Psychological implication in Work Design & Job Design

“Work design deals with the ways in which things are done in the work system of a business by teams and individuals. Job design is about establishing what people in individual jobs or roles are there to do” (Armstrong and Tylor, 2014).These two processed can be done simultaneously.

Workforce requirement in large scale manufacturing industry is declining and work force requirement in service sector is increasing. Professional services, new product development, customize production are the areas that need employee emotional satisfaction in order to get the work done. Therefore work designing and job designing in an organisation should be done considering psychological impact, cost of production or service and quality of the product or service.

Cost and quality of production or service

Early years work and job designing had been done in cost and quality perspective. After the industrial revolution production was done in large volumes and labor force requirement increased. Therefore unskilled and semi - skilled workers also entered to the labor force and it was required to increase efficiency of the production. The scientific management theory became into the scene and it was focused to increase economic efficiency and especially labour productivity by analyzing and synthesizing workflows. Frederick.W.Taylor (1856-1915) was introduced the scientific management theory and several scientist developed it.

In the mass production era Henry Ford, a large scale car manufacturer increased division of labour and achieved high performance in his business. The Tylorism and Fordism look people are as a cost to the business. Therefore psychological aspects were not considered.

It is required to identify necessary skills and activities to complete the job, at what degree of task completion and level of division of labour required. These are vary according to the type of the organisation (Service, manufacturing, customize production, etc.)

Psychological impact on employees.

Researched developed theories focusing motivation approach relating to work and job designing. Henry Fayol (1841-1925) who belongs to the Administrative Management school which was opposed to the Scientific management school was introduced the 14 principles of management. It was an initiative step to think beyond the people as a cost. In Fayol's principles Initiative role of employees and importance of promoting team spirit (Esprit de corps) was recognized. Work place motivation was brought into the scene by Elton Mayo in 1927 by his famous Hawthorn Studies. The conclusion of this experiment was productivity is not affect the physical condition.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943, 1954) include five human motives in a hierarchical order. “Maslow states that people are motivated by unmet needs which are in a hierarchical order that prevents people from being motivated by a need area unless all lower level needs have been met.

Herzberg's Motivation Hygiene Theory concluded that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not on the same continuum and were the products of two separate factors: motivating factors (satisfiers) and hygiene factors (dissatisfies) respectively.

Satisfiers (motivating factors)	Dissatisfies (hygiene factors)
Achievement	Company Policy
Recognition	Supervision
Work itself	Working conditions
Responsibility	Interpersonal relations
Advancement	Salary
Growth	Status
	Job security
	Personal life

(Herzberg, Mousner, and Snyderman, 1959, cited in Pardee, 1990). He further states that the motivational factors can cause satisfaction or no satisfaction while the hygiene factors cause dissatisfaction when absent and no dissatisfaction when present, both having magnitudes of strength. Herzberg suggests that factors that lead to job satisfaction are primarily intrinsic, whereas factors leading to job dissatisfaction are primarily extrinsic. (Caston and Braoto 1985, cited in Pardee, 1990).Intrinsic rewards like self – worth, accomplishment and pleasure from using and developing skills (William, Gallagher, and Einhorn, 1979) are affected esteem and self-actualization of individuals in a working group. 

Douglas McGregor’s theory X and Y explain that manager’s view on their subordinate work in negatively (theory X) and positively (theory Y) based on his or her behavior. As per theory Y, employees willingness to self –direction and self-control if they are committed to objectives, person’s ability to learn to accept and seek responsibility, and creativity (Robbins, 1990) can be used by managers when job and work designing. It also align with Maslow’s self-actualization level of motivation.

Japanese management human resource management style

Japanese management human resource management style it is given attention to employee participation in decision making, collective responsibility and desire to limit individual responsibility and highly collectivistic culture (Beechlar et al., 1996). These characteristics also show the psychological concern in job and work designing in Japanese management style. Autonomy of workers like involve them in decision making improve the employee satisfaction.

The job characteristics model developed by Hackman and Oldham (1974) identified five core job characteristics;

1. Skill variety - activities that challenge employee skills and abilities.

2. Task identity - requires completion of an identifiable piece of work.

3. Task significance- job outcome has impact on others

4. Autonomy- freedom and desecration in scheduling and performing way of job

5. Feedback - get information about effectiveness of work

Autonomous work Groups (AWG) concept also based on the intrinsic factors of motivation. Meaningful tasks, workers control over standards, feedback of results, perceive contribution to end product are some characteristics of AWG which motivate the employees.

Current theories explain the importance of psychological factors in motivation of employees and therefore it is a necessity to consider these psychological factors in job and work designing in order to achieve organizational objectives.

Reference

Armstrong, M. and Tylor, S. (2014) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human resource management practice. 14th edn. Kogan page limited: New Delhi.

Beechlar,S. Najjar, M. Stucker, K. and Bird, Allan ( 1996) Japanese -style vs American style Human Resource Management overseas: examining whether the data supports the “facts”. Working paper No. 105 .Columbia University.

Pardee, R. L. (1990) Motivation Theories of Maslow, Herzberg, McGregor & McClelland. A Literature Review of Selected Theories Dealing with Job Satisfaction and Motivation. Available at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED316767.pdf (Accessed:04 April 2018)

Robbins, S. P. (1990) Organization Theory: Structures, Designs, and Applications, Pearson Education India.

William E. Gallagher, Jr. and Einhorn, H.J. (1979) Motivation Theory and Job Design.The Journal of Business. 49(3) pp. 358-373 , The University of Chicago Press.