Job Designing

                All jobs are designed, whether consciously or otherwise. In this sense design is simply the process of deciding what goes in and what stays out. Design is, by its very nature, both enabling and excluding. Organizations may seek to divide tasks rationally between different groups of employees in ways that appear to maximize efficiency. Narrowly designed jobs, for example where employees repeat a restricted number of tasks in relatively short cycles,  assume high levels of product or service standardization, high levels of predictability in the business environment and high levels of employee tolerance of boring work. 

  

To summarise, job design might be represented as follows: 

                There are certain factors that influence job design, or rather, that must be taken into consideration when designing a job. These include but not limited to motivation; the characteristics of task structure; the motivating characteristics of jobs; and the job characteristics model.

Below is a brief consideration of some of these factors.

v  The Process of Intrinsic Motivation.

v  Characteristics of task structure.

v  Motivating characteristics of jobs.

v  The job characteristics model

Approaches to job design

      theoretical frameworks within which job design can be approached.

                The classical approach:

                The the classical approach to job design is based on the scientific management theory in which the management takes all the decision and the workers‟ responsibility is to perform the instructions received from the management. This approach to job design is obsolete as it hampers the participatory role of employees and this, in turn, lowers job satisfaction derived by workers through participation in planning and decision making.

                The behavioral approach:

                The limitations of the classical approach to job design led to the search for alternative ways of designing jobs. This search brought about redesigning jobs, work structuring, job enrichment, participative system, etc to improve the quality of work life. Unlike the classical approach, the behavioral approach to job design is not only concern with the technical aspects of jobs but also takes care of the social aspects of jobs. One most popular behavioral approach to job redesign is the Job characteristics model discussed above.

In addition to these two major approaches to job design (Okunade, 2015)  listed five peripheral approaches to job design. They include,

Job rotation	This comprises the movement of employees from one task to another to reduce monotony by increasing variety.
Job enlargement	This means combining previously fragmented tasks into one job, again to increase the variety and meaning of repetitive work.
Job enrichment	This  goes beyond job enlargement to add greater autonomy and responsibility to a job and is based on the job characteristics approach.
autonomous work groups	These  are self-regulating teams who work largely without direct supervision. The Introduction to Human Resource Management.

Reference

Okunade, B. (2015). Personnel and Industrial Relations in Education EME 312. Distance Learning Centre, University of Ibadan, Ibadan. 

Emechebe, S. N. (2009). Human resource management in education.  In Babalola, J. B., Ayeni A. O. (Eds.), Educaional management: Theories and Tasks (pp. 629-645). Lagos, 

McCormick, E. J. (1970).Job Analysis: An Overview. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations. 6(1)  pp. 5-14. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27760929 

DHONDT, S., VAAS, S. (2001) WEBA Analysis Manual. Hoofddorp: TNO Work and Employment.