What is Job Enrichment?

According to Robert N.Ford, Job enrichment means to make jobs which:-

Have a greater variety. Requires higher level of knowledge and skills. Give workers more autonomy. Give workers more responsibility. Give workers opportunities for personal growth, and A meaningful work experience.

Job enrichment is an attempt to motivate employees by giving them the opportunity to use the range of their abilities. It is an idea that was developed by the American psychologist Frederick Herzberg in the 1950s. It can be contrasted to job enlargement which simply increases the number of tasks without changing the challenge. As such job enrichment has been described as 'vertical loading' of a job, while job enlargement is 'horizontal loading'. An enriched job should ideally contain:

A range of tasks and challenges of varying difficulties (Physical or Mental)

A complete unit of work - a meaningful task

Feedback, encouragement and communication

Job enrichment, as a managerial activity includes a three steps technique:

1. Turn employees' effort into performance:

Ensuring that objectives are well-defined and understood by everyone. The overall corporate mission statement should be communicated to all. Individual's goals should also be clear. Each employee should know exactly how he/she fits into the overall process and be aware of how important their contributions are to the organization and its customers.

Providing adequate resources for each employee to perform well. This includes support functions like information technology, communication technology, and personnel training and development.

Creating a supportive corporate culture. This includes peer support networks, supportive management, and removing elements that foster mistrust and politicking.

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Free flow of information. Eliminate secrecy. Provide enough freedom to facilitate job excellence. Encourage and reward employee

initiative. Flextime or compressed hours could be offered. Provide adequate recognition, appreciation, and other motivators. Provide skill improvement opportunities. This could include paid education at

universities or on the job training. Provide job variety. This can be done by job rotation programmes. It may be necessary to re-engineer the job process. This could involve redesigning the

physical facility, redesign processes, change technologies, simplification of procedures, elimination of repetitiveness, redesigning authority structures.

2. Link employees performance directly to reward:

Clear definition of the reward is a must Explanation of the link between performance and reward is important Make sure the employee gets the right reward if performs well If reward is not given, explanation is needed

3. Make sure the employee wants the reward. How to find out?

Ask them Use surveys( checklist, listing, questions).

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Methods of Job Enrichment:Job enrichment is the process of enhancing job satisfaction and fulfillment by reforming the roles and duties that an employee carries out on a day to day basis. Too many employees are trapped in unrewarding and monotonous jobs that offer little or no professional satisfaction. It is particularly common among primary and secondary occupations that involve the repetition of tasks and little or no responsibility. The absence of job fulfillment and consequently enrichment, can often lead to anxiety and unhappiness among the workforce which ultimately affects employee performance. There are a number of helpful ways that can contribute to job enrichment among the workforce that will ultimately boost your output however it is important to consider the following:

Existing working conditions for staff Procedures for employee appraisal What is already expected of the each staff member The role played by management and supervisory staff

1) Job Design

There are five features of job design that are linked to employment enrichment among staff and if applied successfully, will contribute to their overall happiness and personal development:

Skill Variety Task Identity Task Significance Independence and self-sufficiency Feedback

Skill variety supports the increase of skills and expertise staff should employ during their work. Task identity involves allowing an employee to undertake a particular task and performing it from start to finish. This will give them a sense of achievement and enable them to identify the duty as exclusively theirs. Task significance refers to a particular duty that will have a direct impact on the business. Independence and self sufficiency involve increasing the amount of decision making bestowed upon an employee whereas feedback appreciates the importance of recognition following a job well done.

In essence, enhancing job design will increase job satisfaction and fulfillment to create a contented and more productive workforce.

2) Alternate Job:

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By enabling employees to rotate tasks throughout the business gives them a greater awareness of the functions of the company. It will allow them to see different parts of the company as well as diversifying their original duties. This strategy works particularly well for jobs that involve the repetition of one of two skills.

3) Encourage Teamwork: Managers and supervisory staff who initiate teamwork are systematically improving the job satisfaction of their employees. By appointing the final goal, all internal decision-making and influence now rests in the hands of the team. This method is especially good for businesses with a large hierarchy as it reduces the pressure placed on management and allows staff to acquire management skills without formal training.

4) Combine Tasks: Following on from job rotation which offers a greater degree of skill variety, the merging of differing work activities improves task identity. Task identity enables an employee to witness the complete evolution of a product, from start to finish. The same principles are espoused in the process of joining tasks. It must be remembered however, that the implementation of this strategy may forfeit an increased level of productivity. Employees who are unfamiliar with the new task may work at a slower pace at the beginning.

5) Delegation of power and responsibility: An employee's feeling of job enrichment can also come from the attainment of responsibility through supervisor delegation. Placing an employee in charge of various tasks and affording them accountability of certain responsibilities can improve job satisfaction and fulfillment. It is crucial that the employee is made aware that such power comes with responsibility.

6) Employee feedback: Employee feedback is potentially one of the most important aspects of employee satisfaction. It is important that you deliver feedback on both good and poor employee performances. A personal approach is always more appreciated than a bureaucratic one. Employees are more likely to heed the advice from their manager whom they know and respect as opposed to a supervisor from another department who was asked to carry out the evaluation.

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Advantages of Job Enrichment:The importance or merits or advantages of job enrichment are:-

Job enrichment is useful to both the workers and the organization. The worker gets achievement, recognition and self-actualization. The worker gets a sense of belonging to the organization. The worker finds the job meaningful. Job enrichment reduces absenteeism, labour-turnover and grievances. It motivates the workers to give best performance.

Advantage: Learn New Skills

When an employee's level of responsibility increases, and she gets the opportunity to try new tasks, it's inevitable that she will learn new skills. An employee who is responsible for deciding which internal products to advertise in the company's email newsletter, might also come up with advertising tests for their products, testing pricing and placement, in a job enrichment situation.

Advantage: Reduce Boredom

Employees get bored with the mundane day-to-day tasks they have to complete. Job enrichment adds variety to employees' duties, which can reduce their workplace boredom. Along with reducing boredom, job enrichment challenges employees to stretch their skills beyond what they're used to doing at the company.

Advantage: Receive Recognition

Job enrichment gives you a chance to test and see your employees' strengths and weaknesses. An employee who excels with a great depth of task may gain recognition, which can lead to company awards and incentives, or even a promotion within the company.

Advantage: Employee Motivation

When employees feel like they're trusted with greater responsibilities at a company, their level of motivation increases. As a result, employees may be more productive, better adhere to the company rules and management better, and miss less work.

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Disadvantages of Job Enrichment:Proponents of job enrichment activities say they increase employees' job satisfaction through improving the workplace and the quality of the business product or service. Dangers of job enrichment include granting the employee too much autonomy in the workplace, greater control over his peers and unnecessary access to sensitive company information.

Disadvantage: Lack of Training

When employees are given a greater depth of tasks through job enrichment, they may not be skilled or experienced in the new tasks they're asked to perform. The lack of training may be a disadvantage for employees and employers, and lead to problems such as lower productivity.

Disadvantage: Increase Workload

A primary disadvantage of job enrichment is an increase in an employee's workload. While some employees may be able to immediately re-prioritize their time and tasks, some may initially experience difficulties getting adjusted with their new responsibilities. The increase in work can cause employees to get frustrated, burned out and lower their overall productivity.

Disadvantages: Conflict With Non-Participants

Every employee at your business may not be eligible to participate in job enrichment. Those individuals who want more responsibility, but haven't shown that they can handle it, may become disgruntled, bitter toward management and the employees who are a part of the job enrichment process.

Disadvantage: Poor Performance

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Some employees excel in job enrichment, while others perform poorly, due to lack of training, lack of interest or lack of clarity about their new tasks. Poor performance can cause employees to feel a sense of incompetence or as if they've you beaten down. Poor performance can also cause employees to get stripped of their new responsibilities, which can cause embarrassment.

Job enrichment is based on the assumptions that workers have complete knowledge to take decisions and they have the right attitude. In reality this might not be the case due to which there can be problems in working. Job enrichment has negative implications ie. Along with usual work decision making work is also given to the employees and not many may be comfortable with this. Superiors may feel that power is being taken away from them and given to the junior’s. This might lead to ego problemsThis method will only work in certain situations. Some jobs already give a lot of freedom and responsibility; this method will not work for such jobs.. Some people are internally dissatisfied with the organization. For such people no amount of job enrichment can solve the problem.

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Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model :

The basis for job enrichment practices is the work done by Frederick Herzberg in the 1950's and 60's, which was further refined in 1975 by Hackman and Oldham using what they called the Job Characteristics Model. This model assumes that if five core job characteristics are present, three psychological states critical to motivation are produced, resulting in positive outcomes (Kotila, 2001).

The job characteristics model, designed by Hackman and Oldham, is based on the idea that the task itself is key to employee motivation. Specifically, a boring and monotonous job stifles motivation to perform well, whereas a challenging job enhances motivation. Variety, autonomy and decision authority are three ways of adding challenge to a job. Job enrichment and job rotation are the two ways of adding variety and challenge.

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It states that there are five core job characteristics (skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback) which impact three critical psychological states (experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility for outcomes, and knowledge of the actual results), in turn influencing work outcomes (job satisfaction, absenteeism, work motivation, etc.). The five core job characteristics can be combined to form a motivating potential score (MPS) for a job, which can be used as an index of how likely a job is to affect an employee's attitudes and behaviors.

Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics theory proposes that high motivation is related to experiencing three psychological states whilst working:

Meaningfulness of workThat labour has meaning to you, something that you can relate to, and does not occur just as a set of movements to be repeated. This is fundamental to intrinsic motivation, i.e. that work is motivating in an of itself (as opposed to motivating only as a means to an end).

ResponsibilityThat you have been given the opportunity to be a success or failure at your job because sufficient freedom of action has given you. This would include the ability to make changes and incorporate the learning you gain whilst doing the job.

Knowledge of outcomesThis is important for two reasons. Firstly to provide the person knowledge on how successful their work has been, which in turn enables them to learn from mistakes. The second is to connect them emotionally to the customer of their outputs, thus giving further purpose to the work (e.g. I may only work on a production line, but I know that the food rations I produce are used to help people in disaster areas, saving many lives).

In turn, each of these critical states are derived from certain characteristics of the job:

Meaningfulness of workThe work must be experienced as meaningful (his/her contribution significantly affects the overall effectiveness of the organization). This is derived from:

Skill varietyUsing an appropriate variety of your skills and talents: too many might be overwhelming, too few, boring.

Task IdentityBeing able to identify with the work at hand as more whole and complete, and hence enabling more pride to be taken in the outcome of that work (e.g. if you just add one nut to one bolt in the same spot every time a washing machine goes past it is much less

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motivating than being the person responsible for the drum attachment and associated work area (even as part of a group).

Task SignificanceBeing able to identify the task as contributing to something wider, to society or a group over and beyond the self. For example, the theory suggests that I will be more motivated if I am contributing to the whole firm’s bonus this year, looking after someone or making something that will benefit someone else. Conversely I will be less motivated if I am only making a faceless owner wealthier, or am making some pointless item (e.g. corporate give-away gifts).

ResponsibilityResponsibility is derived from autonomy, as in the job provides substantial freedom, independence and discretion to the individual in scheduling the work and in determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out)

Knowledge of outcomesThis comes from feedback. It implies an employee awareness of how effective he/she is converting his/her effort into performance. This can be anything from production figures through to customer satisfaction scores. The point is that the feedback offers information that once you know, you can use to do things differently if you wish. Feedback can come from other people or the job itself.

Knowing these critical job characteristics, the theory goes, it is then possible to derive the key components of the design of a job and redesign it:

Varying work to enable skill variety Assigning work to groups to increase the wholeness of the product produced and give a group to enhance significance Delegate tasks to their lowest possible level to create autonomy and hence responsibility Connect people to the outcomes of their work and the customers that receive them so as to provide feedback for learning

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Herzbergs Job Enrichment Theory:According to Herzberg, an enriched job has eight characteristics. These features are described as follows and illustrated.

1.Direct feedback: Employees should be able to get immediate knowledge of the results they are achieving. The evaluation of performance can be built into a job (as in an electronic spell-checker, indicating the presence or absence of errors) or provided by supervisor.

2.Clint Relationship: An employee who serves a client or a customer directly has an enriched job. The client can be from outside the firm (such as a mechanic dealing with car owner) or from inside (such as a computer operator running a job for another department).

3.New learning: An enriched job allows its incumbent to feel that he\she is growing mentally. An assistant who clips relevant newspaper articles for his\her boss is, doing an enriched job.

4.Scheduling Own Work: Freedom to schedule one’s own work contributes to enrichment. Deciding when to tackle which assignment is an example of self-scheduling. Employees who perform creative work have a greater opportunity to schedule their assignments than employees performing routine jobs.

5.Unique Experience: An enriched job has some unique qualities or features, such as a quality controller visiting supplier’s place.

6.Control Over Resources: One approach to job enrichment is for each employee to have control over his\her resources and expenses. For example, he\she must have the authority to order supplies necessary for completing his\her job.

7.Direct Communication Authority: An enriched job allows the worker to communicate directly with people who use his\her output, such as a quality assurance handling a customer’s complaints about the quality of the company product.

8.Personal Accountability: An enriched job holds the incumbent responsible for the results. He or she receives praise for good work and blame for poor work.

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Difference between Job Enrichment and Job Enlargement:

The difference between job enrichment and job enlargement is quality and quantity. Job enrichment means improvement, or an increase with the help of upgrading and development, whereas job enlargement means to add more duties, and an increased workload. By job enrichment, an employee finds satisfaction in respect to their position and personal growth potential, whereas job enlargement refers to having additional duties and responsibilities in a current job description.

Job enlargement is a vehicle employers use to put additional workload on employees, perhaps in economical downtime. Due to downsizing, an employee might feel lucky to have a job at all, despite the fact that his duties and responsibilities have increased. Another approach is that by adding more variety and enlarging the responsibilities will provide the chance of enhancement and more productivity. Job enrichment involves organizing and planning in order to gain more control over their duties and work as a manager. The execution of plans and evaluation of results motivates workers and relieves boredom. Job enlargement and job enrichment are both useful for motivating workers to perform their tasks enthusiastically.

Although job enlargement and enrichment have a relationship with each other, they also possess some distinct features that differentiate them, such as area of expansion, mutual reliance, allocation of duties and responsibilities, motivation and profundity. Job enrichment is largely dependent on job enlargement, whereas job enlargement has no such dependency. Job enlargement expands horizontally when compared to job enrichment, which expands vertically. Vertical growth of job or augmentation is helpful to obtain managerial rights.

In spite of mutual dependency, managerial duties are sanctioned, as in the case of enhancement. The employee focuses more on job depth, which does not happen in job enlargement. Job enrichment has a greater motivational impact than job enlargement.

The job enlargement theory involving horizontal expansion to increase job satisfaction and productivity is relatively simple, and applied in numerous situations. Job enrichment, when compared to job enlargement, not only includes more duties and responsibilities, but also gives the right of decision making and control.

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Job Enrichment Examples:Miranda Brookins from Harvard Business School has provided a few examples for Job Enrichment:

Taking on Bigger Tasks

If you own a newsletter publishing company, for instance, you can enrich your assistant editors' jobs by giving an opportunity to move from editing 500-word articles to editing 1,200-word features. While they are already accustomed to your company's editing practices and standards, the responsibility of editing articles that are more significant can increase the depth of their positions.

Leading the Charge

As a small business owner, you likely take the lead in planning, organizing and facilitating marketing brainstorming meetings at your company. Rather than handling all of the details for your next marketing brainstorming meeting, allow your marketing assistant to take the lead. This task can teach your marketing assistant essential skills in planning and leadership.

A Trusted Role

Job enrichment can include letting employees approve checks for vendors for amounts higher than they have in the past. If you typically ask your company's accounts payable specialist to let you see and sign off on all outgoing checks over the amount of $1,000, you can change the amount to $2,000, giving the accounts payable specialist a higher level of authority.

Training for Growth

If you're considering promoting your current assistant manager into a management position, start with a job rotation. Let the assistant manager experience what it's like to be a manager and how the managers' responsibilities differ from the manager. You'll be able to see how he copes under pressure, and what areas may require more training.

Flexing Their Sales Muscle

Copywriters write the words that help sell the features and benefits of your products to customer, but they rarely come into contact with the customers they're trying to attract. Sales representatives, on the other hand, work directly with clients and have an understanding of their buying behavior. By rotating your copywriter into a sales position, you can give the

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copywriter a chance to hear first-hand the language customers use when talking about your products or services, objections they have and their core needs and wants. This experience can help copywriters get a better idea of what to say in the marketing communications they write.

Learning New Skills

Graphic designers work at publishing companies, advertising agencies and for design firms. Their primary responsibilities include creating well-designed marketing materials that attract customer's attention. They may create everything from logos and store signage to brochures and web banner advertisements. Since graphic designers work closely with print buyers, you can have the graphic designer move into a printing position, as a job rotation. The graphic designer can find out what design files looks like when they arrive to print buyers, how that ensure that marketing materials are printing in the right colors and on the correct types of paper and how designs can sometimes print incorrectly, if the file formats are wrong.

Job enrichment can only be truly successful if planning includes support for all phases of the initiative. Ohio State University Extension began a job enrichment program in 1992 and surveyed the participants five years later. The results, broken down into 3 sub-buckets of data beyond the main grouping of advantages/disadvantages as shown in Table 1, indicate the University had not fully considered the planning and administrative aspects of the program (Fourman and Jones, 1997). While the benefits are seemingly obvious, programs fail not because of a lack of benefits, but rather due to implementation problems. These problems can include a perception of too great a cost, lack of long-term commitment of resources, and potential job classification changes (Cunningham and Eberle, 1990).

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In order for a job enrichment program to produce positive results, worker needs and organizational needs must be analyzed and acted upon. According to Cunningham and Eberle (1990), before an enrichment program is begun, the following questions should be asked:

Do employees need jobs that involve responsibility, variety, feedback, challenge, accountability, significance, and opportunities to learn?

What techniques can be implemented without changing the job classification plan?

What techniques would require changes in the job classification plan?

When asked about the successes of a Training Generalist job enrichment program begun in 2002, Karen Keenan, Learning Manager with Bank of America, stated the accomplishments were, "greater than expected". The Training Generalist program has resulted in three successful participants to date. According to Ms. Keenan, positive results can be directly tied to a program that addressed the strategic goal of greater resource flexibility without adding to staff, as well as to proper planning, guidance, and feedback for the participants. Having a voluntary program contributed as well, attracting a high caliber of individuals eager to expand their skills and be positioned for advancement. To date, all three Training Generalists have experienced promotions and additional recognition while affording Ms. Keenan's team financial results and workload flexibility it could not have otherwise achieved.

A job enrichment program can be a very effective intervention in some situations where a Performance Technician is faced with a request for motivational training. Ralph Brown (2004) summed it up very nicely:

“Job enrichment doesn't work for everyone. Some people are very resistant to more responsibility or to opportunities for personal growth, but…researchers report that some people they expected to resist, seized the opportunity. Enriching jobs is a particularly effective way to develop employees provided the jobs are truly enriched, not just more work for them to do.”

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A Job Enrichment Case Study :Volvo’s HR Practices

Introduction of the Case:

The case discusses the efforts made by the Swedish automobile major - Volvo AB towards improving the work conditions at its facilities through job enrichment programs. In its efforts to reduce the instances of employee turnover and absenteeism in its manufacturing facilities, Volvo introduced innovative job enrichment programs including job rotation, management employee councils, small work groups, change implementation and employee oriented facilities. These programs helped the company to understand the importance of designing its facilities according to the work design and employees' requirements.

Volvo was one of the first automobile companies to deviate from the traditional assembly line system and adopt a more employee-centric approach for manufacturing automobiles.

Introduction to the Problem:

In May 1993, the Swedish automobile major, Volvo AB (Volvo) announced the closure of its car manufacturing facility at Uddevalla, Sweden, barely five years since its launch in 1989. A year later, the company had to shutdown yet another world famous facility, the car assembly plant at Kalmar, also in Sweden.

Reacting to the two closures within a year's gap, analysts said Volvo's human centric approach towards automobile manufacturing was no longer feasible in the fiercely competitive scenario of the 1990s, with most companies striving hard to improve production efficiency. Volvo was well recognized in the industry for its employee-friendly policies ever since its inception

Guided by the 'Volvo Way,' the company had made conscious efforts to implement job enrichment concepts such as job rotation, job enlargement and employee work groups in its manufacturing facilities (Refer Exhibit I for the Volvo Way). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the company faced the problem of increasing employee turnover and absenteeism, it introduced these concepts and obtained positive results.

Volvo was inspired to build a new facility keeping this work design as a basis. This reiterated the company's belief that industry needed to adapt itself to the people's requirements and not vice-versa. This concept was implemented successfully in other plants of the company too in the 1970s. The best practices in Human Relations (HR) tried and tested in these plants were passed on to new plants established in the 1980s. While investing heavily in developing new

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plants like Kalmar and Uddevalla, where new work design concepts were implemented, Volvo was conscious of the risks involved and the possible effect on the company's financial performance if the experiments failed.

Acknowledging this, Gyllenhammar, in Harvard Business Review wrote, "Volvo's Kalmar plant, for example, is designed for a specific purpose: car assembly in working groups of about 20 people. If it didn't work, it would be a costly and visible failure, in both financial and social terms. We would lose credibility with our people and those who are watching from outside.

Gyllenhammar's apprehensions proved correct when Volvo closed down Kalmar plant in 1994. However, Volvo's efforts in bringing changes in work design offered valuable lessons to both the academic and corporate community.

Analysts appreciated Volvo for its constant emphasis on learning from experiences and implementing the lessons so learnt in its new initiatives. This contributed significantly to the development of human-centric production systems. These systems brought to life several theories and concepts, which had earlier only been enunciated in textbooks but rarely practised with the kind of seriousness with which Volvo did.

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The Job Enrichment Experiments:

The changes in the organization structure facilitated easier implementation of job enrichment concepts. Volvo's efforts involved both employees and the management. The management decided to experiment with five job enrichment measures - job rotation, management-employee councils, small work groups, change implementation and employee-oriented facilities - at its manufacturing facilities.

Job RotationJob rotation involved shifting around of jobs among workers according to a pre-determined plan. Each employee within a group was offered a job, which was different both physically and psychologically from his/her previous job.

Volvo introduced three new HR programs in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These were Match Project, Full Rulle (Full Speed Ahead) and Dialog. The first was introduced in 1983. It aimed at achieving five HR objectives, which were:

• Training new recruits intensively. • Disseminating organizational objectives to all employees in the company.• Framing rules and regulations for employees to establish discipline

The Uddevalla Plant:

Uddevalla offered the best work environment for employees. Developing staff competence was deemed vital by Volvo to build quality cars as well as to achieve the organizational objectives of improving productivity, flexibility and efficiency. Also, operations had to be scaled up as Kalmar could accommodate only 600 employees, which was not sufficient. Employee representatives were involved in the plant's planning group, which had a team of researchers with diverse backgrounds ranging from engineering to psychology

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ConclusionEmployees in todays scenario have to endure stress, long-working hours, intense competition to survive in the corporate world.Therefore,it is pivotal for an Organization to take care of their well-being in order to maintain a sustained level of performance.There are several employees who are in mundane jobs and facing repetitive work routines. An Organization has to recognize that employees are a potential competitive advantage and therefore must use Job Enrichment techniques for continuously improving individual and cumulative performance.Job Enrichment also helps to increase the individual potential of an Employee. They can become more self-confident, dedicated and motivated. It also helps discover creative new ways to do the same jobs..It also helps get valuable inputs on the job from the employee who has a better understanding of the ground reality of implementing the job. In today’s world, where most of the top companies employ thousands of employees a very efficient H.R.Policy is required for availing the true potential of the organization.Job enrichment also helps Employers ascertain the individual potential of each employee and therefore can assist them in delegating responsibility. They can be more understanding of the employees performance.

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Bibliography:

Books Referred:

Job Enrichment: An Action Guide by Susan E.WalimaNew Perspectives in Job Enrichment by John R.MaherJob Enrichment Pays Off – Harvard Business Review

Websites:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Job-Enrichment&id=3768876 http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Human%20Resource%20and%20Organization

%20Behavior/Volvo%20HR%20Practices-Job%20Enrichment-Human%20Resource%20Management-Case%20Study.htm

www.hrpractices.com

www.wikipedia.com/jobenrichment

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