Innovative Job Design for Enhanced Employee Motivation and Performance

The summary outlines the critical role of job design in contemporary business practices with an emphasis on enhancing motivation and performance. It highlights four main approaches: motivational, mechanistic, biological, and perceptual-motor. The assignment emphasizes that among these, a motivational approach is paramount for fostering employee innovation and sustaining organizational development. This approach aligns well with the increasing need for businesses to be adaptable and socially responsible while leveraging new technologies. By integrating innovative job design with strategic human resource management (SHRM), organizations can better navigate complex changes, ensuring both employee satisfaction and improved performance outcomes. The exploration of sustainable HRM practices is also discussed as a progressive step beyond traditional SHRM strategies.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human resource management
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Work design and analysis................................................................................................................3
Trends or changes impacting the way work is designed..............................................................3
Analysis of job status for promoting innovation..........................................................................4
Approaches to job design.............................................................................................................5
Appropriate approach for job designing......................................................................................6
Human resource management innovation.......................................................................................6
HRM benefits to performance.........................................................................................................7
Human resource planning................................................................................................................7
Distribution of staffing at CERA.....................................................................................................7
Recommendations for improving the human resource planning.....................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The report is prepared to focus on the most important concepts of human resource
management including the work designing for positioning CERA properly and ensuring business
success and profitability. Civil Engineering & Research Associates or CERA is a consulting
organisation that provides innovative solutions for the management of civil construction within
the entire of Australia. The company not only manages the integrated planning, but also manages
designing and engineering consultations services along with targeting various media for
managing the large infrastructure projects with ease and effectiveness. To become a leader
within the field of smart construction solutions, it will be important to prepare appropriate work
design and at the same time, manage the human resources properly too (Adinets et al., 2012).
Work design and analysis
Trends or changes impacting the way work is designed
The implementation of business strategies is dependent upon the ways by which jobs are
designed along with the various marketing activities such as product differentiation and enabling
innovation of products and services to influence the consumer buying behavior. The distribution
of organizations and tasks for the staffs is one of the major trends whereas the introduction of
advanced and new technologies and social collaboration tools have enabled innovation and
created a good workplace and better working conditions for the employees of CERA. The trends
that might result in making changes could be the lack of skills, knowledge and expertise among
the workers, need for more work flexibility and creating sustainable business all throughout,
which had been other trends impacting the designing of work (Cummings & Worley, 2014). One

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such example could be the presence of nanodegrees and nano jobs ar Udacity. The organsiation
offered nanodegrees and the graduates started their nanojobs and finally cemented their place by
using their skills to learn something new again and move on (Kramar, 2014).
Other changes that could create impact on job design could be the allotment of tasks
based on their existing skills existing jobs. This would change the entire design of work and to
enhance the workflow they should be trained and motivated to perform to their potential
(Freeney & Fellenz, 2013).
Job analysis could also be done by utilizing the analysis of workflow, assessment of
survey questionnaires, interviews conducted, surveys and by collecting useful data and
information. Work flow analysis could help in assuming the progress made by employees in
terms of their job roles while the survey questionnaires were distributed to the staffs of CERA to
provide their opinions and feedbacks regarding their roles and responsibilities and what
necessary changes could be done. Interviewing them would allow for obtaining their responses
regarding the working conditions and if any issues arise, then what might be the changes that
should be done within CERA to enhance the operational efficiency, designing of work and
staffing process too (Holman et al., 2012).
Analysis of job status for promoting innovation
The improvement in individuals’ abilities for innovating could be possible by improving
the job roles and making changes in the working conditions. This would create a positive
mindset among them and make them feel valued for the organisation, furthermore should make
them feel valued for the organisation. Based on the job status, it could be understood that CERA
boosts of a good quality workforce, which could improve the skills and abilities of individuals to

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create innovation by promoting sustainable human resource management (Jiang et al., 2012).
According to Kramar et al. (2014), social, economic, environmental and political factors were
considered by obtaining the opinions and responses of the stakeholders for ensuring successful
sustainable development and management of human resources too. To promote innovation,
corporate social responsibility is also essential to create the most positive impact on the social
sphere and carrying out the ethical roles and responsibilities at the same time. To promote further
innovation, CERA has involved every stakeholders and allowed them to undertake approaches of
remaining sustainable in business (Marchington et al., 2016).
Approaches to job design
The four major approaches of designing a job include motivational approach, mechanistic
approach, biological approach and perceptual-motor approach. The motivational approach, as the
name suggests, is undertaken to keep the staffs motivated and encouraged through fulfillment of
their mental needs and requirements (Kramar, 2014). The job roles of managers and business
executive could be motivational approach and it could help in keeping the staffs satisfied through
providing of training and developmental sessions for them. It enables high autonomy level,
feedbacks of employees from the intrinsic and extrinsic perspectives, variety of task and goals
that are needed to be achieved (Marinova et al., 2015). This kind of approach could enhance the
motivational level and allow them to grow and progress throughout their career and professional
life as well.
The mechanistic approach was used when employees require the least training and
developmental sessions. It allows for allocating the tasks and making necessary simplifications
whenever required. This kind of approach though enhances the chances of high level job

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dissatisfaction, absenteeism of employees and turnover. The biological approach was managed to
reduce the job related hazards that might be cost as well as reduce the costs of operations. The
perceptual-motor approach maintained the emotional well being of individuals and made sure
that the limitations were maintained (Parker, 2014). This kind of approach helped in managing
the layout of workplace and obtaining information as input requirements to deliver the best
outcomes.
Appropriate approach for job designing
The most suitable approach for job design could be the motivational approach, which
could enhance their motivational level and allow for clarifying the roles and responsibilities
properly too. It promotes high level of autonomy and openness, which can be beneficial for
designing the job with accuracy (Reason, Løvlie & Flu, 2015).
Human resource management innovation
Innovation is considered as an imperative of the strategic human resource management.
To promote innovation within the workplace for designing better jobs and assigning the right
roles and responsibilities, it is important to develop and exploit intellectual capital and manage
knowledge creation. This could help in developing new products and services and facilitate
innovation aspects through development of a link between performance appraisal systems,
incentive based compensation and internal career opportunities too. This would enable employee
participation and create better scopes and opportunities for innovation, furthermore influence the
HRM practices by maintaining the quality and ethical standards at the workplace of CERA
(Shantz et al., 2013).

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HRM benefits to performance
The benefits of HRM could be obtained by using the performance management system,
which could help in the recruitment and selection of individuals and even creating higher
consistency level by promoting the employees to higher posts, motivating and encouraging them
to perform better. The company employs 45 people and has associations with 15 independent
contractors who work with us from time to time. They were even provided with monetary and
non-monetary benefits for lifting their morale and identification of their training needs for
overcoming the areas of weaknesses could mitigate the risks and ensure obtaining the most
positive outcomes through management of human resources at CERA, Australia (Truxillo et al.,
2012).
Human resource planning
An appropriate HR planning is essential for looking into the recent trends and
understanding the requirements of customers to develop products accordingly. The HR planning
also involves identifying the staffs employed within the organisation along with their roles and
responsibilities whereas the development plan would also consist of planning for retention of
existing staffs and recruiting new staffs with necessary skills and knowledge. The allocation of
tasks, wages paid to the employees and other compensation benefits provided to them could also
be considered as important aspects of the HR planning (Wood et al., 2012).
Distribution of staffing at CERA
Founding Director – Mark French (1)
Civil Engineering Division – Kellie Lincoln, Director + 12 professional staff (13)

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Drafting Office – Rachel Amaro, Manager + 5 professional/technical staff (6)
Planning Division – Jonathon Simon, Director + 3 professional staff (4)
Smart Structures R&D Division – Lane Scowcroft, General Manager + 5 research/professional
staff (6)
Finance, Legal and Administration Office – Susumu Takada, Manager + 5 professional and 5
administrative staff (11)
Human Resources Office – Israel Tobin, Manager + 3 professional staff (4)
Recommendations for improving the human resource planning
Leadership is the first and foremost thing to improve the HR planning. Not only the HR
manager is responsible for managing the human resources, but also the general manager or
leader of the organisation is assigned with the tasks of creating a good culture and engaging the
employees together (Kramar, 2014). Mentoring could help in enhancing the efficiency of
retention process and make them fully committed to the achievement of business goals and
objectives. Evaluation of performances of the employees should enable identifying their progress
and the areas of weaknesses, based on which changes could be done for increasing their
collective performance (Adinets et al., 2012). Analytical, problem solving and team working
skills’ improvements are also recommended for improving the human resource planning.
Conclusion
The report was prepared to focus on the various aspects of managing human resources at
CERA. The topic provided relevant explanation of the job design and how staffing process had

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been managed. The major trends impacting the changes within organisation included distribution
of organizations, use of new technologies and becoming socially responsible towards the
community. The job status was analyzed to enable innovation and creating sustainable HRM
whereas the approaches for designing jobs were motivational approach, mechanistic approach,
biological approach and perceptual-motor approach. Among these approaches, the motivation
approach was considered as considered as most suitable for enhancing the motivation level of
workers and facilitating the process of innovation and HR planning at the same time.

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References
Adinets, A. V., Bryzgalov, P. A., Voevodin, V. V., Zhumatii, S. A. E., Nikitenko, D. A., &
Stefanov, K. S. (2012). Job digest: an approach to dynamic analysis of job characteristics
on supercomputers. Numerical methods and programming: Advanced Computing, 13(4),
160-166.
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage
learning.
Freeney, Y., & Fellenz, M. R. (2013). Work engagement, job design and the role of the social
context at work: Exploring antecedents from a relational perspective. Human
Relations, 66(11), 1427-1445.
Holman, D., Totterdell, P., Axtell, C., Stride, C., Port, R., Svensson, R., & Zibarras, L. (2012).
Job design and the employee innovation process: The mediating role of learning
strategies. Journal of Business and Psychology, 27(2), 177-191.
Jiang, K., Lepak, D. P., Hu, J., & Baer, J. C. (2012). How does human resource management
influence organizational outcomes? A meta-analytic investigation of mediating
mechanisms. Academy of management Journal, 55(6), 1264-1294.
Kramar, R. (2014). Beyond strategic human resource management: is sustainable human
resource management the next approach?. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 25(8), 1069-1089.
Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R., & Kynighou, A. (2016). Human resource
management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.

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Marinova, S. V., Peng, C., Lorinkova, N., Van Dyne, L., & Chiaburu, D. (2015). Change-
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Vocational Behavior, 88, 104-120.
Parker, S. K. (2014). Beyond motivation: Job and work design for development, health,
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optimizing the customer experience. John Wiley & Sons.
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Truxillo, D. M., Cadiz, D. M., Rineer, J. R., Zaniboni, S., & Fraccaroli, F. (2012). A lifespan
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engagement, and performance. Organizational Psychology Review, 2(4), 340-360.
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