Chapter 14: Work Designs

Question 1

What is work design?

Answer 1

Creating jobs and work groups that generate high levels of employee fulfilment and productivity.

Question 2

What are the 3 work design approaches?

Answer 2

Engineering Approach
Motivational Approach
Sociotechnical Approach

Question 3

What is the Engineering Approach?

Answer 3

Based on Fredrick Taylor’s Scientific management approach in the 1800’s

Aims to reduce wasta/inefficiencies by reducing movement

Have all resources in one place for more efficient work

Focus is on efficiency and simplification of work

Question 4

The Engineering’s approach focuses on efficiency and simplicity- what does this result in?

Answer 4

Traditional Jobs: relatively routine and repetitive forms of work, where little interaction among people is needed to produce a service or product.

Traditional Groups: composed of members performing routine yet interrelated tasks. like assembly line workers- have routine yet interrelated tasks

Question 5

Engineering approach Results in work design with :

Answer 5

High specialization and specification

Question 6

What are the advantages and criticisms of the Engineering approach?

Answer 6

ADV:
They allow workers to learn tasks rapidly;

they permit short work cycles so performance can take place with little or no mental effort.

reduce costs because lower-skilled people can be hired and trained easily and paid relatively low wages.

Criticism
Ignores worker’s personal needs- social and growth/development

High level of monotony, which can lead to other things.

Question 7

What is the suggested way to minimize monotony from the engineering approach?

Answer 7

scientific method suggests to break the work into sessions. Give them a break; allow them to socialize, grab a snack

(may not be able to enrich the job so use that)

Question 8

What is the Motivational Approach?

Answer 8

this approach views effectiveness or org activities primarily as a function of member needs and satisfaction

seeks to improve employee performance and satisfaction through job enrichment.

Question 9

Explain Herzberg’s two factor theory

Answer 9

States that there are two factors when it comes to motivation:

Motivators: These are internal factors- within one’s psyche: need for recognition, autonomy(power), responsibility

Hygenic/Demotivatiors: External factors: supervisors, money, environment, policies

Motivtators increase performance; hygenic factors only influence complaints (lack causes more complaints, but presence does not guarantee satisfaction

Question 10

Job Dimensions/Job enrichment model

Answer 10

Skill Variety
Task Identity
Autonomy
Task Significance
Feedback of Results

Question 11

What are some individual differences to note when it comes to the motivational approach?

Answer 11

• Not everyone reacts the same way to job enrichment interventions

due to their differences in ksa levels, strength of growth needs, other stuff.

If ksas are low, increasing skill variety will not help

If a person has low-strength growth needs (little interest in personal development), then giving them autonomy would more likely be resisted.

Question 12

What are the application stages for job enrichment?

Answer 12

Make thorough diagnosis- JDS: measures motivation potential based on 5 core job dimensions. Also measures employee readiness for job enrichment intervention.

Form Natural work units: group interrelated task activities together- aims to increase ownership of task- increases task identity and significance

Combine tasks: put smaller jobs into larger ones- like instead of having several steps beign done by serveral people- have one person do them- let them create the fabrice, do the zip prep and attatch the zip= increases TS, A and feedback from job itself

Establish client relationships: encourage workers to build relationships with the particular end user.

Vertical loading- giving more control over job- powers of managers

Opening Feedback Channels- free immediate feedback

Question 13

What are the four barriers to Job Enrichment?

Answer 13

Technical system: technology can hinder advancement. Eg, in an assembly line, you may use technology to replace man- in that way there can be no enrichment

HR system: creating formalized job descriptions that are rigidly defined and limit flexibility in changing people’s job duties.

Control System: budgets, practices can limit job enrichment. E.g., company working on govt contract has to adhere to strict quality control procedures that reduces employee discretion.

Supervisory System: Autocratic supervisors tend to control everything, especially feedback. With that kind of a leader (who is rigid), job enrichment will be hard

Question 14

Results of Job enrichment

Answer 14

Job satisfaction
Reduced absenteeism and turnover
Goal Achievement

Question 15

What is the Sociotechnical Systems Approach?

Answer 15

STS theory (theory behind approach):

STS theory is based on two fundamental premises: that an organization or work unit is a combined, social-plus-technical system (sociotechnical), and that this system is open in relation to its environment.

Question 16

Explain the concept of the sociotechnical system

Answer 16

The system has two independent but related part: social part (including people performing the tasks and the relationships among them).
Output: job satisfaction and commitment

technical part (tools, techniques, and methods for task performance)
Output: products

Independence: Social part follows biological and psychological laws; technical part follows mechanical and physical laws.

Joint Optimization: brining both parts together in such a way that both results are positive- get both job satisfaction and commitment, and products

Question 17

Explain the environment concept from the STS theory

Answer 17

The sociotechnical system is open to the environment.

The environment gives the system inputs of energy, raw materials and info. The STS provides the environment with product and services.

Key issue: ensuring that the system can function freely while exchanging effectively with the environment.

Question 18

What is Boundary management- sts

Answer 18

structuring environmental relationships to protect the system from external disruptions and to facilitate the exchange of necessary resources and information

Question 19

What is Boundary management- sts

Answer 19

structuring environmental relationships to protect the system from external disruptions and to facilitate the exchange of necessary resources and information

enables sts to adapt to environment and to influence the environment in favourable directions

Question 20

Explain the Self-managed work teams

Answer 20

Aka self-driected, self-regularing, high-performance team

Cosists of members performing interrelated tasks, sets own production goals within broader org context

Frequently paid for knowledge and skills than seniority
If based on performance- it would be team performance

Question 21

What are the three inputs for self-managed teams?

Answer 21

Team task design
Team Process Interventions
Organization Support Systems

Question 22

Explain the input Team task design

Answer 22

What they will do essentially

Three task-design elements:

Question 23

The three task design elements

Answer 23

Task differentiation: extent to which task is autonomous and forms a relatively self-completing whole.

Boundary Control: extent to which team members can influence transactions with their task environment—the types and rates of inputs and outputs- like quality controls/assurance

Task Control: can regulate their own
behavior to provide services or to produce finished products. can chose methods, schedule activities etc

Question 24

Team process Interventions

Answer 24

Done in ch 10- need these as people will need to understand how to work together

Train them

Question 25

Organization Support systems

Answer 25

This is the extent to which the larger organization is designed to support self-managed work teams

The success of such teams clearly depends on support systems that are quite different from traditional methods of managing. 34 For example, a bureaucratic, mechanistic organization is not highly conducive to self-managed teams

Question 26

Hence, how do we reduce issues against Self-managed teams in the organization?

Answer 26

Recruitment and selection: selecting team leaders with a balanced mixture of technical and social skills

Training

Evaluation and reward systems: Attempts have been made to tie team leader rewards to achievements in team development. Performance appraisals of leaders are conducted within a group format, with feedback supplied by team members, peers, and higher-level management

Leadership: Leaders of self-managed work teams have been encouraged to develop peer support groups. Team leaders can meet off-site to share experiences and to address issues of personal and general concern

Use of freed-up time: With a good team, team leaders would have more time that they can devote to other areas- higher-level planning and budgeting, companywide T&D and individual career development

Question 27

Application stages for self-managed teams

Answer 27

Sanctioning design effort: workers receive the necessary sanction and support to diagnose their work system and to create an appropriate work design

Diagnosing work system: This step includes analyzing the work system to discover how it is operating. Diagnostic model can assess how well technical and social work together. Task environment facing the system also analysed to see how well it meets external demands- like customer quality requirements

Generating appropriate designs: based on the diagnosis. Criteria- compatibility(work design process must fit values ad objectives underlying the approach. Minimal critical specification- designers should only specify critical features needed to implement the work design.

Specifying support systems: organizational support systems may have to be changed to support new work designs. When self-managed teams are designed, for example, the basis for pay and measurement systems may need to change from individual to team performance to facilitate necessary task interaction among workers.

Implementing and evaluating work designs: making necessary changes to implement the work design and evaluating the results

Continue change and improvement: STS designing never is complete but rather continues as new things are learned and new conditions are encountered. Thus, the ability to design and redesign work continually needs to be built into existing work designs.

Question 28

Results of Self-managed teams

Answer 28

measures of job satisfaction and other attitudes also improved. Perhaps most importantly, these improvements were sustained over time.

Note: productivity improvements may not be attributed solely to the self-managed teams but might also be the result of the technological changes

Question 29

Designing Work for Technical Factors-

Answer 29

Technical Interdependence: degree of TI determines whether work should be designed for individual jobs or for work groups
Low-like call centers- work be designed for individual jobs
High like surgery: group

Technical uncertainty: determines whether work should be
designed for external forms of control, such as supervision, scheduling, and standardization,
or for worker self-control.

When technical uncertainty is low and little information has to be
processed by employees during task performance, work can be designed for external control,
such as might be found on assembly lines and in other forms of repetitive work. On the
other hand, when technical uncertainty is high and people must process more information
and make decisions, work should be designed for high levels of employee self-control, such
as might be found in professional work and hospital emergency rooms.

Question 30

Designing work for personal-need factors

Answer 30

Social Needs: social needs, or the desire for significant social relationships;

Degree of SN determines wheteher work should be designed for individual jobs or groups.
People with low needs for social relationships are more likely to be satisfied working on individualized jobs than in interacting
groups. Conversely, people with high social needs are more likely to be attracted to
group forms of work than to individualized forms

Growth Needs: determines whether work designs
should be routine and repetitive or complex and challenging

People with low growth
needs generally are not attracted to jobs offering complexity and challenge (that is, enriched
jobs) but are more satisfied performing routine forms of work that do not require high levels
of decision making. On the other hand, people with high growth needs are satisfied with
work offering high levels of discretion, skill variety, and meaningful feedback. Performing
enriched jobs allows them to experience personal accomplishment and development

Question 31

How to meet both technical and personal needs

Answer 31

Chage tech or people to bring them more into line with each other

Leave buth unchanged and create compromise work designs that only partially fulfil the demands of either component