Ch5

Telecommuting's Downside Considerations

- Employees miss the workplace social interaction - Employees lack self-control/discipline - Difficulties arise in coordinating in-face meetings - Workplace safety requirements - Information security (cybercrime)

Techniques and Issues in Employee Involvement

- Empowerment through work teams (quality circles) - Decentralization of decision-making and increased delegation

3 Critical psychological states of workers:

- Experienced meaningfulness of the work - Experienced responsibility for work outcomes - Knowledge of results

Job Specialization (Fredrick Taylor)

- Jobs should be scientifically studied, broken down into small component tasks, and then standardized across all workers doing those jobs - Jobs designed for efficiency can become boring and monotonous, resulting in job dissatisfaction - Follows Adam Smith's concept of the division of labor

Areas of Employee Involvement Areas of Employee Involvement

- Personal job-related decisions - Administrative matters (e.g., work schedules) - Product quality decisions

Telecommuting's Benefits to Organizations

- Reduced absenteeism and turnover - Reduction in indirect expenses for facilities

For an effective empowerment, an organization must be:

- Sincere in its efforts to spread power and autonomy to lower levels of the organization - Committed to maintaining participation and empowerment - Systematic and patient in its efforts to empower workers - Prepared to increase its commitment to training

5 motivational properties of tasks:

-Skill variety -Task identity -Task significance -Autonomy -Feedback

Extended work schedule

An extended work schedule is one that requires relatively long periods of work followed by relatively long periods of paid time off.

Empowerment

Empowerment is the process of enabling workers to set their own work goals, make decisions, and solve problems within their sphere of responsibility and authority.

Flexible work schedules

Flexible work schedules, or flextime, give employees more personal control over the hours they work each day.

Compressed work schedule

In a compressed work schedule, employees work a full forty-hour week in fewer than the traditional five days.

Job sharing

In job sharing, two or more part-time employees share one full-time job.

Job design

Job design is how organizations define and structure jobs.

Job enlargement(Horizontal Job Loading)

Job enlargement involves giving workers more tasks to perform.

Job enrichment(Vertical Job Loading)

Job enrichment entails giving workers more tasks to perform and more control over how to perform them.

Job rotation

Job rotation is systematically moving workers from one job to another in an attempt to minimize monotony and boredom.

Job specialization

Job specialization, as advocated by scientific management, can help improve efficiency, but it can also promote monotony and boredom.

Participation

Participation entails giving employees a voice in making decisions about their own work.

Telecommuting

Telecommuting is a work arrangement in which employees spend part of their time working off-site.

Job characteristics theory

The job characteristics theory identifies five motivational properties of tasks and three critical psychological states of people.