Approaches to Job Design - Efficiency vs Behavioural

CURRENT ISSUES IN OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT BLOG Feb 13, 2012
PATRICK BAKER – ST#100014952 – KWANTLEN POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY


Approaches to Job Design - Efficiency vs. Behavioural


The Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century brought about the rapid growth of factories for production, factories which focused largely on assembly line technology where workers performed the same repetitive task over and over again, each worker focusing on one small job which contributed to the final output. One of the most famous economists of the time, Adam Smith, author of the “Wealth of Nations”, advocated that this Division of Labor, also known as Job Specialization (the breaking down of jobs into many tiny components), was the root of economic growth. From an efficiency perspective, the activity of workers focusing on this narrow scope of specialized tasks presents certain advantages. Tom Lutzenberger MBA discusses these advantages; “Because job specialization allows significant expertise buildup in a specific task, the learning and speed of production happen faster. The job does not involve complex processes, so it can be taught faster to new workers. In theory, this approach reduces quality control costs and improves production efficiency”. In addition, Job Specialization also reduces labor costs to the company as they can pay low wages for workers with low education and skill requirements. 


But even Adam Smith was wary of the potential downside of the mass division of labor, recognizing the adverse behavioral effects it could have with the workforce. From a behavioral perspective, job specialization can create dissatisfaction among workers who are forced to perform the same monotonous task over and over and over, creating potential troubles with the motivation of quality work. This can also create a situation where workers feel un-fulfilled, cease to learn new skills, are allowed little room for growth & advancement, and in the event of a factory/line shut-down or lay-offs, specialized workers have limited ability to adapt and often find themselves unemployable. Lutzenberger made the observation that, “workers under job specialization don’t have a wide array of applicable skills, so it becomes hard for them to adapt to a new function or need in the organization”.


Taking into consideration the costs & benefits of job specialization, todays companies must put careful consideration into their design of work systems. Due to recent trends in operations management towards the use of computers, e-commerce, automation and an overall increased reliance on technology, many companies are recognizing a need for a more flexible, less specialized workforce. Many assembly line type jobs are being replaced by technology, and a large percentage of companies are now requiring an increase of knowledge workers, who possess a wider range of skills and can adapt to ever changing conditions. In their 1994 study on
recent trends in job training, Norman Bowers and Paul Swam make the observation that, “Skills demands appear to have shifted toward general and cognitive skills best taught in formal training programs and schools and away from specific and manual skills acquired through informal on-the-job training”. Many companies today are making the shift from the efficiency approach to job design which institutes highly specialized tasks ( workers focus on a narrow job scope) to a behavioral approach, which advocates creating a flexible workforce with a wider, more fulfilling, more meaningful job scope. Initiatives such as job enlargement (giving worker larger portion of the total task), job rotation (workers periodically exchanging jobs), job enrichment (increased responsibility for planning & coordination) and self-directed teams (team empowered to make changes in their work) are widely used by progressive companies, especially those which rely heavily on the use of technology in their processes (operations management 4th cdn ed.).


Jaime Ortega conducted an in-depth study measuring the effectiveness of job rotation as a learning mechanism within organizations, coming up with some interesting observations. The major conclusions that Ortega made were, first that firms using new technologies were significantly more likely to use job rotation, and second, that job rotation is more profitable than specialization when employees are early in their careers, and that frequency of job rotation drastically diminished with tenure. From this Ortega ascertained that it is more profitable to rotate employees with low tenure than high tenure and that rotation is also more profitable in more innovative activities. Although job rotation is more likely used in organizations using new technologies, it can also provide benefit to a basic assembly line type operation, by periodically rotating workers between various different tasks along the line, it can reduce both boredom and the likelihood of repetitive motion injuries. In addition, the rotation of jobs among the workers increases the versatility of the team to prevent against loss of productivity due to absenteeism or turnover.


When choosing the most effective approach and method of job design, an organization should take into account certain variables to establish to optimal job scope for its workers. Some important factors to consider are the level of technology and innovation, repetitiveness of tasks, the tenure of the workers, and the level of education and / or skills required. The degree of specialization or variation in job design that delivers the highest degree of productivity and profitability from the process will vary depending on the task.


EXAM QUESTION:
List three advantages and three disadvantages of assembly-line specialization in regards to job design:


REFERENCES : 


Contemporary Economic Policy
Volume 12, Issue 1, pages 79–88, January 1994 
Recent Trends in Job Training 
Norman Bowers & Paul Swam
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1994.tb00414.x/pdf


Job Rotation as a Learning Mechanism 
Jaime Ortega 
Management Science 
Vol. 47, No. 10 (Oct., 2001) (pp. 1361-1370) 
Page Count: 10
http://www.jstor.org/stable/822491?seq=1


Adam Smith and the Division of Labor 
Yousuf Dhamee '96 (English 73, 1995) 
http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/division.html


What Is Job Specialization & Job Evaluation? 
Tom Lutzenberger, eHow, 2012
http://www.ehow.com/about_6721655_job-specialization-job-evaluation_.html


Operations Management
Fourth Canadian Edition (McGraw Hill), pages 221-222 
William Stevenson & Mehran Hojati