Using Job Redesign to Motivate Employees
“Every day was the same thing,” Frank said. “Stand on that assembly line. Wait for an instrument panel to be moved into place. Unlock the mechanism and drop the panel into the Jeep Liberty as it moved by on the line. Then I plugged in the harnessing wires. I repeated that for eight hours a day. I don’t care that they were paying me 24 dollars an hour. I was going crazy. Finally, I just said this isn’t going to be the way I’m going to spend the rest of my life. My brain was turning to JELL-O. So I quit. Now I work in a print shop and I make less than 15 dollars an hour. But let me tell you, the work I do is really interesting. The job changes all the time, I’m continually learning new things, and the work really challenges me! I look forward every morning to going to work again.”
The repetitive tasks in Frank’s job at the Jeep plant provided little variety, autonomy, or motivation. In contrast, his job in the print shop is challenging and stimulating. From an organizational perspective, the failure of Frank’s first employer to redesign his job into a more satisfying one led to increased turnover. Redesigning jobs therefore has important practical implications—reduced turnover and increased job satisfaction among them. Let’s look at some ways to put the JCM into practice to make jobs more motivating.
Job Rotation
If employees suffer from over-routinization of their work, one alternative is job rotation, or the periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another with similar skill requirements at the same organizational level (also called cross-training). Manufacturers also use job rotation as needed to respond more flexibly to the volume of incoming orders. New managers are sometimes rotated through jobs, too, to help them get a picture of a whole organization.8 For these reasons, job rotation can be applied in any setting where cross-training is feasible, from manufacturing floors to hospital wards. At Singapore Airlines, for instance, a ticket agent may temporarily take on the duties of a baggage handler, both for cross-training and to get exposure to different aspects of the organization. Extensive job rotation is among the reasons Singapore Airlines is rated one of the best airlines in the world.9
The use of job rotation has been shown to increase job satisfaction and organizational commitment.10 Additionally, evidence from Italy, Britain, and Turkey indicated that job rotation is associated with higher levels of organizational performance in manufacturing settings.11 It reduces boredom, increases motivation, and helps employees understand how their work contributes to the organization. It may also increase safety and reduce repetitive-based work injuries, but that is currently a topic of much study and debate, with mixed findings.12
Job rotation does have its drawbacks. Work that is done repeatedly may become habitual and routine, which does make decision making more automatic and efficient, but less thoughtfully considered. Second, training costs increase when each rotation necessitates that an employee learn new skills. Third, moving a worker into a new position reduces overall productivity for that role. Fourth, job rotation creates disruptions when members of the work group have to adjust to new employees. Finally, supervisors may have to spend more time answering questions and monitoring the work of recently rotated employees.
Relational Job Design
While redesigning jobs on the basis of job characteristics theory is likely to make work more intrinsically motivating, research is also exploring how to make jobs more prosocially motivating to people. In other words, how can managers design work so employees are motivated to promote the well-being of the organization’s beneficiaries (customers, clients, patients, and employees)? This view, relational job design, shifts the spotlight from the employee to those whose lives are affected by the job that employee performs.13 It also motivates individuals toward increased job performance.14
One way to make jobs more prosocially motivating is to better connect employees with the beneficiaries of their work. This can be done by, for example, relating stories from customers who have found the company’s products or services to be helpful. Meeting beneficiaries firsthand—or even just seeing pictures of them—allows employees to see that their actions affect real people and have tangible consequences. It makes customers or clients more memorable and emotionally vivid, which leads employees to consider the effects of their work actions more. Lastly, connections allow employees to better understand the perspective of beneficiaries, which fosters higher levels of commitment.
Relational job design, with its focus on prosocial motivation, is an especially salient topic for organizations with corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. As we discussed in Chapter 3, CSR efforts often include invitations for employees to volunteer their time and effort, sometimes using the skills they gained on the job (like Home Depot employees when they help rebuild homes) but often not (such as when bank employees help rebuild homes with groups like Habitat for Humanity). In both cases, the employees may be able to interact with the beneficiaries of their efforts. Research also indicates that corporate-sponsored volunteer programs enhanced in the JCM dimensions of meaningfulness and task significance motivate employees to volunteer.15 But while this motivation for prosocial behavior is noteworthy, it is not the same as relational job design: for one, the CSR efforts are through volunteering (not on-the-job); and for another, the work they are providing is not usually the same work they do at their jobs (Home Depot workers do not build homes on the job). However, relational job design holds intriguing possibilities for CSR initiatives.