Job design refers to an articulate process of arranging work in an organization; that is, crafting job content, methods of execution as well as the relationship between and among different jobs in order to meet organizational requirements. It is a process that directly impacts on how well organizational goals and objectives are executed – job design should therefore be informed by organizational strategy.It is important to design jobs that are challenging, meaningful but more importantly jobs that enable an organization to achieve its goals and objectives.
The primary purpose of job design is to improve throughput as well as quality of outputs. Every organization has got inputs that are transformed through various processes into outputs. Job design focuses on the effectiveness and efficiency of the transformation process in order to produce high quality outputs. There are different factors and approaches used in job design. However according to the Job Characteristics Model, effective job design should be able to satisfy the following:
- Task Significance: this refers to the degree to which a job has an impact on the organization. Tasks and activities should be combined in such a way that the job achieves the greatest impact in the organization.
- Task Identity: Jobs should be distinct in order to achieve accountability. Task identity refers to the extent to which a job can be completed as a whole, from start to finish and the extent to which outcomes can be predicted with visible outcomes that are entirely attributable to the job.
- Task Autonomy: This refers to the extent to which individual job holders are given freedom and discretion in executing tasks. Jobs that have a high degree of autonomy have the highest motivation to achieve.
- Skill Variety: This dimension refers to the extent to which individual job holders employ different skills and talents in executing different tasks in the fulfillment of job requirements. Jobs that demand a variety of skills are more fulfilling than routine jobs requiring a single skills set.
- Job Feedback: This dimension refers to the howjob holdersare given feedback about how well they are executing their jobs in the organization. This enables the employee to fully understand their impact in the organization.
The Job Characteristics Model enables organizations to design jobs that have the highest impact to the business, jobs that are meaningful and satisfying to the employee as well as jobs that are adaptable to the changing organizational context.
Organizations invest a lot into crafting strategic plans. A strategic plan is only valuable when it is implementable and when it actually produces results.Our experience however has shown that not many organizations invest an equal measure of effort into aligning the organizational subsystems to the strategic imperatives. This has resulted in “the big disconnect” between strategic plans and their execution, that is, a new strategic direction with the wrong delivery mechanism.Whereas organizational strategy represents what needs to be done in terms of objectives, initiatives and targets, jobs represent the delivery mechanisms of the strategy which enable organizations to achieve these pre-determined outcomes. It therefore follows that job design is a precursor to effective strategy implementation. There is need to align individual jobs to the organizational strategic imperatives – ensuring that the processes and outputs of each and every job are aligned to the strategy. It is imperative for the leadership to create a clear line of sight between what people do on a day-to-day in their jobs to the overall strategy of the organization.
In many Zimbabwean organizations there is a general lack of realization by both employers and employees that jobs are in fact live entities. As live entities, jobs feed off the organization’s vision and strategy, without which jobs have no life of their own.Because jobs are created for a purpose, it therefore follows that when the purpose and direction changes, so should the design of jobs – it is mandatory that jobs are adaptable to changing organizational imperatives. Interacting with people at different employment levels in many Zimbabwean organizations, there is a general belief that the job that onesigns for does and should not change irrespective of the changing organizational dynamics. This is a sad reality as it is an indication that most people in organizations do not understand the big picture and how their individual roles fit in.Thishas an immediate impact of reducing organizational effectiveness as there is no alignment between what the leadership is trying to pursue in terms of strategy and what individual job holders are doing in their jobs.
Every new strategy will demand a new set of skills, new behaviours as well as new work arrangements for it to be successfully executed.The arrangement of tasks in different jobs should therefore be informed by organizational vision and strategy. Job design should ideally be evolving and in a state of constant change in response to the changing demands of the organization.It should be done is such a way the tasks are executed in an effective and efficient manner that directly impacts on organizational delivery.To the extent that these jobs are configured to deliver, effective strategy implementation becomes a pipe-dream.
Emmanuel Jinda is the Managing Consultant of PROSERVE Consulting Group, a leading supplier of Professional Human Resources and Management services locally, regionally and internationally. He can be contacted at