Explain how 'Job Design' would influence 'Quality of Work Life' ?

This issue described on domain of organizational behaviour and management.

Primarily,  the concept of a job description holistically, including the work environment and employer, audience and employee expectation. I also realized that there are a diverse range of challenges associated with creating a job description, and it really emphasized to me that the idea of a job description is an archaic principle that is a “straitjacket suitable only for repetitive work” . In today’s society, a job description does seem to be irrelevant and in fact, possibly detrimental to employee performance and satisfaction. This is based on how a job description see’s a job in terms of a series of set tasks and responsibilities as opposed to a variable function. I really thought that Townsend truly summarized the modern notion of job description: “To be satisfying, a job should have variety, autonomy, wholeness and feedback. In other words, no job description”.

Therefore, on the light of job enrichment and the challenges facing human resource managers in light of demographic changes to the workforce. What I found intriguing about job enrichment was how jobs can be designed and expanded to increase the diversity, personal responsibility and sense of achievement in doing tasks, which in turn, can lead to improvements in both job performance and employee satisfaction. This highlights the importance of having a personal sense of achievement in your work to engender organizational commitment, which helps organizations achieve their strategic business goals. What this means for human resource managers is that they need to be in-tune with the varying needs of their employees, and to design engaging, enriching and interesting jobs for employees so that they feel like are a part of something and play an essential role within the organizations.

The demographic changes shaping and influencing human resource management also have a significant influence for human resource managers. Demographic and technical trends include: talent scarcity, brain drain and the “war for talent,” aging populations, diluted of academic standards, increasing levels of female participation in the workforce, casualisation of the workforce and the increasing importance of quality of work life and work life balance. How I think that these trends affect human resource managers relates to designing jobs that are highly flexible, engaging, professionally and personally enriching and financially rewarding. In order to address these challenges, human resource managers need to account for and cater to the changing needs of employees throughout their life and commitment to the company, nurturing their professional development to enhance their commitment and quality of work life.

Job design (also referred to as work design or task design) is a core function of human resource management and it is related to the specification of contents, methods and relationship of jobs in order to satisfy technological and organizational requirements as well as the social and personal requirements of the job holder. Its principles are geared towards how the nature of a person's job affects their attitudes and behavior at work, particularly relating to characteristics such as skill variety and autonomy. The aim of a job design is to improve job satisfaction, to improve through-put, to improve quality and to reduce employee problems (e.g., grievances, absenteeism).

Defining business method, and the type of activities and tasks to be performed, and the size of the responsibilities, and tools used in the arts and performance, and the nature of the relations existing in the job, the shape and the circumstances surrounding workThe gathering activities in the functions and tasks in the collection function on the basis of one of the following methods:The similarity of activities and tasks.The relay in the activities and tasks.Integration of activities and tasks

The term quality of work life (QWL) refers to the degree of satisfaction and contentedness an employee experiences with respect to his or her job and the overall work situation. QWL has been linked with a number of positive outcomes both for individual workers and for employing organizations. QWL pro­grams sprang from the humanistic theories of man­agement that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s, all of which emerged from the human relations move­ment in management and industrial/organizational psychology. Examples of QWL goals and strategies suggested by these early theories include.

1. Decrease the conflict between the employee and the organization. This goal may be achieved if the for­mal structure of the organization is changed to allow employees to be more active than passive, to be more independent than dependent, to assume a longer rather than shorter time perspective, and to hold posi­tions that are at least equal to those of their peers.
2. Enrich the job. Management can accomplish this step by, at least, increasing the number of tasks that employees have to perform and preferably giving them more control over their jobs.
3. Use participative or employee-centered leadership. Employees must enjoy self-expression in the organi­zation. The organizational structure should be modi­fied to allow for group-centered leadership. The work unit should have responsibility for defining the group’s goals, evaluating behavior, and providing team direction. In addition, the work unit should experience rewards and punishments collectively.

During the early years of the movement, much research was conducted to document instances where QWL programs resulted in an increase in productivity and employee growth and self-development. Thus man­agement’s efforts to satisfy the needs of the workers have been an impetus behind the QWL movement in management thought and practice. More recently, the trend in QWL research has emanated from two sources, with one source referred to as the management per­spective and the other as the quality-of-life view.

Management scholars often do research on QWL initiatives where the program’s design is guided by management’s self-interest to promote profitability. Organizations have found that programs designed to increase job satisfaction and empower employees can increase employee productivity and job performance. In turn, higher levels of productivity and performance serve to increase the organization’s profitability. Based on this perspective, much research has focused on specific QWL programs to examine the effects of these programs on employee productivity as well as job satisfaction.

Research has shown that teamwork, characterized by reciprocal trust and respect among team members, serves to enhance employee productivity and job sat­isfaction. Teamwork can be induced through role clar­ification (clarifying and negotiating role expectations of each team member), problem solving (educating team members on how to solve problems by first defining the problem, followed by generating possible alternatives for corrective action, selecting the best alternative, implementing the corrective action, and monitoring the outcome of the corrective action), goal clarification and prioritization (the team is instructed to develop measurable performance goals and priori­tize these goals), and conflict resolution (the team is taught how to resolve conflicts through a built-in process to review decisions, team members are induced to learn more about the specialty fields of one another through planned mutual instructions, roles are clarified, and greater communication and openness are encouraged).

Jobs generating higher levels of involvement involve parallel structures, also known as collateral structures, dualistic structures, or shadow structures. Jobs involved in parallel structures provide members with an alterna­tive setting to address problems and propose innovative solutions free from the formal organization structure. Quality circles are an example of parallel structures. Quality circles consist of small groups of 13-15 employ­ees who volunteer to meet periodically, usually once a week for an hour or so, to identify and solve productiv­ity problems. These group members make recommen­dations for change, but decisions about implementation of their proposals are reserved for management. Research has shown that parallel structures and quality circles do play an important role in employee produc­tivity and job satisfaction.

Research has shown that the ethical corporate mission and culture of an organization can influence employee productivity and job satisfaction. Employees believe that being associated with an ethical organiza­tion gives them a sense of meaning and purpose in their work. Examples of these organizations include the religious-based or values-based organizations where the founders or managers are guided by general reli­gious or philosophical principles.

An organization’s work schedule has been researched as a QWL program affecting employee productivity and job satisfaction. Specifically, research has shown that matching the time prefer­ences of employees with the time demands estab­lished by organizations is likely to enhance job performance and job satisfaction. The match between the individual’s ideal and actual time behaviors brings a sense of temporal symmetry in which the rhythm of people’s lives matches their preferred lifestyles. Time congruity serves to reduce work and nonwork role conflict and allows the individual to meet work and nonwork demands with minimal stress.

Substantial research has shown that participation in decision making and high-involvement programs contribute positively and significantly to work moti­vation and satisfaction. High-involvement programs are thought to be a conduit to help employees express their thoughts and feelings in important organizational decisions. As such, high-involvement programs serve to enhance person-environment fit in the work domain. Allowing employees to participate in impor­tant organizational decisions amounts to providing employees with greater work resources that help employees meet work demands more readily.

Job design is the process of defining and structuring job tasks and work arrangements to allow optimal accomplishment. This process may determine the amount of satisfaction that workers experience at work. The best job design (referred to as job enrichment) is one that meets organizational requirements for high performance, offers a good fit with employees’ skills and needs, and provides opportunities for job satisfac­tion. Research in this area has differentiated hygiene factors (or dissatisfiers that are in the job context such as pay) from motivators (or satisfiers that are in the job content—’the actual work that people do). Examples of motivators are work opportunities for achievement, recognition for good performance, work itself, respon­sibility, and advancement and growth. Building motiva­tors into the job enriches the job and increases worker satisfaction and motivation to work.

Total quality management (TQM) has also been treated as a QWL program. TQM is an aspect of orga­nizational control. The idea underlying TQM is that all members of the organization are committed to high quality results, continuous improvement, and cus­tomer satisfaction. TQM also prescribes employee involvement and empowerment. Research has shown that TQM plays an important role in job performance and employee satisfaction.

The policy to promote from within is yet another QWL program. Self-actualization is the desire to become anything that one is capable of becoming. Progressive firms engage in practices that aim to ensure that all employees have the opportunity to self-actualize. Promotion and career advancement are important in that regard. Progressive companies have promotion-from-within programs, which means that open positions are filled, whenever possible, by qual­ified candidates from within the company. Those companies typically hire at entry level and then train and develop personnel to promote them to higher levels of responsibility. People are hired at entry-level positions based on their potential for advancement within the company and on their having the right val­ues. Research has shown that companies that have policies to promote from within have employees who are more productive and satisfied with their jobs than companies that do not have such policies. Also, pro­gressive companies provide educational and training resources to help employees identify and develop their potential. This may be accomplished with pro­grams of career planning, company internships, and tuition assistance.

There are many incentives plans that organizations use to reward their employees and satisfy employee needs for self-actualization, self-esteem, and social recognition. These include individual incentive pro­grams, group incentive programs, profit-sharing plans, and gain-sharing programs. Research has shown that these programs do play a significant role in employee productivity and job satisfaction.

The goal of alternative work arrangements is to minimize work-family conflict and help employees balance the demands of their work and family lives. The most common type of work-family conflict is time-based conflict experienced when the time devoted to one role makes the fulfillment of the other difficult. Common programs that manipulate work arrangements include full-time work-at-home, part-time work-at-home, flextime, compressed workweek, and part-time work arrangements. Alternative work arrangements typically affect job satisfaction by reducing work-family conflict. Operationally speak­ing, alternative work arrangements attempt to restruc­ture one’s job to allow for more flexibility in managing the hours devoted to work and the hours that are available for family commitments. These restructurings could include adjusting the employee’s arrival and departure times to and from work, restruc­turing hours at work in order for the employee to be at home at certain times, limiting the number of evenings per week where the employee is expected to work at the office, limiting weekend work at the office, limiting travel, and making special arrange­ments at work to attend to family needs.

With respect to employment benefits, many firms offer at least basic employment benefits to their employees, which play an important role in employee productivity and job satisfaction. Examples of employee benefits include health insurance, retirement/ pension benefits, and supplemental pay benefits.

Furthermore, there are many ancillary programs described in the QWL literature designed to meet employee nonwork needs. These include child care programs, elder care programs, fitness programs, social programs and events, employee assistance pro­grams, educational subsidies, counseling services, credit union, and others. Among the lesser known QWL programs are lakefront vacations, weight loss programs, child adoption assistance, company country club memberships, tickets to cultural activities and events, lunch-and-learn programs, home assistance programs, subsidized employee transportation, food services, and executive perks.

While an economic orientation may remain a necessity for business organizations, it need not pre­clude a focus on overall employee well-being. QWL programs are organizational development efforts that result not only in job satisfaction but also life satis­faction. Thus, much research has been conducted to understand how specific QWL programs influence employee life satisfaction.

Specifically, this line of research has examined the spillover between job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Substantial research has documented the fact that job satisfaction is positively correlated with life satisfac­tion. People segment their feelings or compensate for divergent affective reactions across life domains (work life, family life, social life, etc.). Also, people experience reciprocal spillover between job satisfac­tion and life satisfaction. Research has shown that the spillover from one’s experience in a particular life domain to one’s satisfaction/dissatisfaction with life in general may be affected by a variety of moderators such as organizational commitment. That is, employ­ees who have a higher level of organizational commit­ment tend to experience a greater spillover effect than those who expressed lower levels of commitment.

Interestingly, both job and life satisfactions share a substantial dispositional component. A top-down approach to the study of job and life satisfaction sug­gests that common traits (e.g., positive and negative affectivity) influence both. In fact, although personal­ity removes a huge chunk of the variance from the job-life satisfaction relationship, the link still remains. Such traits may gauge the broader construct of life satisfaction. Life satisfaction is a higher order concept that encompasses domain satisfactions. It is interest­ing to note that situational influences on reports of life satisfaction—the bottom-up approach to the study of life satisfaction—have been found to account for a significant amount of variance in life satisfaction.

QWL research based on the quality-of-life perspec­tive has indicated that a number of organizational fac­tors can explain the job-life satisfaction link. One such factor is organizational structure. Bureaucratization is associated with an increase in job dissatisfaction and life dissatisfaction. That is, workers in a decentralized bureaucracy experience a greater spillover between job satisfaction and life satisfaction than workers in a cen­tralized bureaucracy. Fostering decentralized bureau­cracies allows workers to enjoy greater work discretion and lesser immediate supervision. Work discretion and low levels of supervision reduce work role stress, which in turn reduces negative affect and dissatisfaction in work life. This reduction of negative affect and dissat­isfaction in the work domain serves to decrease nega­tive affect in overall life through spillover, contributing to life satisfaction.

Another factor moderating the job-life satisfaction link is occupational status. Research has shown that different jobs carry different levels of social status, with clerical and sales scoring moderate in both social status and job satisfaction and unskilled car workers scoring lowest in both social status and job satisfac­tion. Spillover occurs between job satisfaction and life satisfaction moderated by occupational prestige. Specifically, occupational prestige is a poor predictor of both job and life satisfaction, except for the highest status occupations. High-prestige jobs often nourish self-esteem and generate positive affective experience (i.e., job satisfaction and life satisfaction) that is not generated by low-prestige jobs.

Research continues in the context of both programs of research—QWL from a management development perspective and from a quality-of-life perspective. Much more is needed to study the various QWL pro­grams to better understand their effects not only on job performance and job satisfaction but also on life satisfaction. Different QWL programs tend to affect different role identities in various ways. Some are effective in generating more resources to facilitate the realization of role expectations. Some are effective in reducing conflict within a specific role identity or between two or more role identities. Others are designed to clarify and articulate role expectations to match work and nonwork demands.

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Importance And Benefits Of Job Design

Job design is important for an organization to perform the organizational activities in the most efficient and effective manner. It provides the required information about the incumbent and also specifies the way of performing the tasks. Therefore, job design is very important for the organization due to its benefits as follows:

1. Organizational Design

The job design specifies the contents and procedures of performing the task in the organization. Hence, it helps in designing organizational structure. The organizational structure is determined by the job design process. It plays a key role in assessing the need and requirement of organizational structure.. Job design also specifies organizational culture, norms and values that its members need to follow to achieve organizational goals.

2. Structure Of Competent Employee

Job design is a systematic approach of providing job-related data and information on skills, knowledge and ability of the incumbent to perform the task. On the basis of the information provided by it, the job description and job specification schedule are prepared, which helps to the best suited candidate for the job. It provides a milestone to select the competent employee who is capable of performing the task well in the organization.

3. Motivation And Commitment Of Employees

Job design makes the work more interesting and challenging, which motivates the employees for higher level of performance. The challenging and interesting job provides better pay for the employees which inspires them for better job performance. Along with motivation job design also brings high degree of commitment in them towards organizational objectives. This helps to increase organizational productivity and employee satisfaction at work.

4. Environmental Adaptation

An organization is operated in a dynamic environment. Hence, any change in the environmental forces can have direct impact upon organizational performance. Therefore, a systematic job design process tries to address the change that has occurred in the organizational environment. The process of job design and job redesign is prepared in such a way that it adapts the change in the environmental forces.

5. Labor Relation

A well prepared job design brings a harmonious relation between employees and management. On the other hand, poorly prepared job design creates employee-grievances, indisciplinary actions, greater employee turnover, greater absenteeism and conflict.

6. Quality Of Work Life

A quality of work life is understood as an efficient relationship between employees and organizational working environment. A properly prepared job design leads to improvements in quality of work life. With a good design of work schedules, people see a growing future in organization which ultimately leads to high motivation at work and a positive change in their thoughts and beliefs. Finally, these changes will have a direct impact upon the quality of work life.

7. Organizational Productivity

The job design specifies the contents and working procedures of how the task is performed. This leads to a positive change in job performance and job analysis. As a result of which, the organizational productivity will be enhanced through efficient work performance.

Many people tend to assume that the most important motivator at work is pay. Yet, studies point to a different factor as the major influence over worker motivation is job design. How a job is designed has a major impact on employee motivation, job satisfaction, commitment to an organization, absenteeism, and turnover. The question of how to properly design jobs so that employees are more productive and more satisfied has also received attention from managers and researchers since the beginning of the 20th century.

The concept of job design recognizes the value it adds to the growth and/or motivation of the human resource base whiles enhancing and combining various mechanisms of employees’ job in order to provide clarity, consistency and maximum satisfaction in terms of motivation of employees. The design of the jobs is seen as a valuable concept, driven by increasing job needs.

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