JOB ENRICHMENT

Introduction How it all began? Job design and job enrichment How to implement job enrichment? Why participate in job enrichment? Employees perceptions on job enrichment Examples of enrichment programs Conclusions References

Introduction
In todays increasingly changing world both employers and employees are trying to find ways to make jobs more meaningful and satisfying. One of the ways to do this is to redesign jobs to better meet new requirements. Redesigning has several different characteristics but in this paper I will concentrate on job enrichment. Enrichment and employee empowerment belong together. Enrichment means making jobs more satisfying by increasing the skill variety, task identity, significance of the task, autonomy and feedback from the work itself and so forth. Empowerment on the other hand is letting the workers do their jobs in the way they themselves see best.

How it all began?

During the 50's and 60's Fredrick Herzberg decided to carefully study and research the key factors affecting a worker's performance. The main founding of his research was that

certain factors seemed to make workers unsatisfied with their work. These factors seemed to directly relate to the employee's environment such as the physical surroundings, supervisors and even the company itself. Baced on these findings Herzberg developed a theory and named it the "Hygiene Theory." According to his theory, for a worker to be happy and therefore productive, these environmental factors must not cause discomfort. Although the elimination of the environmental problems may make a worker productive, it will not necessarily motivate him. The question remains, "How can managers motivate employees?" Many managers believe that motivating employees requires giving rewards. Herzberg, however, believed that the workers get motivated through feeling responsible for and connected to their work. In this case, the work itself is rewarding. Managers can help the employees connect to their work by giving them more authority over the job, as well as offering direct and individual feedback. In 1975, Hackman and Oldham proposed another popular model of job enrichment that they call the Job Characteristics Model. In this model, the degree to which jobs are motivating can be assessed through five core job characteristics: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and job feedback, all of which are characteristics that Herzberg might have termed "motivators". Skill variety is defined as the degree to which a job requires a variety of different skills to be completed. Task identity is the degree to which the job requires completion of a number of whole, identifiable pieces of work. Task significance is the extent to which a job has a meaningful impact on other jobs in the same workplace. Autonomy is the limit to which a job provides substantial freedom, independence and discretion, and job feedback is the degree to which carrying out work activities produces direct and clear information about the performance of an individual. Hackman and Oldhams research led to the conclusion that "to the extent that a job contains these five characteristics, three psychological states are produced: experienced meaningfulness of the work, experienced responsibility for outcomes of the work, and knowledge of the actual results of the work activities. To the degree that these psychological states are present, high internal work motivation exists.

Job design and job enrichment

Job design has been defined slightly differently depending on who is defining it. Here I'm going to use the following basic model where job design consists of four different considerations: Organizational Objectives, Industrial Engineering, Ergonomics, and Behavioral Concerns. Job enrichment is one of the factors of Behavioral Concerns. Below are brief descriptions of some of job designs approaches: Job Rotation o Moves employees from job to job giving them opportunities to perform a greater variety of tasks. Job Engineering o Focuses on tasks, work methods and flows, workplace layout, performance standards, and interdependencies between people and machines. Job Enlargement o Expands number of tasks performed, usually at same level of responsibility. Job Enrichment o Empowers employees to assume more responsibility and accountability.

 Sociotechnical Systems Model o Considers linkages between people with various competencies and the tools, techniques, and knowledge used to produce goods and services. Job enrichment itself consists, according to Herzberg, of the following things: Removing some controls while retaining (and increasing) accountability for the outcome. Each employee should be assigned with a complete unit of work that should have a clear start and end point. If a worker always performs just the same bit of work he cant identify with it and his motivation becomes lower. If possible the workers should be granted additional authority and freedom. For example they might take some responsibilities away from their managers and thus they would control a larger part of their work. Herzberg also suggests that periodic reports should be made available to the workers rather than just to the supervisors. This implies that when you know more about the functioning of your company you are more likely to be interested in your particular job and how it affects the company in whole. Also when the workers are ready new and more difficult tasks can be introduced into the job and they can be encouraged to develop expertise by assigning individuals to specialized tasks.

How to implement job enrichment?

Vertical loading o Allows staff to perform tasks at a range of different levels of responsibility. The key here is to reduce the gap between doing the job and controlling the job. An employee in a vertically loaded job has some of the responsibilities that management held previously. This approach, when implemented correctly, should lead into geelings of personal accountability amd responsibility for the work outcomes. Formation of natural work teams o These are small groups of workers that come together to plan how their work is best organized. The objective is to increase ownership of the task, which contributes to the meaningfulness of work. Establishment of customer relationships and employee ownership of the product o As teams become more advanced, they will be able to meet with customers and focus on the customers needs, not the needs of their supervisors. Thre are three basic steps to achieve this: 1) the client must be identified; 2) the contact between the client and the worker needs to be established as directly as possible: 3) criteria and procedures are needed by which the client can judge the quality of the product and rely those judgements back to the worker.

 Employee receipt of direct feedback o Helps employees to know whether their performance is improving, staying at the same level or deteriorating.

Why participate in job enrichment?

Usually people on all levels of organization resist change, they are afraid of the unknown. Here is a list of job enrichments good qualities for both employees and managers: Employees: You can demonstrate your initiative, willingness and ability to learn new skills. Show your supervisor/manager what you can do and how quickly you can learn. You will gain on-the-job experience. This skill diversity may help you to meet the minimum qualifications of jobs for future career advancement. You make a commitment to your career by investing time and energy in learning new skills and developing your abilities. This commitment will demonstrate that you are selfmotivated. New experiences may open doors of opportunity and increase your chances of receiving a higher annual merit pay increase within your current pay grade. Varied job assignments can make your work more enjoyable. Managers: You gain flexibility in staffing because staff members will possess more skills and may be available for special projects. You can increase staffing levels during peak times. You can develop current staff so they are capable of meeting future department goals. You will be providing the kinds of job variety high performers need to remain committed to their jobs. You can reward high performers for completing career development activities through merit pay increases. Your employees will have opportunities to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for future advancement by showing you how easily they learn and how well they carry out new tasks.

Employees perceptions on job enrichment:

All of the above are fine reasons to participate in job enrichment, but what do employees actually think of it? In one study employees were asked to give their opinions on job enrichment. The benefits can best be summarized by three words: Renewal, Exploration, and Specialization. Renewal includes a number of responses related to career plateauing: "routine and boredom, need to change, thinking about new career options or priorities, making new contacts and seeing the program from a different vantage point." Exploration includes such terms as "trying new skills, looking at new concepts, developing new relationships and networks, and testing management and administrative skills."Specialization refers to working in one specific subject matter area rather than as a

generalist and includes such responses as "re-education, in-depth exploration, using special skills, meeting a need that was under-served, and renewing old skills." When the interviewees were asked to identify those areas they considered disadvantages, the following three terms best summarized their collective comments: Balance, Clarity and Orientation Balance was an especially important issue for those who did not have full time job enrichment experiences. They had to deal with their regular assignment as well as their new responsibilities. Indicators of this issue include such comments as "time allocation, tough decisions about work load, taking time away from regular assignments and balancing the work load." Clarity refers to lack of information needed to be successful in the job enrichment experience. "New relationships, new processes and procedures, lack of clear plans and goals, and guidance in using time" were some of the terms used by respondents. Orientation refers to a lack of structured introduction for the special assignment. There was some overlap with the clarity issue mentioned above. But responses such as "being introduced, taught new responsibilities, learning new networks, and lack of instructions" were underscored as "sink or swim" approaches that some experienced in their special assignment.

Examples of enrichment programs:

One example is found in an academic department with two Administrative Assistant positions at the same grade. One Administrative Assistant specializes in handling student records, and the other processes and tracks payments through the financial system. A job enrichment program in this department would have these staff members learning about each other's specialties. The student records assistant might participate in a cross training program by attending HR classes to learn about purchasing and the accounting system. The accounting assistant might work with the student records assistant two hours per week learning about that job. The two staff might propose a job rotation program after their training is complete, where they rotate jobs for a summer. These kinds of job enrichment opportunities provide the individual staff members a variety of skills and experiences that better prepare them for future promotions. At the same time, the department builds depth so that, in a peak period, such as the beginning of the fall semester, there is an additional staff person to assist students. Another example is South End Press, a 24-year old non-profit progressive publishing house, was founded on principles of worker democracy and self-management. But collective members realized that unless they were equally equipped with knowledge and expertise, they would not be able to participate equally in running the place. South End Press' founding members instituted a system where business jobs were shared among collective members so that everyone would learn the workings of the business, and thus be able to make informed decisions. South End Press also emphasizes extensive training, a lengthy apprenticeship for new members, and ongoing attention to creating office systems and procedures that are easily understood and accessed by all.

Conclusions
Employers often use in their speeches the clich that workers are our most important asset without doing much to improve working conditions and the motivation of employees to do their best for the organization. In todays fast changing environment employees are faced with increasing demands from various sources. Also with the rising level of education employees arent anymore satisfied with repetitive, not meaningful, tasks. Job enrichment offers a good way to increase the variety of work and to motivate employees to truly commit themselves for the benefit of the whole organization. In increasingly competitive environment, management finds that the best way to achieve corporate goals is to work together with the persons who are closest to the actual work. Companies that implement programs that enhance employees knowledge, abilities, and experience and allow them to apply these new skills in their work will be profitable in the future.

References
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