employee, let alone a whole department seems to be more work. This is done with a view to utilise available human resources more efficiently and thus make human management more effective. It motivates by giving employees the opportunity to use their abilities to the fullest. It is easier for employees who perform creative work or those who perform routine tasks to schedule their assignments. Task support becomes a flexible instrument of management, responsive to feedback. Exhibit IV shows the month-to-month picture. The background of static sales and the objective of recapturing the market initiative dictated that sales turnover would be the critical measure, checked by gross margin. In no instance did management face a demand of this kind as a result of changes made in the studies. Fears of loss of authority or prestige were never realized. During the trial period, the margin by which the target number was missed was reduced from 94 to 55; the number of operators unable to do anothers job fell by 12. In task support, factors such as company policy and administration, technical supervision, interpersonal relations, and working conditions all have to be pressed into the service of the motivators. Organizations claim that job enrichment programs have reduced employee absenteeism, despite the lack of solid data to support this. EOs were authorized to requisition materials and equipment, to request analysis, and to order services such as maintenance, all on their own signature. When pressed to explain the grounds on which people had been chosen, the manager quoted as an example someone who had already carried similar responsibility in a previous job. Rather than being motivated to broaden their skill sets, they will be more concerned with how to manage their job while taking on additional responsibilities. Turnover can be hard on a company and therefore it needs to be balanced. If so, how? As a result, employees may be more. For the manager, the process is like learning to swim: it may not be necessary to jump in at the deep end, but it surely is necessary to leave the shallow end. They can be improved by using contemporary management strategies, such as management by objectives, participative management, authority delegation, status systems, etc., rather than the conventional ways. By cross-training employees, companies have also found reductions in repetitive motion injuries and turnover. The rest of the sales force (N = 23) acted as the control group. This will help them in working with a new skill set in a fresh way. Second, only unskilled and semi-skilled people can really enrich their jobs. Advantage: Employee Motivation When employees feel like they're trusted with greater responsibilities at a company, their level of motivation increases. Job rotation is usually a part of job enlargement. The job reaction survey was given both before and after the trial period. Consider: 1. Although the reports of the control groups continued to improve for a time, they were far outpaced by those of the experimental groups. The idea of job enrichment is strengthened by Frederick Herzberg who gave his two-factor theory of motivation in 1959. Managers judged it to have been of considerable value, and one EO summed it up by saying, A couple of pages of chemical engineering calculations and formulas wont frighten us off now.. Job enrichment provides you with additional flexibility, independence, and responsibility. Foremen were involved more in planning. The analysis concluded that foremen were not prone to take one kind of action rather than another, they had developed a purposeful approach to such problems, and there had been no adverse union reaction. Job enrichment seeks to offer employees more responsibility by expanding the variety and complexity of duties assigned to them and granting them the appropriate power. Give your employees the opportunity to perform different tasks and use a variety of skills. . It aimed to give them the opportunity to come to terms with the ideas and terminology of chemical engineering. This can add extra layers to an employee's role and. In the production foremens study, superintendents reported that the new conditions were separating the wheat from the chaff; some of those who had previously been thought to be among the best of the foremen had not lived up to their reputations in a situation which placed little value on compliance, while others had improved enormously. The objective of integrating the foreman more fully into the managerial team dictated that responsibility should be the motivator chiefly concerned in these changes. Engineers were allowed to authorize overtime, cash advances, and traveling expenses for staff: In summary fashion, these are the deductions that can be drawn from this study: The changes may have been effective, but in this particular study the important question was whether they had a significant impact on job satisfaction. Brainstorm potential changes, apply certain principles (learn more about job design): Henzberg suggested to. Some 40 EOs in all were involved in the study. Can meaningful results be obtained only in jobs with large numbers of people all doing the same work and where performance measures are easily available? The need for the supervisor to be always on the job diminished; greater organizational flexibility was gained. Employees will be able to control their expenses and resources under job enrichment. First, it appears that top managers and personnel experts have a tendency to apply their own scale of challenge and accomplishment values to other peoples personalities. Job Enrichment Techniques 1. How widespread is the scope or need for equivalent change in other jobs? Despite businesses rebranding themselves as technically proficient, proactive rivals, many people quit their jobs. Aligning employees with the company's vision. Provide your staff with a variety of meaningful things to complete if you want them to be productive rather than just browsing job vacancies when they clock in. Group managers sponsored occasional investigatory jobs, and engineers were encouraged to become departmental experts in particular fields. One of the biggest upsides of job enrichment is that it increases employee retention. In a downsizing companys high-stress environment, job enrichment boosts loyalty. Customers could either be outsiders, such as mechanics interacting with car owners, or insiders, such as computer operators working for other departments. If you are looking for ways to enrich a job, ask others for help. EOs were encouraged to write the final report, or minute, on any research project for which they had been responsible. They were given time, on request, to follow up their own ideas, even if these went beyond the planned framework of research. During the 12 months of the trial period, a total of 34 research minutes were written by EOs, all from the experimental groups, compared with 2 from the department as a whole during the previous 12-month period. With feedback employees get a sense of where they lag and how they can improve in certain areas. Representatives were given a discretionary range of about 10% on the prices of most products, especially those considered to be critical from the point of view of market potential. The difference between consultation and enrichment is a difference in kind. Managers had the impression that representatives actually used their price discretion less often than they had previously asked for special prices to be quoted by the sales office. On the production side, a newly appointed training officer acted as a resource person for the foremen. It can be seen that the control group in fact started the year extremely well, with January/ February sales in the region of 30% above the equivalent 1967 figures. On the other hand, when people were invited to participatenot in any of the reported studiesresults were disappointing. Meanwhile, the performance of the other control group, unaffected by what was happening elsewhere, began to slip back toward its original starting point. Regarding the engineering foremens control of budgets, in some cases the aim was to meet the target exactly; in others it was to reduce costs as much as possible. Since they were selling in the same trades in the same parts of the country, the performance of all the representatives was presumably influenced by the same broad economic and commercial factors. As a result, every operator could gather, inspect and deliver a hotplate. All too often, potential has to be inferred from risky and subjective judgments about personality. This can involve adding new tasks, adding meaning to the job, drawing on a more diverse skillset, creating autonomy or providing feedback to the employee. FeasibilityAre there not situations where the operational risk is so high that it would be foolhardy to attempt to pass responsibility and scope for achievement down the line? Three-step technique. In contrast, the experimental groups score rose by 11%. Experienced engineers were given a completely independent role in running their projects; the less experienced technical men were given as much independence as possible. Each study was initiated in response to a particular problem posed by management, and the conclusions drawn from any one can be only tentative. This can. When employees enjoy doing their job, they hardly feel the need to change it or quit. Other changes included giving foremen more on the spot responsibility, official deputizing for engineers, the writing of monthly reports, and more recognition of foremens achievement of plans. Experienced engineers were asked to make the initial salary recommendations for all their junior staff members. Based on the results, makes changes to the job description. The involvement of design engineers in making salary recommendations for their staff was considered by the senior managers to have been a major improvement. Therefore, feedback is a great way to enrich a dull and boring job. At the other extreme was one classic example of an awkward employee, about to be sacked, who turned out to be unusually inventive and responsible when he has given the opportunity to be so. In few of the studies could members of the experimental groups be said to be doing exactly the same work. This issue is more serious in India since employees there demand better salaries and job stability. It can be seen not only that the experimental group maintained a higher rate of improvement than the rest of the business throughout the trial period, but that the gap widened if anything as time went on. When these conditions are met, the job itself becomes a true learning situation, its ingredients the motivators. When direct measurement of job satisfaction was possible, the most significant gains seemed to come when the trial period was longest. At the 1967 rates of turnover, this performance differential in all trades would be worth $1.5 million in sales value in a full year. Feedback. This is the bonus from job enrichment. The latent inspirational value of jobs appeared to have been released. Another great strategy is combining work activities. Take a closer look at the definition of job enrichment,. 5. This makes work more stimulating and helps to motivate employees to do their best work. Cost was measurable in a few days of managers time at each place. Is not the best route to motivational change through participation? The disadvantage is that some people may not be able to succeed in their primary talents if they study multiple professions. Here is the specific program of action devised and implemented for the experimental officers. All the foremen were given complete disciplinary authority, except for dismissal. Contrary to expectation, the gains, initially at least, seem to relate primarily to performance. One of the experimental groups had been able to keep abreast of its commitments even though it lost the services of two of its six scientists during the trial period and functioned without a manager for the last five months of the study. This increases job enrichment with more responsibility and upskilling. Job rotation is a practice of moving employees between jobs in an organization. Job enrichment is generally subject to the same criticisms as the two-factor theory of motivation. Sales representatives consulted headquarters on matters such as the stock position on a certain product before negotiating special terms with a customer. Here are some examples you can use as inspiration as you put your job enrichment program into action: Suppose you hired a writer who shows interest and a desire to get their hands dirty within their first few months. Lets say that every task performed on the production floor or in the legal research division is largely routine. For such tasks, think about if you can automate them for your employees. Far from their jobs being impoverished, supervisors now found that they had time available to do more important work. All were assigned projects on specific problems such as quality control, and could draw on the necessary resources for their implementation. On the other hand, job enlargement is relatively cheaper because, in this process, many duties are performed by a single employee. Authority to order supplies and services was a responsibility applying to all the EOs involved. Collectively, they provide material which adds to our understanding of both theory and practice. A person whose job involves serving a client or customer directly has a more fulfilling experience. Gathering similar jobs together is how natural work units are formed. Another strategy to improve your teams productivity is to highlight task importance. There is no evidence that plant efficiency or work effectiveness suffered in any way as a result of cost savings achieved by the foremen. The participation of employees involved in the studies consisted of doing things which had always previously been done by more senior people. What would they like to change about the job? An enriched job will have certain unique aspects or features, such as a quality controller visiting a supplier. The production foremens job reaction survey scores showed no particular improvement over the trial period. All of these techniques work to expand roles, increase autonomy, and increase the range of skills used. Thus, in monitoring the effectiveness of the changes, the aim was primarily to detect any instability or shortcomings in performance. In other words, there is a higher degree of control in job enrichment as compared to job enlargement. The worker or employee has greater job satisfaction. It is hygiene masquerading as a motivator, diverting attention from the real problem. But these seem particularly important from a corporate point of view if job enrichment is to take place on a widespread basis, as part of management practice rather than as a research activity. And what are the implications for management development? Against this background, the research managers specific objective was to develop the EOs into better scientists. If job enrichment was to be useful, it would have to contribute to the attainment of that goal. In other words, a boring task will unlikely motivate an employee to finish it while a versatile and challenging task will urge the employee to finish it with satisfaction. In the case of the engineering foremen, the experimental groups staff assessments at the end of the trial year were markedly better than those of the control groups. An ideal situation for the workplace is to have high motivation and high hygiene. In all, 100 people were in the experimental groups in the studies described. Firstly, it must be determined whether employees actually want the kind of changes in work content that are being implemented as part of the job enrichment program. In many places it has not even started. In one case, for example, a group of personnel specialists suggested fewer than 30 fairly minor changes in their jobs, whereas their managers had compiled a list of over 100 much more substantial possibilities. The following are some disadvantages of job enrichment that you should think about before implementing it in your organization: Assuming that every employee wants to look into new work practices is a bad idea. Divided tasks can be combined to provide larger, more satisfying positions. They will be inspired to work harder and accept difficult or unpopular duties if you give them more responsibility and give them the chance to collaborate in groups. We speak of self-development, but we are at a loss to know how to encourage it. In Part II, the main conclusions emerging from the studies will be presented in the form of answers to the questions raised at the beginning of this article. They realize that theyre bored and decide to tell the HR manager. Now in Part II, the main conclusions which emerged from the job enrichment studies are presented in the form of answers to the questions raised at the beginning of this article. Quality circles. Their satisfaction levels are also higher. Translate employee effort into improved performance. Lets start with the marketing division. However, if you use job enrichment, your employee will be able to perform at their best all the time. That way, continual improvement, while not being guaranteed, at least becomes possible as the scope for the motivators is extended. Exhibit II. 2. Both experimental and control groups improved their monthly report scores at about the same rate during the first five months. Job enrichment makes sure to add more skills and tasks to keep it more interesting and engaging. It would seem that changes in working practice can be made without always having a price tag attached. As managers, we start having positive control of the job only when we stop concentrating on trying to control people. According to a survey, 33% of workers quit their jobs because they are unhappy and prefer to take on new challenges. The removal of any financial ceiling on engineers authority to place orders within an approved project with an agreed budget proved entirely effective. The studies show that when tasks are organized to be as authentic and motivational as possible, management receives a more accurate and a continuing feedback on individual strengths and weaknesses, ability, and potential. In order to establish a baseline for clarifying standards and testing the assessors consistency of marking, reports were collected for three months prior to the introduction of any job enrichment changes. Meaningful results can be obtained in situations very far from the experimental ideal. In practice new higher-order responsibilities are born. (re)design, together with job simplification, job enrichment, and job enlargement . Most paperwork is boring. Instead of doing separate tasks of assembling, inspecting, and shipping, each operator was asked to combine tasks. Here is the specific program of action devised and implemented for the sales representatives. Managers often complain of their lack of room for maneuver. Many groups that have attempted job enrichment have experienced similar issues. Job enrichment is a part of job design that focuses on adding certain skills, extra tasks or making the job a little more interesting to make it more motivating. Engineers were involved in the selection and placing of designers (drawing office staff). In this article, we focus on job enrichment, its benefits, and a little bit on job enlargement. Two sections of the department acted as experimental groups (N = 15) and two as control groups (N = 29). And the test of the genuineness of that participation is simpleit must be left to the subordinate to be the prime mover in consultation on those topics where he carries personal responsibility. can be hard on a company and therefore it needs to be balanced. The critical factor in the situation appeared to be sales representatives effort. Job rotation is a technique used to increase employee learning and motivation. It will help them develop a sense of how few meaningless tasks they have on their plate now. The studies were specifically trying to measure the extent of those gains which could be attributed solely to change in job content. They questioned if job enrichment was beneficial. Though only one study set out specifically to measure individual development, the most pervasive impression from all was one of development and personal growth achieved. The assessment of monthly reports written by the experimental officers is given in Exhibit I, which compares the mean score achieved by all experimental group EOs each month with that achieved by all control group EOs. 1. As all quotations other than at list price were reported by the representatives, it was possible to analyze the gross margin achieved by both groups. As it happened, in one of these trades commercial trends were favorable, while in the other they were distinctly unfavorable. This will boost her motivation. In this way, to increase engagement, the managers expand their responsibilities without giving complete autonomy to them. However well-intentioned, this halfway-house kind of participative management smacks of conscience money; and receivers of charity are notoriously ungrateful. Second, job enrichment is often imposed on workers rather than implemented with their consent. In six months the production foremen recruited nearly 100 men, and were judged by the personnel officer to be hiring a better caliber of man at an improved rate. Their immediate supervisors were categorical in their approval and noted that the foremen were taking special care to design their own shifts. Recruitment interviews were said to have improved the foremens ability to handle encounters with existing staff and shop stewards. In job enlargement, tasks of similar nature are given which rarely makes it more engaging. Many employers traditionally believed that money was the only true motivating factor for employees and that if you wanted to get more work out of employees, offering them more money was the only way to do it. A traditional yet powerful method of enrichment is to give your staff positive comments and let them know how well theyre doing. In this technique, the organisation expands the scope of an employee's role. This sustained increase of just under 20% was in marked contrast to the previously declining performance of the trades as a whole. During the second quarter, outstanding results in May compensated for poorer figures in April and June. This groups job was to implement experimental programs devised by scientists. Employees have more activities, reducing boredom due to monotonous routines. So long as a foundation of new job opportunities available to all is firmly established, there is no harm in restricting certain changes to the more senior of the jobholders. Rotating the job is a great way to break the monotony and get rid of repetitive tasks. If someone prefers things the way they are, he merely keeps them the way they are, by continuing to refer matters to his supervisor, for example. There are several benefits of doing this which we share in later sections. One way to provide a team task identity is to have them manage the entire project. As found by Steers and Porter (1983), work motivation is an element that manages and sustains the behavior of an employee. All quotations other than at list price had to be reported by the representative. In circumstances such as these, whatever is done stands or falls by its own merits. Senior EOs were made responsible for devising and implementing a training program for their junior staff. The purpose of this is to increase their understanding of how things work, to increase their experience, and to prepare them to perform a broader role at the company. Theory provides an explanation for the remarkable absence of disaster experienced in practice. Laboratory technicians may or may not be thought to have innate potential; the number and quality of their research minutes can be measured. There were also a number of minutes jointly authored by scientists and EOs, which are excluded from this analysis. Assessment of EOs monthly reports. Employees and managers should work collaboratively while taking on new responsibilities. What has been described in the first part of this article is the consistent application of theory in an area where custom and practice are normally only challenged by individual hunch or intuition. Make sure . No. This adds more variety and versatility to an employees job. The cause-effect relationship between hygiene and motivation scarcely exists. In several situations, the work itself is not actually damaged. Job creep refers to the continuous growth of job enlargement. But there was no doubt that the cumulative effect of the changes had been significant and that the direction of solutions to some important problems had been indicated. Of the two men who conducted the tests and have written this report. The encouragement of specialist expertise among design engineers was a long-term proposition, but progress was made during the trial period. Employees sense of responsibility, judged in a vacuum, is a matter of speculation; but the exercise of a specific responsibility, once given, is usually capable of meaningful analysis. The laboratory technicians, sales representatives, design engineers, and foremen did indeed participate, but not in a consultative exercise designed to keep them happy or to help their managers reach better decisions. People were able to demonstrate and utilize skills they already possessed, and go on to learn new ones. Line managers, consulting staff, and union officials are still unable to receive adequate training in the concept and strategy of work redesign. Why is job enlargement important? Now, however, we can postulate a criterion: self-development is likely to be most effective when the task a person is engaged in is authentic and motivational and when in doing it he receives understanding, imaginative, and capable support. An employee can have a more meaningful and motivating work experience by adding duties and increasing the job load. TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FOR ENRICHING JOBS Principles. It can be highly beneficial for both your organization and your employees if you encourage them to use their hidden skills. For job enrichment employees use their own sense of direction and control. Responsibility for determining calling frequencies was put wholly with the representatives themselves, who kept the only records for purposes such as staff reviews. Tasks in job enrichment are given to make the job more interesting. Workplace issues are hardly ever identified until roles are redesigned. This promotes ownership of the activities and enables the employee to witness the effects of their efforts, increasing job identity, perceived task importance, and ownership. In the third trade, the experimental and control groups were evenly matched. From the evidence now available, it is clear that results are not dependent on any particular set of circumstances at the place of study. What is the importance of job enrichment? A fresh approach is required from HR managers and executives to assist staff in discovering meaning in their job. Only a change which impacts on this central relationship, we believe, can be truly effective in a motivational sense. Do the gains relate primarily to job satisfaction or to performance? The changes that seemed to have the most impact were precisely those which related to the common heart and substance of the role played by people whose jobs differed in many important details. In order to do this, we shall report in Part I on five studies carried out in Imperial Chemical Industries Limited and other British companies. Job Crafting.
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