Design of Work in HRM

Design of work aims at outlining and organizing job functions, duties and responsibilities into a single unit of work for the achievement of certain objectives. It also outlines the methods and relationships that are essential for the success of a certain job. In simpler terms it refers to the what, how much, how many and the order of the duties for a job role.

Design of work essentially involves integrating job responsibilities or content and certain qualifications that are required to perform the job role. It outlines the job responsibilities very clearly and also helps in attracting the right candidates to the right job. Further it also makes the job look interesting and specialized.

Steps involved in Design of Work

There are various steps involved in design of work that follow a logical sequence as follows:

1. What tasks are required to be done or what tasks is part of the job?
2. How are the tasks performed?
3. What amount are tasks are required to be done?
4. What is the sequence of performing these tasks?

All these questions are aimed at arriving upon a clear definition of a specific job and thereby make it less risky for the one performing the job. A well defined job encourages feeling of achievement among the employees and a sense of high self esteem.

The whole process of job design is aimed to address various problems within the organizational setup. More specifically the following areas are fine tuned:

• Checking the work overload.
• Checking upon the work under load.
• Ensuring tasks are not repetitive in nature.
• Ensuring that employees don not remain isolated.
• Defining working hours clearly.
• Defining the work processes clearly.

Benefits of Good Design of Work

Following are the benefits of a good job design:

Employee Input: A good job design enables a good job feedback. Employees have the option to vary tasks as per their personal and social needs, habits and circumstances in the workplace.

Employee Training: Training is an integral part of job design. Good job design lays due emphasis on training people so that are well aware of what their job demands and how it is to be done.

Work / Rest Schedules: Job design offers good work and rest schedule by clearly defining the number of hours an individual has to spend in employee's job.

Adjustments: A good job designs allows for adjustments for physically demanding jobs by minimizing the energy spent doing the job and by aligning the manpower requirements to perform job functions.

Design of work is a continuous and evolving process that is aimed at helping employees in making adjustments with the changes in the workplace. The final objective of good job design is reducing dissatisfaction, enhancing motivation and employee engagement at the workplace.

References

Juneja, P. (2018) Job Design - Meaning, Steps and its Benefits . Job Design - Meaning, Steps and its Benefits [Online]. available at <https://www.managementstudyguide.com/job-design.htm/. >. [Accessed on 09th June 2018]..