A Critical Analysis: Does Job Design Truly Benefit Only Employers?

This essay critically examines the concept of job design and whether it primarily benefits employers by increasing job performance, while potentially overlooking the needs and benefits of workers. It discusses how job design, a key area of human resource management, focuses on aligning job characteristics with organizational needs, technological advancements, and employee skills. The essay explores various job design techniques such as job rotation, job enlargement, and job enrichment, highlighting how these methods can improve organizational productivity and efficiency, thereby benefiting employers. However, it also delves into the potential drawbacks for employees, including monotony, decreased job satisfaction, limited skill development, and increased workload. The essay concludes that while effective job design can enhance organizational performance and provide employers with a competitive advantage, it is crucial to consider employee well-being and ensure that job design strategies are implemented in a way that balances the needs of both employers and workers, fostering a more engaged and productive workforce. Desklib provides access to similar essays and study tools for students.

MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
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Table of Contents
Essay.....................................................................................................................................................3
References.............................................................................................................................................8
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Essay
Job design is being referred as consideration regarding the contextual factors like
characteristics of a task, experience of workers as well as the assessment method utilised for
the evaluation of job performance. One of the methods, so as to match characteristics of a
task with the skills of an older worker is to make the comparison regarding abilities,
knowledge, and skills needed for a work to those obsessed by employees (Shantz et. al.,
2013). Job design is being considered as the main area of the human resource management
and it is in relation methods, contents as well as jobs relationship so as to satisfy
organisational and technological needs and the personal and social requirement of employee
or job holder. Principles of this concept are geared towards how person job’s nature makes an
impact on their behaviour and attitude at work, especially in relation to characteristics like
autonomy and skill variety. The major aim of the job design is to make improvement in
throughput, quality, job satisfaction and to make a reduction in the problem of an employee
like absenteeism grievances etc.
Figure 1: Job designing
(Source: By author)
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In this assignment, there will be discussion regarding the job design. There will be analysis
regarding the job design that it just give benefit to employers by increasing performance of
the job and does not have any kind of benefit for the workers. Human resource is being
considered as the most significant resource in comparison with the other resources such as
land, material, machine etc. In the context of a particular organisation, human resource
effectiveness is dependent on the design of job as per characteristics and capability of a
human. Job design is being considered as the significant factor as it makes indications
regarding job functions, content designing, and methods.
Education is being considered as the most significant factor used to produce a man with
skills, attitude and knowledge needed not just for the present world but also for future. The
employee's performance is being considered as for how well an employee makes a
performance of his or her responsibilities and duties. Performance of an employee is being
considered as an important part due to the attainment of objectives and goals in an
organisation. Performance of an employee must be maintained and assessed periodically.
There are various factors from which it can be depicted that job design only give benefit to
employers as it makes increment in the job performance and does not give any benefit to
workers (Holman et. al., 2012).
Job design is significant for an employer so as to perform organisational activities in an
effective and efficient manner. It supports in providing the needed information and data
regarding incumbent and makes a specification of various ways to perform tasks. Job design
supports in designing structure of an organisation. It plays a major role in determining
requirements and needs of organisational structure and also make a specification of values,
norms, and culture which must be followed by members to attain goals of an organisation. It
is a systematic approach that provides job-related information and data on ability, knowledge,
and skills of incumbent so as to make a performance of a task. On the basis of given
information, schedule of job specification and job description are developed. It also gives a
milestone so as to choose the competent employee who can perform each and every task
effectively. An organisation makes operation in an environment full of dynamic factors
(Kehoe and Wright, 2013). Hence, any sort of change in the force of environment can directly
impact the performance of employees. Therefore, a systematic procedure of job designing
addresses the alterations that arose in an environment of the organisation. Due to the proper
designing of a job, a performance of employees gets increased which supports in improving
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quality of work life as well as productivity of an organisation which eventually give benefit
to the employers of a company.
Figure 2: Approaches to job design
(Source: Study.com, 2018)
As the performance gets increased in an association, employers get benefit in terms of money
or promotion. They are considered as the main reason behind the increased performance. By
making designing a job, it is easy for them to have proper management of workers and to
assign task as per the skills and abilities of workers. This makes work of an employee easy
and sorted and also supports them to make a proper evaluation of a worker by making use of
suitable methods.
There are three techniques of job designing; job rotation, job enlargement, and job
enrichment. Job rotation is being considered as the method of job designing that supports in
increasing productivity, a performance of organisation, motivation and worker's outlook on a
different level through multi-skilled workers and make provision of new opportunities so as
to make improvement in skills, capabilities, thoughts, and attitude of workers. It is procedure
through which employees serve and mobilize their task in the distinct level of organisation
when different posts and responsibilities are being experienced by an individual in a
company. Another technique is job enlargement, a procedure that allows workers to make a
determination of own pace, to rectify their mistakes, to achieve a method of choice and to set
up and repair own machines (Bakker et. al., 2012). Job enrichment increases the autonomy of
employees over the execution and planning of their work. It is also considered as the ‘vertical
job loading' as it makes the inclusion of tasks being done by someone at a high position
where there is an involvement of control and planning.
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As job design helps in providing benefit to the employer but on the other hand, there is no
benefit for the workers. The manners in which jobs are being designed give a huge effect on
the sense of happiness of employees at work. But this thing is in danger of getting neglected
when people worry about the fairness of large salaries, job security, and unemployment. The
research makes a measurement of the two separate forms of well being, job satisfaction and
anxiety. Due to the specific job design, employees feel frustrated as they want to perform
challenging jobs (Wood et. al., 2012). They get shifted to a new place but that just a
horizontal shifting. Instead, to perform one monotonous job, they have to perform various
jobs of similar nature. The frequent shift of the employees may give interruptions in the
organisation's work routine. Due to the job rotation, there will be a decrease in productivity as
well as an increase in cost as employees get shifted at the new place just when their
effectiveness and efficiency get improved on a particular job. Employees who require
particular responsibility in a selected speciality will feel demotivated. Due to such method,
less impact is there on productivity and motivation of employees.
As per the designing of the job, workers will experience low satisfaction and boredom as they
need to do repetitive work. Workers may also lose an opportunity to learn new attributes and
skills in the job, as they will perform repeated and similar task with less variety of skills. Job
design will also decrease the chance of workers to solve problems and exercise judgement as
they will not be entitled to decide on their own. As jobs get enlarged, developing cost of the
job will also get increased. There will be an inclusion of additional cost for the training of
employees (Cascio, 2018). Workers will also take more time so as to learn and adopt required
skills for enlarged jobs and this will also make increment in the number of accidents and will
minimize productivity. At the time of job enrichment, there are various employees who
perform well but others make poor performance because of lack of clarity, lack of interest
and lack of training regarding new activities and tasks. Due to the poor performance,
employees may have the sense of incompetence and also may cause employees to strip their
responsibilities and workers can also feel embarrassment. Each and every employee of the
business will not be able to make participation in the job enrichment. Individuals who require
more responsibility but will not be able to handle it can become disgruntled and bitter
towards administration as well as the employees who are a part of job enrichment. Due to the
job enrichment, there will also be an increase in the workload of employees (Cullinane et. al.,
2013).
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There are some employees who can immediately prioritize tasks and time but some will face
difficulty in adjusting to new tasks and responsibilities. Due to the increase in work, the
productivity of employees will be lowered down and employees will get burned out and
frustrated. When employees are given more tasks and activities through job enrichment, there
are many chances that they may not be experienced or skilled in the tasks which they need to
perform. There may be a disadvantage of lack of training employees due to which there will
low productivity. With the ‘work from home' job design, employees will manage job
functions and tasks from home only without being at the office, but due to this, they will not
be able to make communication with other employees and maintain relations with them. The
entire day, they will deal with machines only and may lose creativity (Jong et. al., 2015). This
will give hindrance in their way as there will be no up gradation of skills.
There are two phases of job design, it is helpful for the employers as there is an increment in
the performance of job due to it and thus support employers as well as organisation to make
enhancement in the productivity and develops an effective organisational structure. As the
performance gets increased, it helps employers to complete their targets and gets promoted to
the next position but on the other hand, job design creates many difficulties for the employees
or workers as they get to do the same job, again and again, this makes reduction in the
creativity as well as innovation in the tasks and activities. By doing same jobs all the time,
they will not be able to make improvement in the abilities and skills as the diversification of
jobs will not be there. If the job will not get designed as per the choice and skills of workers,
then they will face many difficulties in performing the activities and tasks effectively and
efficiently (Bartling et. al., 2012). It is very necessary for an employer to prepare a job by
considering each and every employee skills as well as abilities in an appropriate manner. Job
design will be very helpful for the employees as well if it will be prepared properly by
considering all the factors properly. For the preparation of the job design, employer and
manager of an organisation are being involved. The effective job design will support the
employer in making a proper evaluation of workers performance as per the designed patterns
but an inappropriate job design will hamper performance as well as capabilities of an
employee in many ways.
When the job design is being done, employers and managers must also take suggestions from
workers and must evaluate their skills and abilities so as to make perfect job design that will
also satisfy workers in an organisation. By taking suggestions from workers, employers will
be able to know about their style of work, needs, and desires in relation to work.
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References
 Bakker, A.B., Tims, M. and Derks, D., 2012. Proactive personality and job
performance: The role of job crafting and work engagement. Human
relations, 65(10), pp.1359-1378.
 Bartling, B., Fehr, E. and Schmidt, K.M., 2012. Screening, competition, and job
design: Economic origins of good jobs. American Economic Review, 102(2), pp.834-
64.
 Cascio, W., 2018. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.
 Cullinane, S.J., Bosak, J., Flood, P.C. and Demerouti, E., 2013. Job design under lean
manufacturing and its impact on employee outcomes. Organizational Psychology
Review, 3(1), pp.41-61.
 Holman, D., Totterdell, P., Axtell, C., Stride, C., Port, R., Svensson, R. and Zibarras,
L., 2012. Job design and the employee innovation process: The mediating role of
learning strategies. Journal of Business and Psychology, 27(2), pp.177-191.
 Jong, J.P., Parker, S.K., Wennekers, S. and Wu, C.H., 2015. Entrepreneurial behavior
in organizations: Does job design matter?. Entrepreneurship Theory and
Practice, 39(4), pp.981-995.
 Kehoe, R.R. and Wright, P.M., 2013. The impact of high-performance human
resource practices on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Journal of
management, 39(2), pp.366-391.
 Shantz, A., Alfes, K., Truss, C. and Soane, E., 2013. The role of employee
engagement in the relationship between job design and task performance, citizenship
and deviant behaviors. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 24(13), pp.2608-2627.
 Study.com, 2018. Behavioral Approaches to Job Design. [Online]. Study.com.
Available at: https://study.com/academy/lesson/behavioral-approaches-to-job-
design.html. [Accessed on 4 May 2018].
 Wood, S., Van Veldhoven, M., Croon, M. and de Menezes, L.M., 2012. Enriched job
design, high involvement management and organizational performance: The
mediating roles of job satisfaction and well-being. Human relations, 65(4), pp.419-
445.
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