Chapter 3

Job and Work Design

 Introduction
• The way jobs are designed and work is organised is a critical internal
contingency affecting HRM.
• Management = chief architect of job and work design.
• Different work design systems impact workers’ motivation, work-
related stress and individual performance.
 The Nature of Work
• ‘The paradox of modern work’ – people’s sense of dignity and self-
worth is found in work, but most people hate their jobs (Graeber,
2018).

• Work = cannot solely be defined as the content of the activity – i.e.

looking after your child isn’t considered ‘work’, but it is ‘work’ for a
childminder.
 The Nature of Work
“Work refers to physical and mental activity that is carried out to produce or
achieve something of value at a particular place and time; it involves a degree of
obligation and explicit or implicit instructions, in return for a wage or reward”
(Bratton, 2020, p. 31).

This definition highlights:

1. In work, ‘physical and mental’ activity is undertaken for the purpose of
adding ‘value’.
2. Work is structured spatially.
3. Work involves social relations between people.
4. Work is exchanged for payment.
 The Meaning of Job and Work Design
• Job design definitions:
 Parker et al., 2017: the content and organisation of tasks.
 Bratton 2021: “the process of assigning tasks to a job, including
the interdependency of those tasks with other jobs”.

• Job Analysis:
 The systematic process of collecting and evaluating information
about the tasks, responsibilities and context of a specific job.
Job A = Limited content or scope of the job, giving minimal, if any, discretion over how
work-related tasks are performed. The focus is on a rapid completion of tasks and close
supervision.
Job B = More tasks and more autonomy over how those tasks are performed. The focus is
on improving job satisfaction by allowing the worker to complete several tasks with some
self-supervision.
 Job Redesign
• Early 20th century capitalism, job design emphasised
minimum skills and training.

• 1980s, focus on ‘enriching’ and ‘enlarging’ individual jobs.

 Organisational Structure
• Organisational Structure: the means by which management divides
work activities, and coordinates and controls these activities (Bratton,
2021).
• Effective organisational structure needs to:
1. Divide the total function and task into manageable sub functions and
subtasks (also known as differentiation).
2. Coordinate the completion of these tasks so that they fit together to
accomplish the total task of the organisation (also known as
integration).
The Development of Work Design
Four key approaches
to organising work:
 The Development of Organisation & Job
Design

• The development of organisation and design is not linear, but,

rather, swings between different business models informed by
new thinking and crises.

• E.g., Swing from ‘bureaucratic’, task specialisation, and

leader-centric leadership to ‘flat’, team-based work and
‘follower-centric’ leadership (Bratton, 2020).
 Classical work designs: scientific
management
• Considered ‘classical’ partly because they identify ideas and issues that
keep occurring in contemporary literature, albeit using a different
vocabulary (Grey, 2005).

• Taylorism:
 Maximum job fragmentation
 The divorce of planning and doing
 The divorce of ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ labour
 The minimisation of skill requirements and time for learning the job
 The reduction of material-handling to a minimum.
 Classical work designs: scientific
management
• Fordism:
 A system of conveyor lines that feed components to different work
stations to be worked on.
 The standardisation of parts to gain economies of scale and lower
unit costs.

‘The idea is that man [sic]… must have every second necessary but not
a single unnecessary second’ (Ford, 1922, quoted in Beynon, 1984, p.
33).
Classical work design: scientific management
• Human Relations Movement:
 Ushered in by Mayo.

 Advocated worker participation and non-authoritarian first-line

managers to promote a climate of good human relations
Classical work design: scientific management
• Neo-human Relations School – five core principles:

1. Closure.
2. Good design incorporating control and monitoring of tasks.
3. Task variety.
4. Self-regulation of the speed of work.
5. Social interaction and a degree of cooperation.
Classical work design: scientific management
Shifts away from Taylorism:
• Job rotation.
• Job enlargement.
• Job enrichment.
 Post-bureaucratic design: the job
characteristic model
The JCM proposes five core job characteristics:
1. Skill variety
2. Task identity
3. Task significance
4. Autonomy
5. Feedback
 Post-bureaucratic design: the job
characteristic model
• JCM extended e.g., Morgeson & Humphrey (2008); social
work e.g., Karasek and Theorell (1990); emotion work e.g.,
Zapf (2002); electronic performance monitoring e.g.,
Nebeker and Tatum (1993).
• Extension of JCM to support effectiveness and well-being of
knowledge workers (Parker, 2014).
 Post-bureaucratic design: Japanese
Management
• Resembles job design B.
• Horizontal and vertical job enlargement.
• Total-quality control.
• Zero or low inventory.
Academics debate whether model is significantly different
• Distinctive due to complex web of dependency relationships
versus
• Computer-controlled autonomy and ‘Clan’ control.
 Contemporary design: process-centred and
high-performance systems
Business process re-engineering (BPR):
• Falls within the post-bureaucratic genre.
• ‘About changing management itself’ (Champy, 1996, p. 3).
• ‘Reconceptualization of core employees’ as valuable asset
(Willmott 1995b).
• Primacy of ‘customer value’, workers take initiative.
• Market driven - what customers do or don’t do.
 High-performance work systems

• Agile work system - ability to develop, apply, nimble and

dynamic human capabilities.
• Strategic & holistic approach to managing people & work
 High-performance work systems (HPWS)
• HPWS enacted through mutual employer–employee
reciprocation: high-commitment, trust-building work
practices. In return, higher levels of autonomy (Thompson,
2003).
• High-performance working approaches:
 High-involvement/‘radical decentralization’.
 High-commitment management.
 High-engagement management.
HPWS and performance improvement

1. Human capability sets upper limit of performance;

2. Motivation influencing capability is applied;
3. Opportunity to participate and apply skills.
 High-performance work systems

• Sustainable HPWS requires ‘smart working’.

• Fair work offers effective voice, opportunity, security,

fulfilment and respect.
 Critiquing job and work design
• Growth of ‘bullshit’ jobs and ‘precarious’ jobs.
• Importance of human dignity in and at work (Bolton, 2007).
• Designs create tension and paradox.
• Surveillance of workers through digitalization.
• Classic paradox – specialization of tasks increases output but
undermines autonomy, trust, and employee commitment.
• Two opposing imperatives – regulate too tightly, risk losing
employee creativity; empower too much risk losing control.