School of studies of Management,

Jiwaji university Gwalior (M.P.)

Mba2nd Sem.
Subject: Human Resource Management
Unit-3

What are the characteristics of a good employer?

A good employer is patient and understanding. Say, for example, you arrive at work late
because of unexpected traffic. When you give a reasonable explanation, a good employer
understands. A good employer's priority is creating a healthy work environment for
employees. Here are 12 common characteristics of a good employer:

1. Visionary

A good employer thinks of innovative ideas that can move the company forward to expand
its growth. They might arrange meetings with employees to present future projects for the
company or plans to gain more clients. Ways to identify whether a company has visionary
employers include:

• Researching how the employer prepares employees for professional development

• Looking for reports that describe how the company has evolved

Collecting such information can help you identify progressive companies and employers you
want to work with.

2. Offers flexible work schedules

Living in a digital era, many employees can work nontraditional hours. A good employer
might offer a flexible schedule that allows employees to decide when they want to work.
Good employers should explain to you the company's hourly, daily and weekly schedules or
requirements before you start your job. The advantages of a flexible schedule include:

• Having time to raise your family

• Freedom to travel
• Can commute a long distance
• Can balance other jobs
• Can attend important life events

Having a flexible work schedule can also improve your well-being and productivity.

3. Great communication skills

A good employer should be an effective communicator. They should be great speakers who
express their opinions and instructions in a meaningful and respectful tone. Effective
communication can involve informing employees of coming changes or modifications to
project or workflows.Great communication skills help prevent minor misunderstandings or
miscommunications in the future. Rather than making assumptions or vague statements,
good employers should encourage employees to share their concerns or suggestions.

4. Financial benefits

Apart from basic wages, good employers offer incentive programs that reward employees
with benefits such as salary increases or bonuses if their performance surpasses
expectations. Providing financial benefits ranging from health insurance to pay increases
based on merit offers employees a sense of satisfaction and job security.

5. Promotes empowerment

Great employers create work environments that are motivational, inspirational and driven.
Employers empower employees by sharing with them strategic outlines, such as the
company's goals, mission, vision and feedback. This motivates employees to remain
efficient, productive and committed.Good employers should also offer employees
opportunities to make critical decisions and find solutions to emerging problems. Good
employers can identify advanced skills to cultivate in their employees. They might also
assign big projects that demonstrate their trust in employees and motivate them to improve
their skills. Employers should try to bring out their employees' strengths.

6. Active listener
Respecting others' thoughts and opinions requires self-awareness and humility. Good
employers understand and respect employees' different perspectives. Good employers also
listen to employees' ideas without dismissing them and respond with an acknowledgment.
This helps build positive relationships and trust, because employees want to be heard.
Having an employer who is open to ideas improves work morale that can lead to company
growth.

7. Supportive

A good employer assigns tasks to employees knowing they might need guidance and time
to produce the desired results. An employer's role is to provide employees with guidance
and mentorship. They might achieve this by sharing their knowledge and expertise until
employees reach their full potential. Other examples of support include:

• Encouraging dialogue among employees

• Promoting teamwork
• Building relationships with employees

8. Personal growth

A good employer lets employees develop their skills. Employers can provide employees
who have completed extra training or proven they can manage responsibilities with career
advancement opportunities. Ways employers can cultivate personal and professional
growth in employees include:

• Giving feedback to employees by arranging private meetings with them

• Providing employees with positive evaluations of their performance
• Publishing employee accomplishments in the company's newsletter
• Delegating major projects to employees

9. Respect

Good employers should show respect in the workplace regardless of the circumstances.
Good employers respect employees even if their ideas are controversial or do not align with
company values. Practicing respect reduces the possibilities of future conflict and tension in
the workplace.

10. Integrity

Successful businesses show and encourage integrity. This is an important quality for a good
employer to have, because it demonstrates successful leadership. A good employer leads
with integrity no matter what hardships they encounter.
11. Fair

Good employers put aside personal preferences and favoritism. Fairness involves thinking
and acting without personal biases. Tension can arise in a work environment if an employer
gives one employee with more kindness or responsibilities than another. Good employers
who practice fairness always acknowledge their employees' work and help them succeed.

12. Security and safety

Good employers should always provide safe work environments for their employees. These
companies take steps such as:

• Creating company policies that help keep employees safe

• Having emergency plans and first-aid kits
• Training employees what to do in an emergency such as a natural disaster
• Having partnerships with occupational clinicians who can recommend ways to help
prevent injuries and identify potential areas of risk

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Tips for finding a good employer

Use these tips to find a good employer and make critical decisions before accepting a new
job:

• Company culture: During the interview process, ask the hiring manager questions
about the company culture so you can determine if the work environment is the right
one for you.
• Company values: Research the company's values to find out if they align with your
own. You might be more likely to build a positive relationship with your potential
employer if you believe in the same goals and mission.

• Stability: Also research the company's performance to evaluate its profitability and
growth. A company with good financial status and positive growth has the resources
to provide you with the environment you need to succeed.

What is Job Design?

Job design is the process of structuring a job role into tasks and activities in a way that it
aligns with the overall strategy of the organization and making sure that the employee in
that role is also motivated and rewarded . The job design takes into account the
organizational objectives to be achieved along while trying to minimize on–the-job fatigue,
stress and human error. Job Design is done specifically to reduce the mechanical aspects
of the job and make sure that the employee derives job satisfaction from the assigned roles
and responsibilities.
Job analysis plans the job and analyses the roles and responsibilities which are core to the
job but Job design makes the job better and basically updates the job so that it remains
relevant. The factors the affect the process of job design are the task characteristics,
workflow, ergonomics, work practices, employee abilities and availability, social and cultural
expectations and feedback.

Importance of Job Design

Job design is very important because this is the process which makes sure that the job
remains updated and is relevant to the employee. The main objective here is to reduce
dissatisfaction which comes while doing the job on daily basis.
This dissatisfaction can lead to employee leaving the organization and causing issues for
the company. Job design has primary responsibility of regularly updating the job so that it
remains absolutely relevant to the company as well as industry.
It makes sure that the job profile is constantly upgrading to become a better job rather than
letting it be a monotonous job role.
Read More
Job Design Methods
Job design is critical in understanding the various factors of a job like duties, techniques
required, hierarchies, skill-sets required, motivation of employees etc. There are several
ways in which the requirements of a job can be identified.
The main job design methods are mentioned as below:
1. Job Rotation
This method of job design, known as job rotation, is where employees of an organization as
exposed to several different roles & profiles across the company.
Employees are rotated across various job profiles and the best-suited roles are identified.
2. Job Simplification
Job design method based on complexity of work can be understood by job simplification.
This involves identifying mechanical processes, repetitive work, one-product development,
tools & skills required.
3. Job Enlargement
The job design method of job enlargement adds more tasks & value to an existing job
profile.
Apart from the basic skills & abilities required to do the basic work, job enlargement offers
more tasks to be performed to the employee
4. Job Enrichment
Job enrichment method of job design looks at enriching the work of the employee by adding
more responsibility, value and decision-making powers. This enriches an individual not only
professionally but also adds to personal development.
Steps for Better Job Design
In order to have a great job design, certain parameters have to be evaluated for job role.
1. Regular Discussions and Feedback
Constant feedback and discussions should be done with the employees in particular roles to
understand what issues they are facing and what can be done to rectify them. These act as
inputs for better job design
2. 360 degree Assessment
While evaluating the employee performances, it is important to understand what everyone in
the hierarchy is saying.
At a high level, if there are patterns emerging for a particular job role, this means that the
role needs to be updated and corrected leading to a better job design
3. Training
Have regular training programs for employees in every role. Training serves 2 purposes.
First it keeps the employees updated with the latest trends and concepts in the market
which is very important. Secondly training programs also help in better designing the job
with the latest frameworks and trends in the industry.
4. Improved Work Life Balance
Work Life balance should be made part of every job role in the organization. This will make
sure that proper flexibility and work life balance is included with every job role keeping the
employees motivated. Things like work from home, vacation, insurance, variable pay should
be made part of the job role so the overall job satisfaction improves.

Advantages of effective Job Design

Job design is made to essentially understand the tasks & duties to be done by an employee
and how he/she can grow at a professional as well as a personal level. Some advantages of
job design are:
1. Job design helps create a job profile which can motivate the employees at work place
and reduce dissatisfaction.
2. This ensures that the job is simplified or broken down to employees, especially for those
who have limited skills and are lesser learned.
3. Effective job design can expose the employees to a wider set of roles and help them
understand the best role suited to them.
4. Job enrichment method of design ensures more value addition & decision-making power,
which ensures personal as well as professional growth.
5. Job design also sees what training and development is required for employees to
increase employee productivity.
6. It can help understand the employee output, efficiency, work-load and the number of
hours required for work vs rest.

Disadvantages of Job Design

There are some issues or drawbacks of job designs as well based on the techniques used:
1. Job simplification method of job design can lead to monotonous work and boredom.
2. Job design by enrichment gives too much control too senior employees which can lead to
poor results or conflicts with lower staff.
3. Job design by rotation can affect the flow of work & hamper the quality of output.
4. Enlargement can cause employees to lose focus on core competencies.

Job Design Example

Let us take example of a sales department in a B2B company where a new sales
representative joins. Now the simple understanding of the work would be that the Sales
representative should be calling and meeting potential customers. Eventually he has to
close the deals and meet targets.
The job design goes beyond it. It makes sure that not only the work and targets are being
met but also the quality of work is good for the sales rep so that he/she is overall happy in
the job profile.
Job Design can be as per the following:
1. Onboarding of the Sales rep
2. Overview of the company and the role
3. Training and development of the sales representatives so that they understand the role
and products well
4. Assignment of mentor and manager to guide the sales representative to do the job
properly and address the concerns
5. As per the performance, job enrichment can be implemented
6. Ability for the sales representative to choose career path after 2 years of good
performance
7. Constant review of the sales approach taken by the company and alignment with the
overall strategy to keep the job relevant
These are some of the examples which can be incorporated in the Job design.