Saturday, April 12, 2014

Unit 3 (P 25): Organizational Structure and Design: Approaches to organizing and job design


  1. Classical Approach: The classical approach includes three different approaches consisting of scientific management theory (F.W. Taylor), Administrative management theory (Henry Fayol) and Bureaucratic theory (Max Weber). This approach attempt to identify “one best way “to organizing.
    1. Scientific Management: The Key idea of F.W. Taylor is to scientifically design the job for proper organizing of the job in organization; rather than the traditional method of rule of thumb (trial and error or hit and miss) of managing work and workers. Scientific management focused on organizing through: 
      • Careful observation of the way a job is done.
      • Careful selection of people
      • Setting up standards of work.
      • Measurement of work.
      • Rewarding for increased production (incentive system).
      • Separation of planning level and performance level
    2. Administrative management:  Henry Fayol idea of Administrative management was concerned with developing general principle of organizing to guide the management of the entire organization. Administrative management focused on:
      • Fourteen principle of management. (Review chapter :1)
      • Function of management ( planning, organizing, directing, and controlling)
    3. Bureaucratic theory: Max Weber focus was the development of organizing technique for managing large and complex organization. Bureaucratic approach composed following component to proper organizing:
      • Division of work.
      • Clearly defined hierarchy.
      • Defined rules and regulation.
      • Chain of command.
      • Impersonality in relationship.
      • Selection and promotion based on technical competence and career orientation.

  2. Behavioral Approach: The behavioral approach focuses on study of employee behavior through understanding the psychology, sociology and anthropology discipline of human behavior. It consisted of two different approach consisting of Human relation approach (Elton Mayo’s) and Behavioral science approaches (Dauglas McGregor ‘Theory X and Theory Y’, Abraham Maslow ‘Theory of human needs’ and Frederick Herzberg ‘Motivation-Hygiene theory’). This approach attempts to identify important ideas on’ people management aspect in organizing’.
    1. Elton mayo’s Human Relation Approach: The approach highlights the social context of work; including group norms and interpersonal relationship are important to organizing of the work activities to increase productivity.
    2. Dauglas McGregor ‘Theory X and Theory Y’: this approach highlights two distinct views of human being: negative and pessimistic side (Theory X) and positive and optimistic side (Theory Y). Understanding the behavior under the above two assumption to get the work done was major intention of this approach.
    3. Abraham Maslow ‘Theory of human needs’: This approach helps us to understand behavior on the basis of hierarchy of needs the human are trying to achieve.  He defined five distinct levels of needs.
    4. Frederick Herzberg ‘Motivation-Hygiene theory’: This theory helps us to understand the human behavior through; hygiene factor does not motivate employees but the absence will lead to dissatisfaction. The motivating factor are job centered ,which leads to high levels of motivation and job satisfaction and absence will not lead to high dissatisfaction.

  3. System and contingency Approach: These approach focus on interrelationships among the dependent and independent factor in organizing. System approach states organizing in interrelationship among organizational elements and contingency approach view interrelationships between organization and the environmental elements.
    1. System approach: Systems theory focuses on the arrangement of and relations between the parts which connect them into a whole. This approach in conceptualizing the flow and interaction of various elements of the organization. Basic organizing concept relies on system perspective like: system environment boundary, input, output, process, state, hierarchy, goal direction, and information.
    2. Contingency approach: this approach states that organizing depends upon manager ability to analyze and understand the uniqueness and complexity of each situation. “There is no one best way to organize”, so the management variables that determine organizing.
      • Organization size: This refers to capacity, number of personnel, outputs (customers, sales), resources (wealth).
      • Routines of task and technology: It appears that certain activities naturally "go with" certain structures, knowing an organization's primary system of production, you could predict their structure.
      • Environment uncertainty: Organizations actively adapt to their environments
      • Strategic choice: Structure is formed in relation to the strategy adopted by the organization.
      • Individual difference: it typically focuses to the human resource needs and desire and design of the job accordingly to build up a suitable organization structure.


Job design:

  • Job design is the process of determining an individual’s task in the job (work division)and defining  job related objectives, roles, authority and responsibilities, and coordinating and grouping activities.
  •  It also defines the designing and maintaining formal relationship among the jobs and position for achieving common objectives.
  • Job design means to decide the contents of a job.
  • Job design also gives information about the qualifications required for doing the job and the reward (financial and non-financial benefits) for doing the job
  • While designing the job, the needs of the organization and the needs of the individual manager must be balanced.
  • Proper job design in organizations raise productivity levels by offering non-monetary rewards such as greater satisfaction from a sense of personal achievement in meeting the increased challenge and responsibility of one's work. 
  • job to be interesting and challenging because highly specialized job leads to boredom.


Approaches/ Techniques to Job design OR Job Redesign

  1. Job specialization:  It is the process of separating organizational activities into distinct tasks and the assignment of different tasks to different people according to their capability. It creates employee expertise in function which helps to bring efficiency in performance. However it can create boredom.
  2. Job rotation: It is a job design technique in which employees are moved between two or more jobs in a planned manner. The objective is to expose the employees to different experiences and wider variety of skills to enhance job satisfaction, to cross-train them and counteract boredom. However it may bring feeling of alienation.
  3. Job enlargement: A job design technique in which the number of tasks associated with a job is increased (an appropriate training provided) to add greater variety to activities, thus reducing monotony. Job enlargement is considered  horizontal restructuring method in that the job is enlarged by adding related task level.
  4. Job enrichment: A technique which focus in adding new forces of job satisfaction by increasing the level of responsibility of the employees. It is considered vertical restructuring which provides additional authority, autonomy, and control over the way the job is accomplished. It is also called job enhancement or vertical job expansion.
  5. Job empowerment: It is technique of creating a working environment where an employee is allowed to make his own decisions in specific work-related situations. The logic behind job empowerment is to increase the employee's responsibility, to build employee morale and to improve the quality of your employee's work life. The supervisor plays the role of a coach and information provider rather than being a traditional boss.
  6. Job characteristics: It is a technique of designing job which is more interesting and motivating. It states that there are five core job characteristics which impact psychological influencing work outcomes (job satisfaction, absenteeism, work motivation, etc.). They are as follows:
  7. Task Identity – related to the fact that a piece of work can be identified as having a beginning and an end.
  8. Autonomy – refers to the level of freedom to decide schedule and work procedures.
  9. Skills Variety – the number of different activities  and skill performed by an employee
  10. Task Significance – the perceived impact of work on the final product, other employees or the work environment
  11. Job Feedback – information provided to the employee regarding his performance.
  12. Work team: a group is assigned responsibility for designing the work system to be used in performing an interrelated set of job. It defines how job are to be allocated to each member.


19 comments:

  1. Classical Approach :
    The classical theory include three different approach to organizing ,consisting
    of scientific management theory ,administrative theory and bureaucratic theory..

    ReplyDelete
  2. There are three basic approaches to organizing they are classical approach, behavioural approach and administrative approach.
    Classical approach is also classified into three categories : scientific management, administrative management and bureaucratic theory. Although their prescriptions and approaches are different , they all advocate 'universal principles' of organizing. they attempt to satisfy " one best way to organization".
    Behavioural approach to organizing focuses on the employees behaviour This approach has contributed significant ideas on people-management aspect of the organization. This approach makes it clear that people are the key to organizing and productivity.
    System and contingency approaches of organizing focuses on interrelationship among organizational elements and between organization and the environmental elements.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Job design is the systematic and purposeful allocation of tasks to individuals and groups within an organization.
    Approaches to job design are:
    - job specialization
    -job rotation
    -job enlargement
    -job enrichment
    -job empowerment
    -job characteristics
    -task identity
    -autonomy
    -skill variety
    -task significance
    -job feedback
    -work team

    ReplyDelete
  4. JOB DESIGN
    It is the process of Work arrangement (or rearrangement) aimed at reducing or
    overcoming job dissatisfaction and employee alienation arising from repetitive and
    mechanistic tasks. Through job design, organizations try to raise productivity levels
    by offering non-monetary rewards such as greater satisfaction from a sense of personal
    achievement in meeting the increased challenge and responsibility of one's work.

    Approaches to job design include:
    Ø Job Enlargement: Job enlargement changes the jobs to include more
    and/or different tasks. Job enlargement should add interest to the work but may
    or may not give employees more responsibility.
    Ø Job Rotation: Job rotation moves employees from one task to another. It
    distributes the group tasks among a number of employees.
    Ø Job Enrichment: Job enrichment allows employees to assume more
    responsibility, accountability, and independence when learning new tasks or to
    allow for greater participation and new opportunities.

    ReplyDelete
  5. approaches to organizing

    Classical approach : 'universal principles' of organizing. they attempt to satisfy " one best way to organization".
    Behavioural approach:This approach makes it clear that people are the key to organizing and productivity.
    System and contingency approaches of organizing focuses on interrelationship among organizational elements and between organization and the environmental elements.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Job design, as a key contributor to individual attitudes, motivation, and work performance, has generated substantial interest in the scientific community. Much research has been conducted in the area of job design, leading to a better understanding of the attitudes and behaviors of employees at work. This article is a review of some key readings on job design theories and research. Job design refers to the processes and outcomes of how work is structured, organized, experienced, and enacted. Unlike other changes at work, such as those associated with managerial practices, training programs, or reward systems, job design focuses solely on the work itself—namely, the tasks or activities that individuals pursue in their organizations. The popularity of job design as a research topic and managerial strategy is based on its focus on the work itself. Individuals can avoid dealing with many aspects of their work context, but they cannot avoid dealing with their jobs. Individuals at work spend their time primarily performing their jobs. Therefore, jobs represent the key contact between the employee and the organization. This suggests that the way in which jobs are designed and structured plays a major role in affecting how people react in their employing organization. Job design, which has attracted tremendous attention in the 20th century, continues to be highly relevant in the 21st century. Key historical approaches in job design will be reviewed first, followed by a discussion of future directions in this area.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Five Approaches to Organizational Design:
    Managers must make choices about how to group people together to perform their work. Five common approaches — functional, divisional, matrix, team, and networking—help managers determine departmental groupings (grouping of positions into departments). The five structures are basic organizational structures, which are then adapted to an organization's needs. All five approaches combine varying elements of mechanistic and organic structures. For example, the organizational design trend today incorporates a minimum of bureaucratic features and displays more features of the organic design with a decentralized authority structure, fewer rules and procedures, and so on.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Classical theory includes the scientific management theory by F.W Taylor, Administrative Management Theory by Henry Fayol and Bureaucracy theory by Max Weber.

    1. Scientific Management: According to Taylor, ”Scientific management means knowing exactly what men want to do and seeing that they do in the best and the cheapest way.” This approach focuses that there must be cleared and well organized procedures and visions for the completion of work. Scientific Management implies the art of knowing exactly what is to be done and how it is to be done in the best possible way.
    Taylor stressed the following principles as the part of the scientific management:
    1. Science, not a rule of thumb
    2. Harmony, not discord
    3. Cooperation, not individualism
    4. Development of each person to his maximum efficiency and prosperity
    5. Maximum output in place of restricted output
    6. Equal division of responsibility among management and workers
    7. Mental revolution of both management and workers

    2. Administrative Management Theory: Administrative Management theory is the theory proposed by Henry Fayol. It mainly focuses on the principle of organizing.
    The fourteen principle of Administrative management are:
    1. Division of work
    2. Discipline
    3. Unity of command
    4. Authority and responsibility
    5. Unity of direction
    6. Subordination of individual interest to general interest
    7. Remuneration of personnel
    8. Coordination
    9. Scalar Chain
    10. Order
    11. Equity
    12. Stability of tenure
    13. Initiative
    14. Spirit De Corps

    3. Bureaucracy Theory: Bureaucracy theory of Max Weber is most common in large organization and government institutions. It is applicable in the organization where more numbers of employees perform the activities to meet common goals. Principle of Bureaucracy stresses upon hierarchy of well defined line of authority from top level management to the lower level management.
    Its principles are:
    1. Formal Rules and Procedures
    2. Functional specialization
    3. Well defined hierarchy of authority
    4. Supervision by a higher authority
    5. Technical competence for employment and promotion
    6. All decision should be recorded
    7. Interpersonal relation.

    2. Behavioral Approach: The behavioral management theory is often called the human relations movement because it addresses the human dimension of work. Behavioral theorists believed that a better understanding of human behavior at work, such as motivation, conflict, expectations, and group dynamics, improved productivity.

    3. System and Contingency approach: It focuses on interrelationship among organizational elements and between organization ant the environmental elements.

    Job Design
    Job design means to decide the contents of a job. It fixes the duties and responsibilities of the job, the methods of doing the job and the relationship between the job holder and his superiors, subordinates and colleagues.

    Techniques of job design:
    1. Job Enlargement: Job enlargement helps employees in evaluating their efforts. Jobs can be enlarged both in horizon and vertical dimension.

    2. Job Enrichment: Job enrichment refers to vertical expansion of a by adding planning and evaluating responsibilities. It increases freedom, responsibilities and independence.

    3. Job Rotation: Job rotation refers to shifting an employee from one job to another job. It reduces the boredom and disinterest through diversifying the employees’ responsibilities.

    4.Job specialization: It refers to assigning right work to the right person on the basis of their skills and capabilities.




    ReplyDelete
  9. Approaches to job design are:
    - job specialization
    -job rotation
    -job enlargement
    -job enrichment
    -job empowerment
    -job characteristics

    ReplyDelete
  10. There are three basic approaches to organizing they are classical approach, behavioural approach and administrative approach.
    1.Classical approach is also classified into three categories : scientific management, administrative management and bureaucratic theory. Although their prescriptions and approaches are different , they all advocate 'universal principles' of organizing. they attempt to satisfy " one best way to organization".
    2. Behavioral Approach: The behavioral management theory is often called the human relations movement because it addresses the human dimension of work. Behavioral theorists believed that a better understanding of human behavior at work, such as motivation, conflict, expectations, and group dynamics, improved productivity.
    3. System and Contingency approach: It focuses on interrelationship among organizational elements and between organization ant the environmental elements.


    Job design is the systematic and purposeful allocation of tasks to individuals and groups within an organization.
    Approaches to job design are:
    - job specialization
    -job rotation
    -job enlargement
    -job enrichment
    -job empowerment
    -job characteristics
    -task identity
    -autonomy
    -skill variety
    -task significance
    -job feedback
    -work team

    ReplyDelete
  11. Classical theory includes the scientific management theory by F.W Taylor, Administrative Management Theory by Henry Fayol and Bureaucracy theory by Max Weber.

    1. Scientific Management: According to Taylor, ”Scientific management means knowing exactly what men want to do and seeing that they do in the best and the cheapest way.” This approach focuses that there must be cleared and well organized procedures and visions for the completion of work. Scientific Management implies the art of knowing exactly what is to be done and how it is to be done in the best possible way.
    Taylor stressed the following principles as the part of the scientific management:
    1. Science, not a rule of thumb
    2. Harmony, not discord
    3. Cooperation, not individualism
    4. Development of each person to his maximum efficiency and prosperity
    5. Maximum output in place of restricted output
    6. Equal division of responsibility among management and workers
    7. Mental revolution of both management and workers

    2. Administrative Management Theory: Administrative Management theory is the theory proposed by Henry Fayol. It mainly focuses on the principle of organizing.
    The fourteen principle of Administrative management are:
    1. Division of work
    2. Discipline
    3. Unity of command
    4. Authority and responsibility
    5. Unity of direction
    6. Subordination of individual interest to general interest
    7. Remuneration of personnel
    8. Coordination
    9. Scalar Chain
    10. Order
    11. Equity
    12. Stability of tenure
    13. Initiative
    14. Spirit De Corps

    3. Bureaucracy Theory: Bureaucracy theory of Max Weber is most common in large organization and government institutions. It is applicable in the organization where more numbers of employees perform the activities to meet common goals. Principle of Bureaucracy stresses upon hierarchy of well defined line of authority from top level management to the lower level management.
    Its principles are:
    1. Formal Rules and Procedures
    2. Functional specialization
    3. Well defined hierarchy of authority
    4. Supervision by a higher authority
    5. Technical competence for employment and promotion
    6. All decision should be recorded
    7. Interpersonal relation.

    2. Behavioral Approach: The behavioral management theory is often called the human relations movement because it addresses the human dimension of work. Behavioral theorists believed that a better understanding of human behavior at work, such as motivation, conflict, expectations, and group dynamics, improved productivity.

    3. System and Contingency approach: It focuses on interrelationship among organizational elements and between organization ant the environmental elements.

    Job Design
    Job design means to decide the contents of a job. It fixes the duties and responsibilities of the job, the methods of doing the job and the relationship between the job holder and his superiors, subordinates and colleagues.

    Techniques of job design:
    1. Job Enlargement: Job enlargement helps employees in evaluating their efforts. Jobs can be enlarged both in horizon and vertical dimension.

    2. Job Enrichment: Job enrichment refers to vertical expansion of a by adding planning and evaluating responsibilities. It increases freedom, responsibilities and independence.

    3. Job Rotation: Job rotation refers to shifting an employee from one job to another job. It reduces the boredom and disinterest through diversifying the employees’ responsibilities.

    4.Job specialization: It refers to assigning right work to the right person on the basis of their skills and capabilities.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The Job Approach
    The Job Characteristics Theory of Hackman and Oldham states that employees will work hard when they are rewarded for the work they do and when the work gives them satisfaction. Hence, they suggest that motivation, satisfaction and performance should be integrated in the job design. According to this approach, any job can be described in terms of five core job dimensions which are defined as follows:
    (a) Skill variety: The degree to which the job requires that workers use a variety of different activities, talents and skills in order to successfully complete the job requirements.
    (b) Task identity: The degree to which the job allows workers to complete whole tasks from start to finish, rather than disjointed portions of the job.
    (c) Task significance: The degree to which the job significantly impacts the lives of others both within and outside the workplace.
    (d) Autonomy: The degree to which the job allows workers freedom in planning and scheduling and the methods used to complete the job.
    (e) Feedback: The degree to which the job itself provides workers with clear, direct and understandable knowledge of their performance.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Job design means to decide the contents of a job.
    There are three basic approaches to organizing they are classical approach, behavioural approach and administrative approach.
    1.Classical approach is also classified into three categories : scientific management, administrative management and bureaucratic theory. Although their prescriptions and approaches are different , they all advocate 'universal principles' of organizing. they attempt to satisfy " one best way to organization".
    2. Behavioral Approach: The behavioral management theory is often called the human relations movement because it addresses the human dimension of work. Behavioral theorists believed that a better understanding of human behavior at work, such as motivation, conflict, expectations, and group dynamics, improved productivity.
    3. System and Contingency approach: It focuses on interrelationship among organizational elements and between organization ant the environmental elements.


    Job design is the systematic and purposeful allocation of tasks to individuals and groups within an organization.
    Approaches to job design are:
    - job specialization
    -job rotation
    -job enlargement
    -job enrichment
    -job empowerment
    -job characteristics
    -task identity
    -autonomy
    -skill variety
    -task significance
    -job feedback
    -work team

    ReplyDelete
  14. JOB DESIGN
    It is the process of Work arrangement (or rearrangement) aimed at reducing or
    overcoming job dissatisfaction and employee alienation arising from repetitive and
    mechanistic tasks. Through job design, organizations try to raise productivity levels
    by offering non-monetary rewards such as greater satisfaction from a sense of personal achievement in meeting the increased challenge and responsibility of one's work. nel network.
    Approaches to job design are:
    - job specialization
    -job rotation
    -job enlargement
    -job enrichment
    -job empowerment
    -job characteristics
    -task identity
    -autonomy
    -skill variety
    -task significance
    -job feedback
    -work team

    ReplyDelete
  15. JOB DESIGN::Work arrangement (or rearrangement) aimed at reducing or overcoming job dissatisfaction and employee alienation arising from repetitive and mechanistic tasks. Through job design, organizations try to raise productivity levels by offering non-monetary rewards such as greater satisfaction from a sense of personal achievement in meeting the increased challenge and responsibility of one's work. Job enlargement, job enrichment, job rotation, and job simplification are the various techniques used in a job design exercise.



    TECHNIQUES OF JOB DESIGN:
    Simplification of Job:

    In job simplification jobs are broken in to very small parts as in assembly line operations and work can be done by same individual repeatedly and it will increase productivity and proficiency of individual. However it produces boredom and monotony in worked.

    Job Enlargement:

    Job enlargement expands job horizontally. It increases job scope; that is, it increases the number of different operations required in a job and the frequency with which the job cycle is repeated. By increasing the number of tasks an individual performs, job enlargement, increases the job scope, or job diversity. Instead of only sorting the incoming mail by department, for instance, a mail sorter’s job could be enlarged to include physically delivering the mail to the various departments or running outgoing letters through the postage meter. Job enlargement decreases some boredom but it is not enough to motivate as nature of work remain same.

    Job Rotation:

    Job rotation is the systematic and planned rotation of individuals in pre-determined jobs (other than their own) so they can gain additional knowledge or skills. It is done quite a bit for developing managers (because they need to be familiar with operations overall) and also used with others who want to advance to a new role or become more knowledgeable in their current job role.

    Some of the major benefits of job rotation are:

    It provides the employees with opportunities to broaden the horizon of knowledge, skills, and abilities by working in different departments, business units, functions, and countries

    Identification of Knowledge, skills, and attitudes required

    It determines the areas where improvement is required

    Assessment of the employees who have the potential and caliber for filling the position

    Job Enrichment:

    Job enrichment is an approach to job design. The focus is to increase the depth of the job (by the amount of discretion and responsibility the job holder has). It is different from job enlargement (which focuses on increasing the number of tasks a job holder is responsible for performing (more work /tasks to do!)
    In job enrichment, additional tasks are not the focus for the goal, but an increase in tasks could be a result of giving the job holder more authority, discretion, and responsibility for decision making in their current role. It is the most effectively motivating tool used by the organizations which enhances the decision making skills of the managers and helps in their overall development

    ReplyDelete
  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The objectives of job design

    There are clearly many alternative designs for any given job. For this reason, an understanding of what the job design is supposed to achieve is particularly important. As before, the five performance objectives give us a guide to what is relevant in job design decisions.
    1. Quality

    The ability of staff to produce high-quality products and services can be affected by job design. This includes avoiding errors in the short term, but also includes designing jobs which encourage staff to improve the job itself in such a way as to make errors less likely.
    2. Speed

    Sometimes speed of response is the dominant objective to be achieved in job design. For example, the way in which the jobs of emergency service personnel are organised (the range of tasks for which they are trained, the sequence of activities in their approved procedures, the autonomy which they have to decide on appropriate action, and so on) will go a long way to determine their ability to respond promptly to emergencies and perhaps save lives.
    3. Dependability

    Dependable supply of goods and services is usually influenced, in some way, by job design. For example, in the postal services’ working arrangements, multi-skilling, accurate use of sorting equipment through good staff-machine interface design, and the ‘design’ of postal staff’s clothing, can all aid dependable delivery of letters and parcels.
    4. Flexibility

    Job design can affect the ability of the operation to change the nature of its activities. New product or service flexibility, mix flexibility, volume flexibility and delivery flexibility are all dependent to some extent on job design. (See Chapter 2 for a full description of these different types of flexibility). For example, staff who have been trained in several tasks (multi-skilling) may find it easier to cope with a wide variety of models and new product or service introductions.
    5. Cost

    All the elements of job design described above will have an effect on the productivity, and therefore the cost, of the job. Productivity in this context means the ratio of output to labour input: for example, the number of customers served per hour or the number of products made per worker.

    In addition, job design will influence two other particularly important objectives.
    6. Health and safety

    Whatever else a job design achieves, it must not endanger the well-being of the person who does the job, other staff of the operation, the customers who might be present in the operation, or those who use any products made by the operation.
    7. Quality of working life

    The design of any job should take into account its effect on job security, intrinsic interest, variety, opportunities for development, stress level and attitude of the person performing the job.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Job design is the systematic and purposeful allocation of tasks to individuals and groups within an organization.
    Approaches to job design are:
    - job specialization
    -job rotation
    -job enlargement
    -job enrichment
    -job empowerment
    -job characteristics
    -task identity
    -autonomy
    -skill variety
    -task significance
    -job feedback
    -work team

    ReplyDelete
  19. Job design is the systematic and purposeful allocation of tasks to individuals and groups within an organization.
    Approaches to job design are:
    - job specialization
    -job rotation
    -job enlargement
    -job enrichment
    -job empowerment
    -job characteristics
    -task identity
    -autonomy
    -skill variety
    -task significance
    -job feedback
    -work team

    ReplyDelete