Making HR Decisions: Improving Organisational Design And Managing the Human Resource Flow. Flashcards
Define job design.
The process of deciding on the content of a job in terms of its duties and responsibilities, methods and techniques etc.
What is the aim of job design?
Aims to improve motivation and satisfaction as a sense of personal achievement. To reduce labour costs and improve labour productivity without offering additional monetary reward.
Outline the organisational influences.
Nature, range and volume of tasks to be performed.
Ergonomics (how well s job is designed to fit the physical capabilities of employees doing the job).
The quality standards in an organisation.
Speed required by the organisation’s activities.
What are the external influences on job design.
Technological development.
General levels of education.
Social changes.
What are employee related influences on job design?
Employees health, wellbeing and safety.
Need for fair reward and recognition.
Employees need for job satisfaction.
Employees need for a good work-life balance.
Employees skills and capabilities.
What does Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristic model indicate?
Employees will preform well when they are rewarded for the work they do and when that work provides them with satisfaction.
What does the Hackman model suggest?
That force core job characteristics can be combined to indicate how likely a job is to affect employees attitudes and behaviours.
What is the role of motivation in Hackman’s model?
Lack of motivation stifles performance.
What does motivation relate to in Hackman?
Relates to employees experiencing:
Meaningfulness of work.
Responsibility for work outcomes.
Knowledge of work outcomes.
Outline meaningfulness of work.
Work should have a meaning for employees as it is something they can relate to rather than a set of repeated motions.
What are the job characteristics that meaningfulness of work is based upon?
Skill variety.
Task identity.
Task significance.
Outline responsibility for work outcomes.
An individual is given the opportunity to be a success of failure at their job because sufficient freedom of action has been given to them.
Outline knowledge of work outcomes.
Psychological state that comes from feedback, either from the job or people about how effective an employee is in converting effort into measurable outcomes.
What can understanding these three psychological states lead to?
The ability of job design/redesign.
What may designing/redesigning jobs involve?
Varying work pattern.
Reorganising work so groups focus on the production of a whole product.
Ensuring employees understand the value of their work to other stakeholders and society etc.
Providing appropriate feedback to ensure improvement.
Define organisational design.
The process of shaping and organisations structure so that it meets the purpose and helps deliver objectives.
How may the external environment affect an organisational design.
It will have to become more flexible,
what does a change in organisational design cause?
A change to organisational structure.
What is the difference between organisational design and organisational structure.
OD is a strategy that defines how a company unifies departments and individuals to achieve objectives.
OS represents the formal lines of authority and power, the relations between different people etc.
Define the span of control.
The numbers of subordinates a manager is required to supervise directly.
How does the tasks of a group increase span of control?
The degree in similarity in what a group of workers does can increase the span of control.
How can the span of control be deliberately enlarged?
Making workers more autonomous and capable of managing themselves - fewer supervisors - individuals have more subordinates.
Define organisational hierarchy.
The vertical division (the level of) of authority and accountability in an organisation.
Define levels of hierarchy.
The number of different supervisory and management levels between the shop floor and the chief execution in an organisation.
What is the relationship between the span of control and levels of hierarchy?
A tall hierarchal structure tends to have more levels of hierarchy (management).
Narrow structures have less.
What are the features of tall structures with narrow spans of control?
More promotional opportunities - career ladder has more rungs on it.
Less delegation - less stress but less morale.
Narrow spans - tight control - greater quality etc.
Longer chain of command - decisions made and implemented slowly.
