5.Job Designing Techniques and Types of Work Design.

5.1 What is Job designing Techniques?

The goal of job designing is to define the responsibilities of each position. (Job= tasks, obligations, and responsibilities)

5.2 Qualities of Job Design

• There is a connection between work-life balance and job design.
• There are managerial and technical designs for jobs.
• It focuses on how people work, are motivated, and behave.
• 
  One concern is the homogeneity of work functions.
• The purpose of job design is to boost employee output.

 5.3 Job designing Techniques

 There are 5 main Job designing techniques  related to Human resource management.

5.3.1. Job Enlargement

A job design strategy that focuses on increasing the number and variety of an employee’s task or duties

 5.3.2. Job Enrichment

A job design strategy that focuses on the needs of the individual employee by allowing greater responsibility for the work. Has a high level of intrinsic rewards and a low degree of task specialisation.

5.3.3. Job Rotation

A job design strategy that shifts employees from one job to another in the organisation.

5.3.4 Job specialisation

Job specialisation (division of labour) originated in the industrial revolution a system of job design where an employee does only one limited part of the organisations total work.

5.3.5 Professional Technique

Professional Technique means designing jobs according to certain accepted professions. That professional such as Accountants, Engineers and Lawyers

 5.4 Types of Work Design

The "content and organisation of one's work tasks, activities, relationships and responsibilities" is referred to as work design.

5.4.1 Flexible working

                                                        Figure 01

                                                   Flexible work design 

                                                 (O'connor,2021)

A pattern of working that differs from the typical or standard arrangements is known as flexible working. The objectives are to enhance operational flexibility, optimise the utilisation of employees' skills and abilities, boost productivity, and lower labour expenses. In order to increase operational effectiveness, flexible working has grown in significance.

5.4.2 Multiskilling

                                                                            Figure 02

                                                             Multiskilling   work design

                                                             (www.localgov.co.uk, 2021)

When employees learn a variety of skills via training and experience that they can use to complete various tasks, they are said to be multi skilling (multitasking).This indicates that they are adaptable and can switch between tasks as needed.

5.4.3 Homeworking

                                                           Figure 03

                                                Homeworking work design

                                                 (Cardiff University, n.d.)

Workers who work from home can perform administrative tasks as well as jobs like consultants, analysts, designers, or programmers. If the homemakers are self-employed, the benefits include the ability to react quickly to changes in demand, lower overhead, and lower employment costs (care must be taken to ensure that they are regarded self-employed for income tax and national insurance purposes).

5.4.4 Hot Desking

                                                                         Figure 04

                                                           Hot desking work design                             

                                                             (CharityVillage, 2019)

Hot-desking is the practice of sharing a single desk among multiple users at various times. As a result, none of the participants have a permanent workstation. Although this is practical for the company, not everyone finds it appealing.

5.4.5 Telecommuting

                                                                        Figure 05

                                                              Telecommuting work design

                                                                    (Valchanov, 2021)

In a telecommuting arrangement, workers don't commute or travel to a central place of work, like an office building, warehouse, or store. This type of work arrangement is also known as remote working, distance working, telework, teleworking, working from home, mobile work, remote job, work from anywhere, and flexible workplace.

5.5. Factors affecting for Job Design

An interesting and fulfilling job is one that is clearly defined for the employees.Performance and productivity both rise as a result. A job needs to be redesigned based on employee feedback if it doesn't seem compelling or interesting and causes employee dissatisfaction.Three categories can be used to group different elements that influence a work design. They are as follows

• Organisational Factors
• Environmental Factors
• Behavioural Factors

5.5.1.Organisational Factors

Work nature or characteristics, work flow, organisational procedures, and ergonomics are examples of organisational factors that influence job design.

Work Nature:

 A job consists of several components, and its design is necessary to categorise different tasks into a single job or a group of related jobs. When creating a job design, all of the different tasks—which could include organising, carrying out, overseeing, monitoring, and controlling—must be taken into account.

Ergonomics: 

The goal of ergonomics is to ensure efficiency and productivity in the design of jobs by taking into account the individual characteristics and physical capabilities of employees.

Workflow: The order in which tasks are completed depends on the type of product and service. A job design guarantees the necessary balance between different processes involved in providing a product or service.

Culture: 

The way tasks are completed at work is governed by the organisational culture. Practices are guidelines or standards for performing a specific task. These practices frequently have an impact on the design of the job, particularly when they conflict with union interests.

5.5.2 Environmental Factors

A significant amount of the job design is influenced by environmental factors. These elements consist of both external and internal components. These consist of things like the availability, economic status and cultural prospects, and skill and ability of the employees.

Employee skills, abilities, and availability: 

When designing jobs, employee availability and skills are important considerations. Consideration is given to the previously mentioned aspects of the workers who will carry out the work. Lower productivity and lower employee satisfaction will result from designing a job that is above their skill level and more demanding.

Social, economic, and cultural expectations: 

Employees now hold more power in the workplace than processes do. As a result, they are created with the employees in mind. Additionally, there is an increase in the employees' literacy rate. These days, they expect jobs that best match their interests, abilities, and capabilities.

5.5.3.Behavioural Factors

The elements that deal with human needs and how they must be met in order to ensure productivity at work are known as behavioural or human factors. These comprise components such as diversity, feedback, autonomy, etc. Below is a brief explanation of a few:

Autonomy: 

A fear-filled workplace is not the place where employees should be working. It encourages originality, self-reliance, and greater productivity.

Comments:

Work should always include comments. Appropriate feedback regarding each employee's performance at work ought to be given.

Diversity: 

Jobs that require a lot of repetition can become monotonous and boring. To ensure that a job is interesting every day, it should have enough diversity and variety. When creating a job, job diversity and variety should be taken into consideration.

Use of Skills and Abilities: 

Employees should be the center of jobs, not processes. Jobs should be created so that employees can fully utilize their abilities and do their jobs well, even though the latter needs to be given due emphasis.

Conclusion

The process of choosing what a job should include in terms of its tasks and responsibilities, how it should be performed in terms of tools, systems, and procedures, and how the job holder should interact with colleagues and superiors is known as job design.In order to make the jobs highly specialised, job designing was practices by making the tasks to be performed simpler.

 

References

Cardiff University. (n.d.). Homeworking in a global pandemic. [online] Available at: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2499260-homeworking-in-a-global-pandemic   [Accessed 14 Dec. 2023].

CharityVillage. (2019). Hot Desking: How to thrive in the agile office environment. [online] Available at: https://charityvillage.com/how_to_thrive_in_the_agile_office_environment/   [Accessed 14 Dec. 2023].

GreggU (2019). Job Enlargement and Job Rotation. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtqDr_Ubs1A.  [Accessed 18 Dec. 2023].

Learning, G. (2019). Job Enrichment and Empowerment. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DS-4UuVr2w.  [Accessed 18 Dec. 2023].

O’connor, L. (2021). Do Flexible Work Hours Improve Employee Productivity? [online] HubbleHQ. Available at: https://hubblehq.com/blog/flexible-work-hours-productivity. [Accessed 13 Dec. 2023].

 Team, E. (2023). What is Job Design? Features and Techniques. [online] Being Intelligent. Available at: https://beingintelligent.com/job-design.html  [Accessed 13 Dec. 2023].

Valchanov, I. (2021). What is Telework: Telework, Telecommuting, and WFH. [online] 3veta. Available at: https://3veta.com/blog/articles/what-is-telework-telework-telecommuting-and-wfh/  [Accessed 14 Dec. 2023].

www.localgov.co.uk. (2021). Is a multi-skilled workforce the future of local government? | LocalGov. [online] Available at: https://www.localgov.co.uk/Is-a-multi-skilled-workforce-the-future-of-local-government/53277  [Accessed 14  Dec. 2023].

Managementstudyguide.com. (2015). Factors affecting Job Design. [online] Available at: https://www.managementstudyguide.com/factors-affecting-job-design.htm. [Accessed 20  Dec. 2023].