Work design

&
technology

Sarmiento
Cornejo
Legua
Conceptual Framework for
analyzing work task
TASK CHARACTERISTICS THEORIES

 Theories that seek to identify task
characteristics in jobs, how these
characteristics are combined to form
different jobs, and their relationship to
employee motivation, satisfaction, and
performance.
Requisite task attributes theory

 Pioneered by Turner and Lawrence in the mid-

1960s
 They developed a research study to assess the
effect of different kinds of jobs on employee
satisfaction and absenteeism.
 Defined job complexity in terms of six task
characteristics: variety, autonomy,
responsibility, knowledge and skill, required
social interaction; and optional social
interaction.
JOB CHARACTERISTICS MODEL


 Identifies five job characteristics and their

relationship to personal and work
outcomes.

A conceptual framework for designing
motivating jobs that create meaningful
work experiences that satisfy
employees’ growth needs.

SKILL VARIETY
 The degree to which the job requires a variety
of different activities so the worker can use
a number of different skills and talent.

 High Variety: The owner-operator of a garage
who does electrical repairs, rebuild
engines, does body work, and interacts with
customers.


 Low Variety: A body shop worker who sprays

paint eight hours a day.
TASK IDENTITY
 The degree to which the job requires
completion of a whole and identifiable piece
of work.

 High Identity: A cabinetmaker who designs a
piece of furniture, selects the wood,
builds the object, and finishes it to
perfection.


 Low Identity: A worker in a furniture factory

who operates a lathe solely to make
table legs.
Task significance
 The degree to which the job has a substantial
impact in the lives or work of other people


 High Significance: Nursing the sick in a

hospital intensive care unit


 Low Significance: Sweeping hospital floors

Autonomy

 The degree to which the job provides
substantial freedom, independence, and
discretion to the individual in scheduling the
work and in determining the procedures to
be used in carrying it out.

Autonomy
 High Autonomy: A salesperson who schedules
his or her own work for the day, makes
visits without supervision, and decides on
the most effective sales techniques for each
particular potential customer.


 Low Autonomy: A salesperson who is given a

specific number of leads each day and is
required to use a standardized sales script
with each potential customer.

Feedback

 The degree to which carrying out the work
activities required by the job results in the
individual obtaining direct and clear
information about the effectiveness of his or
her performance.
Feedback
 High Feedback: An electronics factory worker
who assembles a radio and then tests it
to determine if it operates properly.


 Low Feedback: An electronics factory worker

who assembles a radio and then routes
it to a quality –control inspector who
tests it for proper operation and makes
needed adjustments.

Exhibit 16–6 Job Characteristics Model

Source: J.R. Hackman and J.L. Suttle (eds.). Improving Life at Work
(Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1977). With permission of the authors.

13

 The model says that internal rewards are
obtained by individuals when they
learn(knowledge of results) that they
personally (experienced responsibility) have
performed well on a task that they care
about (experienced meaningfulness).
Motivating potential score
A predictive index suggesting the motivating
potential in a job.
 Computation of MPS:



MPS=SV+ TI+ TS * Autonomy* Feedback

3
Social information Processing
Model

 Peoplerespond to their jobs as they perceive
them rather than to the objective jobs
themselves

 The model argues that employees adopt
attitudes and behaviors in response to the
social cues provided by others with whom
they have contact.
Technology & New
Work Design
What is
technology?
Technology is...

“How an organization


transform its input

into output.”
Technology is...


“Machinery &
equipment that
utilize sophisticated
electronics &
computers to
produce those
output.”
Theme:


“Substitute machinery for human labor in
transforming inputs into outputs.”
Examples:

Introduction of electricity

Computerization of equipment &
machinery
ISSUES related to
TECHNOLOGY & WORK

Continuous improvement
processes
 Process reengineering
 Mass customization
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
PROCESSES


Seeking the constant attainment of
customer satisfaction through the
continuous improvement of all
organizational process.
 CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
PROCESSES

“GOOD is NOT good ENOUGH.”

“Excellent performance can & should be improved on.”

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
PROCESSES
TQM programs seek to constantly reduced
VARIABILITY.

Eliminate
Variation

Increase Uniformity

Lower cost & higher

quality
Implication to Employees
 No longer be able to
rest on their
previous
accomplishments &
successes.



Increased stress from
work climate.



Implication to Employees


Tension/Pressure.


 “Race with no finish line

can never be won.”



Prime source for
improvement idea.
PROCESS REENGINEERING

“How you would do things if you could

start all over from the scratch.”
PROCESS REENGINEERING
Key Elements:


 Organization's distinctive competencies.

 Assessing core processes.

 Reorganizing horizontally by process.




 Reengineering vs. TQM

 Reengineering  TQM
“Take something that is
 “Improve something


irrelevant, throwing it that is basically

out & starting over.” okay.”

Implication to Employees

Lots of people lost
their jobs.

Different jobs.

Suffer from
uncertainty &
anxiety.
Mass
customization
MASS CUSTOMIZATION

Production processes that are flexible

enough to create products and services that
are individually tailored to individual
customer.
MASS CUSTOMIZATION


Advantages:



Customers don't have to compromise.

Manufacturers create more satisfied
customers while increasing production
efficiency.

MASS CUSTOMIZATION


Disadvantages:



Creates increased coordination demands
on management.

Requires employees to go through
significant training.

Requires increase in flexibility's
 OB in an e-world
Electronic technology as an area of
tech is a great factor creating change
in organizations.
Objectives:
 To define an e-organization
 To know the affect it is having on both the
individual and group behavior in the
wokplace
Definition of Related Terms:
 e-business
 The full breath of activities included in a successful
Internet-based enterprise
 Developing strategies for running Internet based
companies
 Improving communication between employees,
suppliers, and customers
 Collaborating with partners to electronically
coordinate design & production
 e-commerce
A subset of e-business
 The sales side of electronics business
 Shopping on the Internet
 How business can set up Web sites on w/c they sell
goods, conduct transactions, get paid, & fulfill
orders
What’s an e-organization?
 The applications of e-business concepts to all
organizations.
 E-orgs not only include business firms, but also
hospitals, schools, museums, government
agencies, and the military.
 U.S. Internal Revenue System
 It now provides access to taxpayers over the
Internet


3 Underlying Components
of the E-org:
 Internet
A worldwide network of interconnected computers.
 Intranets
 An organization’s private Internet
Online news, secure document sharing, & e-
mail
 Extranets
 Extended intranets accessible only to the selected
employees and authorized outsiders
 Dashboards that expose supply-chain management or
enterprise resource-planning data to suppliers
 Self-service performance-reporting sites for clients of
marketing firms
An e-org is defined by the degree to
which it uses global(Internet) and
private(intranet & extranet) network
links.
 Type A’s
– Traditional organizations
 Small retailers and service firms
 Type B’s
– Contemporary organizations w/ heavy reliance on intranets and
extranets.
 Type C’s
– Most small e-commerce firms
 Type D’s
– Full e-orgs that have completely integrated global and private
networks.
 eBay, Cisco Systems, Amazon.com, and Wal-Mart
 What Defines an E-Org?
Exhibit 16-1

Intranet
High B D
&extranet

A C
linkages
Low

NOTE:
As an organization Low
moves from a Type A High
toward a Type D, it Internet linkages
increases the degree to
which it takes on e-org
properties. Degree of e-orgness
None
Full
Selected
Implications for
Individual
Behavior



Motivation
 Are
there unique challenges to motivating
employees in e-organizations?
 The answer appears to be “yes.”
 Employees in e-orgs are more susceptible to
distractions that can undermine their work effort
and reduce their productivity.
 The Internet has significantly broadened these
distractions to include:
 Surfing the net
 Playing online games
 Stock trading
 Shopping at work
 Conducting “cyber affairs”
 Searching for other jobs online

 Weather Channel, Amazon.com, TheOnion.com, &
eBay



cyberloafing
 Theact of employees using their
organization’s Internet access during formal
work hours to surf non-job-related Web sites
and to send or read personal e-mail.
 Evidence indicates that it is consuming a lot of
time among workers who have internet access.
 Survey indicate, for instance, that 24.5% of U.S.
employees with Net access spend at least 1 hour
each workday visiting sites unrelated to their job.
 In addition, estimates indicate that nearly 1/3 of
employees’ Internet use at work is recreational
and that cyberloafingis costing U.S. employees
approx. $3million a year for every 1,000
employees with Internet access.

 When are employees motivated to do
“something else” or increasingly use the Net
as a diversion?
 If the work itself isn’t interesting or creates
excessive stress.

 What are the solutions to this problem?
 Making jobs more interesting to employees
 Providing formal breaks to overcome monotony
 Establishing clear guidelines so employees know
what online behaviors are expected
 Approved Acceptable Use Policy for Information
Technology (IT) Resources of the UP System
[UPAUP]
 Installing web-monitoring software
» Although there is evidence that such efforts
can undermine trust in the organization and
adversely affect employee morale.




Ethics
 Electronicsurveillance of employees by
employers is an issue that pits an
organization’s desire to privacy.
 The development of increasingly sophisticated
surveillance software only adds to the ethical
dilemma of how far an organization should go
in monitoring the behavior of employees who
do their work on computers.
A recent survey found that 41.5% percent of
U.S. employers actively monitor or restrict
employees’ Web activity.
 The Web activity of every one of Xerox’s 92,000
employees
 Employees argue that they need surveillance
controls. These controls allow them:
 To make sure employees are not goofing off
 That employees are not distributing organization
secrets
 To protect the organization against employees who
might create a hostile environment for other
employees
 The dilemma of electronic surveillance of employees and employee
privacy rights is exacerbated by the increasingly blurring line
between work and non-work time for employees.
Selected
Implications for
Group Behavior
Decision Making

Two projections:
 First,individual decision-making models are
likely to become increasingly obsolete.
 E-orgs are typically team-based communities. So
group decision-making models will offer greater
relevance.
 Second, the thoughtful, rational models of
decision making will be replaced by action
models.
 Successe-organizations will replace rational
decision making models with action models
(value experimentation) that:
 Utilize trial and error.
 Gather and assimilate data quickly.
 Accept failure and learn from it.

 E-orgs don’t have the luxury of trying to fine-
tune decisions in search for perfection.
 E-orgs make decisions with often very limited
information and, as a result, don’t fear
making mistakes.

* This increases the probability of errors and the
need to be able to recover fast from mistakes
and move on.
Communication
 E-orgs’ rules of communication are designed around comprehensive,
integrated information networks, traditional hierarchical levels no longer
constrain communication.
 Virtual meetings allow people in geographically dispersed locations to meet
regularly.

 The downside of this open communication network is communication

overload.
 E-mail, specifically, is overwhelming many employees. A recent poll found out
that the typical employee receives between 11 & 20 work-related e-mails a
day and that 25% of workers report getting more than 30 e-mails a day
 These frequent incoming communication interruptions
 cost employees valuable time
 erode their ability to concentrate
 can affect their work productivity
Politics & Networking
 E-politicians
are likely to rely much more on
cyber-schmoozing via the electronic
grapevine.
 The normal face-to-face activities of effective
politicians (e.g. impression management)
will be supplemented by cyber-schmoozing
 *Schmoozing - to converse casually, especially in order to
gain an advantage or make a social connection.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/schmoozing

 Onlinenetworking will become increasingly

popular and effective as a supplement to
more traditional political channels.
Will e-Orgs Redefine Interpersonal
Relationships?
 Electronic technology has redefined work
possibilities.
 Employees are no longer constrained by time or
place in doing their work.
What are the implications of these
e-orgs to interpersonal
relationships?
 Preliminary evidence from Stanford University
study indicated that the more time people spent
online, the less time they spent in real-life
relationships with friends and family.
 However, data from more recent surveys suggest that
Stanford conclusions may have been premature.
 The latest data indicate that only a small
percentage of Internet users spend less time
with family and friends than before they went
online
 Themajority of the Internet users report no negative
social effects from logging on.
 Internet has different effects on extroverts and
introverts.
 Extroverts are using the Internet to widen their
social network.
 Introverts use the Internet undermining their offline
social interactions.
 Createsnew ways to interact with work
colleagues.
 Employees will develop “office” friendships
with people thousands of miles away.
 “Good interpersonal skills” may increasingly
mean not only the ability to interact
effectively with people face to face, but may
include the skills to communicate warmth,
emotion, trust, and leadership through written
words on a computer screen.
Physical Work
Condition &
Work Space
Design
PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Temperature
 Noise

Lightning

Air Quality
PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

“Even relatively modest variations in

temperature, noise, lightning, or air quality
can exert appreciable effects on employee
performance and attitude.”
WORK SPACE DESIGN

Size

Arrangement

Privacy

Feng Shui

Workspace Design &
Productivity
SIZE

Square feet per employee


Determinant: “STATUS”


 “The higher an individual in the

organization's hierarchy, the larger
the office he or she typically got.”
SIZE

Egalitarian Organization


− Reducing the space dedicated to

specific employee.
− Eliminating space allocations based on
hierarchical position.
− Making more space available in which
group or teams can meet.
ARRANGEMENT


Distance between people & facilities.

Influences social interaction.
PRIVACY

Function of the amount of space per
person & arrangement of that space.

Trend:
− Phasing out of closed offices &
replacing them with open office
plans that have few, if any,
walls or doors.
− Cave vs. Cube debate
PRIVACY

What about individual differences?


− Further research is needed.

FENG SHUI
 “Chi” or life force.



Managers layout buildings & offices so as
to use chi to gain greater strength &
harmony in the workplace.
FENG SHUI-based suggestions


Office location & layout

Desk Position

Water

Plants & flowers

Reflections
Does Feng Shui
work?
WORKSPACE DESIGN & PRODUCTIVITY


Work space designs increase employee
access, comfort, & flexibility & likely
influence motivation & productivity
positively.



“Cognitive Ergonomics”
− Matching office to the brain work
Job Redesign
Options
Job Redesign Options
Guidelines for enriching a job

FIGURE 7.3
Team-Based Work Designs Revisited

The Job Characteristics Model (JCM)

predicts high performance of groups
when:
 Group members use a variety of high level
skills.
 The group task is a whole and meaningful

piece of work.
 Outcomes of the group’s work has

significant consequences for other

people.
 The group has substantial autonomy in

deciding how they do the work.

 Work on the task generates regular,

trustworthy feedback.
Managers should try to ensure
that:
 Individual members have the
necessary task relevant expertise
to their work
 The group is large enough to perform

the work
 Members possess interpersonal as

well as task skills

 Membership is moderately diverse in

terms of talents and perspectives

Work Schedule Options
Flextime
 Employees work during a common core time
period each day but have discretion in
forming their total workday from a flexible
set of hours outside the core.

 “Flexible work hours”
 Example of a Flextime Schedule

Flexible Common Lunch Common Flexible

hours core core hours

6 a.m. 9 a.m. 12 noon 1 p.m. 3 p.m. 6 p.m.

Time during the day

Benefits claimed for flextime:
 Reduced absenteeism
 Increased productivity
 Reduced overtime expenses
 Lessening in hostility towards management
 Elimination of tardiness
 Reduced traffic congestion around work sites
 Increased autonomy and responsibility for
employees that may increase employee
satisfaction
Job Sharing
 The practice of having two or more people
split a 40-hour-a-week job.

 Allows an organization to draw on the talents
of more than one individual in a given job.

 Opens up the opportunity to acquire skilled
workers who might not be available on a
full-time basis.
From the employee’s perspective;
job sharing:
 Increases flexibility



 Can increase motivation and satisfaction for
those to whom a 40-hour a week job is just
not practical.
Major drawbacks from
management’s perspective:

 Finding compatible pairs of employees who
can successfully coordinate the intricacies of
one job.
Telecommuting
 Employees do their work at home on a
computer that is linked to their office.


 THE VIRTUAL
 Used to describe employees who work out of
their home on a relatively permanent basis.
What kinds of jobs lend themselves
to telecommuting?
3 CATEGORIES:
 ROUTINE INFORMATION-HANDLING TASKS
 MOBILE ACTIVITIES
 PROFESSIONAL AND OTHER KNOWLEDGE-
RELATED TASKS
Sources:
 Organizational Behavior, 10th edition by
Robbins, Stephen C.
 www.itbusinessedge.com/topics/show.aspx?
t=680
 compnetworking.about.com/library/weekly/
aa083199.htm
 http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/sablynskic/ch_1
4_16_17.htm
 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sch
moozing