Creating the Skeleton of the Job: Job Design

What is Job Design?

The goal of job design is to create a framework that clearly outlines how and where a job will be done and the resources that will be used. It is also defined as structuring roles, tasks, and the nature of work within the workplace. Creating a strong job design indirectly increases productivity and growth opportunities, while also supporting employee engagement and motivation. To better understand its place in daily life, we can examine the origins of the job design concept.

Let's go back to the Industrial Revolution; the enormous factories, the smaller-scale production centers, and all the gears that completed this system essentially approached the act of doing work with the same perspective: breaking down the work into smaller parts and aiming for maximum efficiency by mechanically teaching workers exactly how to do it. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ford factory was a perfect example of this perspective. The production of car parts in the factory was divided into lines, and the workers at the beginning of the lines continuously and automatically performed the same task. This system focused solely on speed and error margin. But things didn't go as expected. The factory experienced very high rates of "turnover" and "slacking off." This system, which theoretically aimed for high productivity without focusing on the psychology and motivation of the employees, practically led to decreased productivity.

Around the same time, Volvo, another car brand operating in the same sector, was achieving high efficiency with a completely different system: instead of breaking down the work, they managed the entire production of a car with a single team of 8-10 people. These two different examples helped scientists consider the issue as two opposing poles when developing theories on job design.

Why is Job Design More Important Now?

The concept of job design is a new and established one in the working world of the new century. But why? When we ask the question, "What makes job design so important for new systems?", many different dynamics emerge. The first is the increasing search for meaning in the workplace and the fact that motivation has become the strongest cog in the wheel. Employees become more successful and productive in jobs they find meaningful and motivating. In addition, issues such as mental health in the work environment, talent management, and employee engagement have become factors that directly affect harmony and productivity in the workplace. All these reasons necessitate the shaping and robust design of the concept of work.

How Should You Design Your Business?

While having a strong and effective job design varies for every sector and every employee, using guiding principles is always a good starting point. The best-known and most useful framework for strong job design is Hackman and Oldham's "Job Characteristics Theory." This theory suggests that every job should possess five fundamental characteristics that motivate and keep the individual engaged:

1. Skill Diversity: This refers to the breadth of skills an employee uses in their work. Using different skills increases both motivation and focus.

2. Job Identity: This concept refers to an employee's identification with their work, their ability to concretely see the results of their work, to say "I did it," and to derive satisfaction from it.

3. Task Significance: This refers to knowing how the work affects others and what benefit it provides. Employees feel more motivated when doing work they find meaningful and important.

4. Autonomy: This concept refers to the level of independence and freedom an individual possesses in their work, as well as their ability to take initiative, and is particularly beneficial for employee development.

5. Feedback: This refers to realistic and constructive feedback an employee receives about their performance. Feedback shouldn't be perceived solely as verbal and interactive. For example, a software engineer being able to instantly see that their code is working or receiving error messages is also considered feedback.

According to Hackman and Oldham, job descriptions and environments designed with these five characteristics in mind increase employee motivation and commitment, while also reducing absenteeism and anti-work behavior.

Improving Existing Business Through Strategies

While job design might seem like a process that needs to be completed in the first step, it can also be used to address existing problems and increase productivity. Job redesign can also be used in scenarios where employee productivity is low in an ongoing job. At the beginning of the 20th century, scientists discussed different strategies for redesigning jobs and solving existing problems. Let's look at some of the most effective of these strategies:

• Job Rotation: This is the practice of moving an employee between different departments within the work environment. Job rotation means employees move from one job to another as a way of expanding the scope of their duties; therefore, it is a form of horizontal workload. This means that jobs are expanded horizontally, but the level of work (difficulty/responsibility) remains unchanged. The key point about job rotation is to achieve greater job variety in order to reduce the monotony resulting from constantly performing repetitive tasks. For example, an employee from the sales team working with the marketing team for a period of time increases skill diversity.

  
  

• Job enlargement involves adding different tasks that utilize similar skills to the employee's current job, expanding the scope "horizontally" to reduce feelings of routine. Alternatively, the variety of products an employee is interested in can also be increased. Job rotation is a variation of this idea, allowing employees to move from one job to another to broaden their scope. The key point of job enlargement is to increase the amount of work done to increase employee engagement, while the level (difficulty) of the work remains unchanged. This can lead to higher job satisfaction, higher performance, and higher-quality output. For example, allowing a graphic designer who produces stock images from the same template to create different content and supporting their creativity is an example of job enlargement.

  
  

• Job enrichment can involve adding tasks where an employee can utilize different skills, giving them more control, planning, and responsibility over their work. This deepens the job "vertically," increasing the employee's sense of accomplishment. For example, adding a task where a data analyst mentors new interns allows them to use a different skill: social skills. Using different skills reduces the monotony of the job.

  
  

• Job Crafting: This is the proactive restructuring of an employee's own work. This strategy refers to a process that begins entirely with the employee's own adjustments, not management's. It was first defined by Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) as "physical and cognitive changes that individuals make within the task or relational boundaries of their work." This crafting can take many forms, including task, relational, and cognitive crafting. Task crafting may involve taking on additional tasks; relational crafting may involve forming additional relationships; and cognitive crafting may involve meaningfully reframing one's perception of one's work by focusing on its positive impact.

Gray Areas in Job Design: A strong and well-planned job design positively impacts productivity and commitment; however, the "uniqueness of each individual" approach, a common theme in psychology, also applies here. An employee's openness to development and their satisfaction with the work environment and colleagues are important factors influencing commitment. Job design is also affected by cultural and generational differences. I would like to conclude this article with a question: Does the perfect job wait for us where it already exists, or do we construct it ourselves according to the context?