Job Design

86. When someone is hyper-sensitive to their environment, what type of job design should they be given? Why?

A hyper sensitive person reacts very strongly to their environment, so they need a basic specialized job.

87. When someone is hypo-sensitive to their environment, what type of job design should they be given? Why?

A hypo sensitive person needs a lot of stimulation to get excited, so they need an enriched job which will give them stimulation and challenge

64. What task characteristic is job depth similar to?

Autonomy and feedback

62. What is job breadth and job depth?

Breadth- number of tasks a jobholder performs, horizontal Depth-amount of discretion an individual has to to decide job activities and outcomes

69. What is the purpose of job enlargement?

Break job monotony by adding more tasks, this increases breadth but not depth

78. What step in the redesign process is job enrichment?

Combining Tasks

58. What is task identity?

Extent to which your job allows you to complete a whole piece of work

57. What is skill variety?

Extent to which your job allows you to do a wide variety of tasks

59. What is task significance?

Impact that your job has on other people, all jobs have impact even garbage men (think about how a city smells in the middle of a sanitation strike in July) but some jobs have more impact, like a surgeon.

61. What is feedback?

Information that reveals how well employees are performing on the job. 360 degree feedback is feedback that comes from all around (supervisors, co-workers, subordinates, and customers) not just from supervisors above

73. What is job enrichment? How is it different from job enlargement?

Job enrichment is a move back to craft jobs from the assembly line like specialized jobs. Enrichment tries to make work more meaningful, interesting, challenging, adds greater control and freedom. (Increases breadth and depth)

90. How do economic factors affect redesigning of jobs?

Job redesign is very expensive so in bad times there is very little change in job design

65. What job design is least prevalent today? Most prevalent today?

Least- craft jobs Most- specialized jobs

68. What are the disadvantages of specialized jobs?

Only occur when the wrong person is in that job a. repetitive b. depersonalized c. low job substitution d. quality decreases e. low job motivation and satisfaction f. high absenteeism and high turnover g. employee sabotage

72. What is job rotation?

Rotating employees through a series of specialized jobs in a plant sequence. This method is a short-lived attempt to break boredom

60. What is autonomy?

Self governance or rather the extent to which your job allows you to make decisions about that job

71. The motivational benefits of job enlargement are short-lived or long-lived?

Short-lived, you become bored again

70. What two task characteristics does job enlargement increase?

Skill variety and task identity

63. What task characteristic(s) is job breadth similar to?

Skill variety, task identity and task significance

85. What is the Yerkes-Dodson law? (arousal and performance are related in what manner?)

Some people are hyper-sensitive which means they need little stimulation to get to their activation level. Or stated differently, a moderate level of arousal leads to high performance)

83. What type of motivation is best suited to specialized jobs? Enriched jobs?

Specialized Jobs- Instrumental- work is a paycheck Enriched Jobs- Expressive- work is personally satisfying (Kerry used painters as an example of this.

84. What is instrumental motivation? Expressive motivation?

Specialized Jobs- Instrumental- work is a paycheck Enriched Jobs- Expressive- work is personally satisfying (Kerry used painters as an example of this.

88. How does technology affect job redesign efforts?

The more technology used in a job the harder it is to redesign it, it would be much easier to redesign craft work, than an assembly line job.

55. What function of management is concerned with job design and organizational design?

The organizing function, it consists of dividing work and coordinating group and Individual activity

66. What is specialized job and how does it load on the five task characteristics?

They are the result of the industrial revolution and the division of activity to smaller and smaller tasks a. low breadth and depth b. efficient c. little skill variety d. low task identity e. low task significance f. little autonomy g. high degree of feedback

89. How do unions feel about any attempt from management to redesign jobs?

They are very resistant because they are afraid it will bring greater efficiency and the need to employee less people.

82. What employee factors should be taken into consideration when designing jobs?

You should consider their ability (can they do it) and motivation (will they do it)

75. What are the different aspects of the job characteristics model?

a. Job core dimensions b. Psychological states c. Personal or work outcome

81. How does strategy influence job design?

a. Prospector Strategy- job enrichment, or craft jobs b. Defender Strategy- specialized job design

56. What are the three aspects of job design?

a. content- major task b. work methods- how do you do your job? c. Relation to other hobs- who do you have to work with

77. What are the five steps in redesigning a job so it will be enriched? What happens at each step and what task characteristics are increased?

a. forming natural work units- put employees together in teams (Increase in task identity and significance) b. combining tasks- give them multiple things to do (increase in skill variety and task identity) c. Establishing Client Relationships- put them in contact with the people who use their product or service (increases skill variety, task significance, autonomy, and feedback) d. Vertical Loading most important step!- give the employee discretion as to when and how it's done (mostly increases autonomy) e. Opening feedback channels- info on how well performing

67. What are the advantages of specialized jobs?

a. greater efficiency b. higher productivity c. lower wages can be paid because of low skill level d. training costs are cheap

80. What are the disadvantages of job enrichment?

a. high training and salary costs b. places greater demands on workers c. union resistance to anything that changes work roles d. not all workers have the ability e. supervisors can loose their jobs

74. What are the advantages of job enrichment?

a. increase in motivation and satisfaction b. high quality performance c. decrease in absenteeism and turnover

76. What are the three moderators that influence the effectiveness of job enrichment? How do they influence it?

a. knowledge and skill of employees- people with low skills or knowledge do not get any thing out of enrichment of their job b. growth-need strength- people with high growth needs are more responsive c. "context" satisfaction- if people are upset about other context things (pay, company policies, etc.) they are less responsive to enrichment