Advantages And Disadvantages Of Job Design

Scientific management or "Taylorism" is an approach to job design, developed by Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) during the Second World War. With the industrial revolution came a fast growing pool of people, seeking jobs, that required a new approach of management. Scientific management was the first management theory, applied internationally. It believes in the rational use of resources for utmost output, hence motivating workers to earn more money. Taylor believed that the incompetence of managers was the major obstacle on the way of productivity increase of human labour. Consequently, this idea led to the need of change of management principles. On the base of research, involving analysing controlled experiments under various working

The fundamental theory behind scientific management is breaking down each part of a job to its science (Taylor). In the Principles of Scientific Management, Taylor talks about pig iron handlers, shoveling and bricklaying as a few examples in which he implemented scientific management. He proposed four important elements that are essential to scientific management. In this example Taylor discusses the science of bricklaying. First management must develop the science of bricklaying with standard rules of each task. Every task is designed to be perfect and standardized. The second element is selection and training. This step is important because Taylor wants an employee who is “first class,” meaning that they are the best at what they do, follow instructions and will not refuse to listen or adopt the new methods that management is executing. The third element is teaching the first class employee the science of bricklaying broken down by management. At this stage management is instructing the employee what to do, how to do it, and the best way to do it. Management is there to help them and watch that they are doing it “their” way and not

Essentially, the starting point that should be considered when formulating an individual’s role in an organisation is job design. Job design refers to a written document that consists of the specification of the content of a job. Importantly it comprehends an individual’s job tasks and responsibilities that make up an individual’s job (Hartel et al. 2007).

Job design occurs when managers determine the tasks needed to be done, who will do them, and the selection criteria to be used to choose employees and place them on the job. This means that job design is the process of "organizing tasks, duties, and responsibilities into a productive unit of work" (Mathis & Jackson, 1997).

According to Miller (2010) Scientific management (Taylorism) was devised by Frederick Taylor to improve economic efficiency especially labor productivity by analyzing and establishing workflows. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management. Taylor’s scientific management was based on four principles. The first is replacing the “rule of thumb” work methods with methods based on a scientific study. The second is selecting, training and developing the most suitable person for the job. The third principle is managers should give out detailed instructions on how to do the job scientifically and supervise workers. The last principle is dividing the tasks between managers and workers. This paper will discuss if these scientific management principles are outdated in the study of organizations. I will present the principles and explain their relevance in current organizations.

Frederick W. Taylor was recognized as the father of the "scientific management" theory. Taylor's Scientific Management Theory is not just a collection of purely technical principles and practices, but also the cooperation and harmonization of fundamental relationships between people and machines and techniques; between people in the production process, especially between the manager and the employee. Thanks to this theory applied in the industrial enterprises, the labor productivity has increased dramatically; The final result is high profitability, both employers and workers are high income. His scientific approach requires detailed observation and measurement of routine work, in order to find the best working way. Taylor’s approach is categorized as the bottom up approach.

Frederick W. Taylor’s stared working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He started the Scientific Management movement, and he and his associates were the first people to examine the work process scientifically. They all developed scientific management the earliest people of scientific management were Frederick W. Taylor’s (1856-1915), Frank Gilbreth (1868-1924), and Lillain Gilbreth (1878-1972). They studied how the work was performed, and they looked at how this affected worker productivity. He believed that increased efficiency could be achieved by selecting the right people for the job and training them to do it in exact terms in the one best

In the Human Performance it states that, “Existing job design models have been criticized for being able to explain affective outcomes more consistently than they do those of task motivation and performance.” (Burr and Cordy, 2001, pp. 27.) Business dictionary defines Job Design as, “Work arrangement (or rearrangement) aimed at reducing or overcoming job dissatisfaction and employee alienation arising from repetitive and mechanistic tasks. Through job design, organizations try to raise productivity levels by offering non-monetary rewards such as greater satisfaction from a sense of personal achievement in meeting the increased challenge and responsibility of one's work. Job enlargement, job enrichment, job rotation, and job simplification are the various techniques used in a job design exercise. In my current work position as an assistant to an elementary school district strategist, I can account for many aspects leading to me being promoted to this position from an assistant teacher through the characteristics of job design. In Organizational Behavior and Management, it states that, “job design specifies three characteristics of jobs: range, depth, and relationship.” (Ivancevich, Konopaske, Matteson, pp. 147) The number of duties a jobholder or employees has is defining job range. For example, one of my jobs as an assistant teacher was to make copies for a week of work for the entire first grade class, a week ahead of

In the late 19th century, the management decisions were often arbitrary and workers often worked at a deliberately slow pace. There was little in the way of systematic management and employees and the management were often in conflict. Scientific management was introduced in an attempt to create a mental revolution in the workplace. It can be defined as the systematic study of methods in order to improve efficiency. Frederick W. Taylor was its main proponent. Other important contributors were Frank Gilbreth, Lillian Gilbreth, and Henry Gantt.

Today job design is defined as capturing the individual, group and organisational outcomes and processes of how work is organised and enacted (Parker & Wall, 1998). This definition allows for the inclusion of task characteristics, knowledge elements of the job, social/interpersonal characteristics and the context of the work when structured into an organisation. Job design has continued to play a key role in guiding scholars and practitioners to describe, identify, and determine critical changes to work experiences and behaviours of employees (Tims, M & Baker, A.B, 2010). Job redesign tends to occur when work engagement and performance decreases, and managers are responsible to implement a top-down process

The process of job design can be defined as assigning tasks to a job, including the collaboration of those tasks with other jobs (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015). Job design is the first building block of the structure of an organization and determines an individual’s work-related responsibilities (Griffin, 2001). Job design involves a combination of the content of the job and the method of work which has been implemented in the performance of the job (Durai, 2010). The main purpose of job design is “to increase a firm’s ability to meet its objectives effectively and to provide job satisfaction to the employees” (Durai, 2010, p. 92). Job design has two primary aims. The first is

The article begins with mentioning a historical background to job design. The historical approach to job design is the Classic Job Design, with a focus on job specialization and division of labor. There are advantages and disadvantages of this focus on job specialization. Some of the advantages include, unique skill and knowledge set, focus and efficiency within an organization and some disadvantages are redundancy and job burnout. Another approach to job design heighted in the article is behavioral job design. The article states that usage of this approach has resulted in greater job satisfaction, as this approach focuses on individual characteristics. Main focus of “Redesigning Knowledge Work” is on a plan that an organization can implement in order to increase productivity and efficiency while maintaining high quality and job satisfaction. However, there are some steps that organizations

There are several ways of improving the scientific management theory to suit today’s workforce. For instance, companies can use job rotation, job enlargement, employee empowerment, and telecommuting. Job rotation provides an exceptional opportunity regarding the sharing of knowledge from the senior/experienced

By Simplifying Jobs, work could be carried out more efficiently. So less skilled workers would be required with an emphasis on specialization of tasks. There is also an emphasis in management, because the control of management over production must be increased, and organizational profits would be increased [1].

Job design (or task design) regulates ways, methods and relations of jobs that are organized to face structural and hierarchical business requirements taking into consideration social and personal expectations of the job possessor (Rush, 1971). Job design is the process where it is decided how to define the contents of a job place entitling it with duties and areas of responsibility. Another direction is making decision on the methods that are utilized in order to perform the job. Other aspects in scope of job design are techniques and various procedures and what kind of relationships should be in place between the job possessor and his/her boss or subordinate (CIPD, 2014).