UNIT 3 PRODUCTION and OPERATION MANAGEMENT

JOB DESIGN and Rating

Meaning of Job Design
The term ‘job design’ refers to the way the tasks are combined to form a
complete job. It can be defined as building the specifications of the position,
contents, method and relationships of the job so as to meet with various
technological and organizational requirements as well as meet the personal
needs job holders.
According to Michael Armstrong, “Job Design is the process of deciding on the
contents of a job in terms of its duties and responsibilities, on the methods to be
used in carrying out the job, in terms of techniques, systems and procedures,
and on the relationships that should exist between the job holder and his
superior subordinates and colleagues.”
According to Bowditch and Buono, job design refers to “any set of activities
that involve the alteration of specific jobs or interdependent systems of jobs
with the intent of improving the quality of employee job experience and their
on- the-job productivity.
Performance rating is the step in the work measurement in which
the analyst observes the worker's performance and records a value
representing that performance relative to the analyst's concept of
standard performance.[1]
Purpose of Job Design
1. to meet the organizational requirements such as higher productivity,
operational efficiency, quality of product/service, etc.;
2. to satisfy the needs of the individual employees like interest, challenge,
achievement or accomplishment, etc.; and
3. to integrate the needs of the individual with the organizational
requirements
Factors effecting Job Design
Job design is affected by 3 factors-

1. Organizational Factors:
The organizational factors that affect job design are characteristics of task, work
flow, ergonomics and work practices.
● Characteristic of task: Each task consists of 3 elements, namely, planning,
executing and controlling. Job design involves the assembly of a number of
tasks into a job or a group of jobs. A job may require an employee to perform a
variety of connected task. All these characteristics of jobs are taken into
consideration for job design.
● Workflow: The flow of work in an organization is strongly influenced by the
nature of the product. This product usually suggests the sequence and balance
between jobs if the work is to be completed efficiently.
● Ergonomics: Ergonomics is concerned with the designing and shaping of jobs
as per the physical abilities and characteristics of individuals so that they can
perform their jobs effectively.
● Work Practices: Work practices are the set methods of performing work. This
can affect the job design as there is little flexibility in designing the job
especially if the work practices are approved by employee unions.
2. Environmental Factors: Environmental factors affect job design.
Environmental factors include employee abilities & availability and Social &
Cultural expectations.
● Employee Abilities & Availability: Abilities and availability of people plays
an important role while designing jobs. Due attention needs to be given to the
employee who will actually perform the job.
● Social And Cultural Expectations: Jobs should be designed keeping the
employees in mind. Due to increase in literacy rate and knowledge, employees
are now more aware and only perform jobs that are to their liking and match
their profile.
3. Behavioural Factors:
Behavioural factors are related to human needs and they need to be satisfied
properly. Behavioural elements include the following:
● Feedback: Employee should be given proper feedback about his job
performance. This will enable the employee to improve his performance and
complete the job in a proper manner.
● Autonomy: Employee should be given proper autonomy required to perform
the work. The absence of autonomy may lead to poor performance on the part
of employees.
● Use of Abilities: The job should be designed in such a manner that an
employee will be able to use his abilities fully and perform the job effectively.
22 Human Resources
● Variety: Absence of variety in the job assigned may lead to boredom.
Adequate scope to variety factor should be given while designing a job.

IMPORTANCE OF JOB DESIGN

Job design clarifies the tasks and roles. Thus, it avoids ambiguities in the
performance of jobs.
• Job design removes overlapping in responsibilities. This leads to
rationalisation of tasks. Conflicts among personnel are avoided.
• Job design allows proper placement of employees. Thus, an appropriate job fit
may be achieved.
• It allows operational control over work performance and results.
• Job design allows incorporation of environmental changes in the job.
• It provides flexibility. Thus, employees are prepared to accept changes without
much resistance
. • It inculcates work motivation. Job design allows managers to understand
organisational behaviour. • Proper job design leads to better quality of work life
among employees.
• Job design relieves stress and improves performance and organisational
effectiveness.

METHODS OF JOB DESIGN

1. Job Simplification: In the job simplification technique, the job is
simplified or specialized. A given job is divided into small sub-parts and
each part is assigned to one individual employee. Job simplification is
introduced when job designers feel that the jobs are not specialized
enough.

2. Job Rotation: Job rotation implies systematic movement of employees

from one job to the other. Job remains unchanged but employees
performing them shift from one job to the other. With job rotation, an
 employee is given an opportunity to perform different jobs, which
enriches his skills, experience and ability to perform different jobs. It is
the process of preparing employees at a lower level to replace someone at
the next higher level. It is generally done for the designations that are
crucial for the effective and efficient functioning of the organization. By
this to some extent boredom is reduced. However for this people interest
is primary importance. By this they can also learn new things, new
techniques, and new ways of doing better work. It may also happen that
over a period of time they will be finding a job for which they are better
suitable. They can also contribute in a better way to achieve the goals of
the organization. This aspect of job rotation can be seen widely applied in
Retail scenario, where end user or consumer is in direct presence all
through. This has for large extent reduced boredom, reduced irregularities
due to familiarity, acquired new skills & assuming new & varied
responsibilities. In other words it will lead to better job satisfaction,
which is the ultimate goal for better contribution.

Job design involves periodic assignment of an employee to completely

different sets of job activities. As traditionally used, job rotation is low in
both impact and complexity because it typically moves employees from
one routine job to another.
Advantages:

1. It is an effective way to develop multiple skills in employees, which

benefits the organization while creating greater job interest and career
options for the employee.
2. Job rotation may be of considerable benefit if it is part of a larger
redesign effort and/or it is used as a training and development
approach to develop various employee competencies and prepare
employees for advancement.
3. At times, it may be used to control the problem of repetitive stress
injuries by moving people among jobs that require different physical
movements

3. Job Enlargement: Job enlargement means expanding the scope of the

job. Many tasks and duties are aggregated and assigned to a single job. It
is opposite to job simplification. Job enlargement is an extension of Job
rotation, exposing the people to several jobs without changing the job
duties to be performed. He is taken off the boring job for a while & is
 allowed to take up a related task & so on. Monotony is relieved
temporarily. Critics are of the opinion that this approach involves nothing
more than having to perform several boring jobs rather than one. Job
enlargement is to expand in several tasks than just to do one single task. It
is also the horizontal expansion of a job. It involves the addition of tasks
at the same level of skill and responsibility. It is done to keep workers
from getting bored. This would also be considered multi tasking by which
one person would do several persons jobs, saving the company money
and man hours that normally would be paid to additional workers. Small
companies may not have as many opportunities for promotions, so they
try to motivate employees through job enlargement. For example when I
worked at a restaurant. I would bus the tables, wash the dishes, and run
food upstairs. If they had just one person doing each job on the same
night, it would cost the management three times the money. This adds
more functions; increases variety of tasks & this is short lived. It cannot
enrich the human content of job. The ultimate answer is Job Enrichment.
Job enlargement combines into one job with two or more tasks which are
to be performed. Sometimes it is called “horizontal loading” as all tasks
involve the same level of responsibility. The job enlargement approach
often has positive effects on employee effectiveness. However, some
employees view job enlargement as just adding more routine, repetitive
tasks to their already boring job. Other employees regard it as eliminating
their ability to perform their jobs almost automatically.
Advantages:

Job enlargement and job rotation approaches are useful in many work
settings. One of their biggest advantages is that:

They offer a form of training.

They allow workers to learn more than one task, thus increasing their
value to the employer

As they allow workers to perform many tasks, they can be used more
flexibly as circumstances require

4. Job Enrichment: Job enrichment means making the job rich in its
contents so that an employee will get more satisfaction while performing
that job. It upgrades the responsibility, scope and challenge. A vast
majority of the jobs are repetitive & monotonous in nature. This results in
 reducing the motivational content& human element of the job with
repercussions on performance. The central focus of job 23 Job Analysis
and Job Design enrichment is giving people more control over their work
(lack of control is a key cause of stress, and therefore of unhappiness.)
Where possible, allow them to take on tasks that are typically done by
supervisors. This means that they have more influence over planning,
executing, and evaluating the jobs they do. In enriched jobs, people
complete activities with increased freedom, independence, and
responsibility. They also receive plenty of feedback, so that they can
assess and correct their own performance. Job Enrichment tries to
embellish the job with factors of motivation: Achievement – Recognition
– Increased Responsibilities – Self Involvement – Opportunities for
Growth – Advancement – Increased Competence. Job Enrichment is
concerned with redesigning the job to include a variety of work content;
that gives the person more autonomy & responsibility for planning,
directing & controlling his own performance & provide opportunity for
personal growth & meaningful work experience. Job Enrichment also for
decentralization of decision-making rights to individual over areas that
directly affect his task functions.

Frederick Herzberg, the advocate of two-factor theory, cautioned that

jobs designed according to rules of simplification, enlargement, and
rotation can’t be expected to be highly motivational for the workers. He
instead suggested a clear and distinct job design alternative called “job
enrichment”. Job enrichment seeks to add profundity to a job by giving
workers more control, responsibility, and freedom of choice over how
their job is performed. It occurs when the work itself is more challenging,
when achievement is encouraged, when there is prospect for growth, and
when responsibility, feedback, and recognition are provided. Nonetheless,
employees are the final judges of what enriches their jobs
5. Job Engineering-

Frederick W. Taylor established the basis for modern industrial

engineering late in the nineteenth century. Job engineering focuses on the
tasks to be performed, methods to be used, workflows among employees,
layout of the workplace, performance standards, and interdependencies
between people and machines. Job design factors are to be examined by
means of time-and-motion studies, determining the time required to do
each task and the movements needed to perform it efficiently. A keystone
 of job engineering is specialisation of labour with the goal of achieving
greater efficiency.

Advantages:

It is an imperative job design approach because the resulting cost savings

can be measured immediately and easily
It is concerned with appropriate levels of automation, that is, looking for
ways to replace workers with machines to perform the most physically
demanding and repetitive tasks
The job engineering approach often continues to be successfully used,
especially when it is combined with a concern for the social context in
which the jobs are performed. One expert who advocates the job
engineering approach while involving employees in decisions about their
jobs prescribes the following “golden rules of work design”.

JOB RATING

According to Kimball and Kimball Jr., “Job Evaluation represents

an effort to determine the relative value of every job in a plant and
to determine what the fair basic wage for such a job should be.”

According to Alford and Beatty, “Job Evaluation is the application

of the Job Analysis technique to the qualitative measurement of

relative job worth, for the purpose of establishing consistent wage rate
differentials by objective means. It measures the differences between
jobs on the job requirements, and establishes the differential numerically
(job rating), so that it can be converted to wage rate after
the wage level is determined”

Rating means gauging and comparing the performance or pace rate of a

worker against a standard performance level set by the lime study
analyst. The analyst observes the performance, compares it with other
paces and learns to judge pace level as percent of the standard pace.
Performance Rating = – Observed Performance/Normal Performance x
100

Various rating techniques are as follows:

1. Speed Rating-

1) Speed Rating:
This rating procedure consists of judging the speed of the operator’s
movements in relation to a normal pace and is noted as a factor. Rating
can be applied to different elements of the job and mathematically.

2. (2) Westing-house System of Rating

four factors system performance Rating was developed at Westing

house by C.E. Bedaux. These four factors are:

a. Skills
b. Effort
c. Conditions and
d. Consistency.

The numerical values for each of these factors are available in

tabular form. The operator was watched while working and
given a value from these tables. The observed time is then
levelled by applying the values of four rating factors. Table 19.1
gives the values of these factors.
Skill excellent B1
Effort Excessive A2
Condition Good C

(3) Synthetic Rating:

This system of rating was proposed by Morrow. In this system the pace
rate of an operator is evaluated with the help of predetermined motion
time standards (P.M.T.S.). Thus, the time study observer notes down the
actual time of performance for the elements as done in the previous
method.

Performance times for many such elements are standardised and

tabulated. These are known as ‘Predetermined Motion Time Values’ from
this Table the predetermined performance time for the elements are also
noted down. The ratio of the latter to the former (average actual time)
gives the rating factor. Therefore, symbolically,

4) Objective Rating:
This system of rating was developed by M.E. Mundel. In this operator’s
tempo of doing a job is considered. In addition to this job difficulty or
complexity is also taken into consideration.

First of all the time study observer rates the work on the basis of his
workplace of doing a work. This is called a pace rating. After the pace
rating is done, an allowance is added to the pace rating to take care of the
job difficulty.

The following six factors constitute job difficulty:

(i) Amount of body used

(ii) Foot pedals

(iii) Bimanualness

iv) Eye-hand coordination

(v) Handling requirements, and

(vi) Weight.