Job Design Approaches

Why This Matters

Job design sits at the intersection of organizational strategy and individual motivation—and that's exactly why it shows up repeatedly on exams. You're being tested on your ability to connect how work is structured to outcomes like productivity, satisfaction, turnover, and innovation. The approaches covered here aren't just HR buzzwords; they represent fundamentally different philosophies about what makes employees effective and engaged.

Understanding these approaches means grasping the underlying mechanisms: motivational theory, systems thinking, human factors, and flexibility frameworks. When you encounter a case study or FRQ, you'll need to diagnose which approach fits a given scenario and explain why it works. Don't just memorize definitions—know what problem each approach solves and when you'd recommend one over another.

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Motivation-Centered Approaches

These approaches draw directly from motivational psychology, focusing on how job structure affects employees' internal drive to perform. The core principle: meaningful, varied, autonomous work creates intrinsic motivation that outperforms external rewards alone.

Job Enrichment

• Adds meaningful tasks and greater autonomy—not just more work, but work with increased decision-making authority and personal accountability
• Rooted in Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory, which distinguishes between hygiene factors (prevent dissatisfaction) and motivators (create satisfaction)
• Vertical loading is the key mechanism—employees gain responsibilities typically held by supervisors, fostering growth and ownership

Job Characteristics Model

• Five core dimensions drive motivation: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback—memorize these
• Produces three psychological states—experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility, and knowledge of results—that mediate performance outcomes
• Individual differences matter: employees with high growth need strength respond more positively to enriched jobs than those who prefer routine

Job Crafting

• Employee-initiated redesign of tasks, relationships, or cognitive framing—distinct from top-down approaches
• Three crafting types: task crafting (changing scope), relational crafting (altering interactions), and cognitive crafting (reframing meaning)
• Particularly relevant for knowledge workers who have discretion over how they perform their roles

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Variety and Skill Development Approaches

These approaches combat monotony and build organizational capability by expanding what employees do. The mechanism here is horizontal expansion—broadening scope without necessarily adding authority.

Job Rotation

• Systematic movement between roles reduces boredom and prevents repetitive strain in physical jobs
• Cross-training benefit: creates workforce flexibility and reduces vulnerability when key employees leave
• Knowledge transfer accelerates as employees carry insights between departments, breaking down silos

Job Enlargement

• Horizontal loading—adding tasks at the same skill and responsibility level, not vertical enrichment
• Addresses task monotony but doesn't necessarily increase motivation if new tasks feel equally routine
• Often confused with enrichment on exams—remember: enlargement = more tasks, enrichment = more meaningful tasks with autonomy

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Systems-Level Approaches

These approaches zoom out from individual jobs to consider how work fits within broader organizational and technical contexts. The principle: optimizing individual tasks without considering the whole system often creates new problems elsewhere.

Sociotechnical Systems Approach

• Joint optimization of social systems (people, relationships, culture) and technical systems (tools, processes, technology)
• Emerged from Tavistock Institute research on coal mining—showed that new technology failed when it disrupted established social structures
• Self-managing work groups are a common application, giving teams control over how they integrate human and technical elements

Team-Based Job Design

• Organizes work around collective output rather than individual task completion
• Shared accountability distributes responsibility, which can increase innovation but may create social loafing risks
• Cross-functional teams leverage diverse expertise for complex problems requiring multiple perspectives

Lean Job Design

• Eliminates waste (muda) through continuous process improvement and value stream analysis
• Employee involvement is essential—frontline workers identify inefficiencies that managers often miss
• Standardization paradox: creates efficiency but can reduce autonomy if implemented rigidly

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Flexibility and Well-Being Approaches

These approaches prioritize employee health, work-life integration, and adaptability. The underlying logic: sustainable performance requires designing jobs that accommodate human limitations and diverse life circumstances.

Flexible Work Arrangements

• Includes remote work, flextime, compressed workweeks, and job sharing—know specific examples
• Psychological contract shift: signals trust and treats employees as adults capable of managing their own schedules
• Retention impact is significant—flexibility often ranks above compensation in employee preference surveys

Ergonomic Job Design

• Applies human factors principles to fit jobs to workers' physical and cognitive capabilities
• Reduces musculoskeletal disorders, fatigue, and errors—particularly critical in manufacturing, healthcare, and office environments
• Cognitive ergonomics addresses mental workload, attention demands, and decision-making—increasingly important in knowledge work

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. Which two approaches both add variety to work but differ in whether the employee stays in one role? What's the key distinction between them?

2. A company implements new automation but sees productivity drop because employees resist the changes. Which job design approach best explains what went wrong, and what principle was violated?

3. Compare and contrast job enrichment and job enlargement. Why might enlargement fail to improve motivation even when it reduces monotony?

4. An employee begins mentoring junior colleagues and reframes her administrative tasks as "supporting the team's success" even though her formal job description hasn't changed. Which approach describes her behavior, and what are its three components?

5. If an FRQ presents a scenario where a tech company wants to reduce turnover among software developers who complain about rigid schedules and lack of autonomy, which two approaches would you recommend and why?