HRM and The Design of Work

           HRM & THE DESIGN OF WORK

Work design - a short history 

Work design began with the concept of the division of labor originated by Adam Smith (1776). Much later came 'Taylorism', the scientific management movement pioneered by Taylor (1911), which was based on the belief that the most efficient way to do tasks was to remove the responsibility for how to do the work from the individual employee to engineers or managers. The next step was 'Fordism', the moving assembly line introduced by Henry Ford 1914. Thereafter, the practice of work simplification became embedded in organizations and to a large extent still exists.

More recently, the notion of 'smart working' has emerged. Essentially, this means managing the work environment in order to release employees' energy and drive business performance. Smart working, as described in detail later, has been the subject of extensive research conducted by the CIPD (2008).

WORK DESIGN

Work Design is the creation of systems of work and a working environment that enhance organizational effectiveness and productivity, ensure that the organization becomes 'a great place in which to work' and are conductive to the health, safety and well-bring of employees. Work involves the exertion of  effort and the application of knowledge and skills to achieve a purpose. Systems to work the combined processes, methods and techniques used to get work done. The work environment comprises the design of jobs, working conditions and the ways in which people are treated at work by their managers and co-workers as well as the work system. Work design is closely associated with organization and job design in that the latter is conducted within the context of the system of  work and the work environment. 

                                                             

To understand the meaning of work design it is necessary first to appreciate what is happening to the world of work and next to review its history.

WORK SYSTEM WORKING 

A system is a set of practices or activities that fit together and interact to achieve a purpose. Work system design is concerned with how the various processes required to make a product or provide a service should operate . It deals with the set of related activities that combine to give a result that customers want. The structure of the system describes the relations between different operations. 

A work system may be centred  on activities such  as manufacturing , chemical processing , information processing , supply , distribution , transport , the provision of  public services or customer service. There is usually a choice between different processes within the work system effects costs , quality and productivity it is important to provide the best match between the product or service and the process used to make or deliver it . 

Requirements to be met in work system design

When designing a work  system it is necessary to see that it well.

• Fit work requirement for efficiency and flexibility .
• Ensure the smooth flow of processes or activities , or of  materials  from supplier to customer.
• Facilitate the effective use of resources and the control of waste.
• As far as possible  enable employees to gain fulfilment from their work by providing scope for variety  , challenge and autonomy.
• Encourage cooperative effort through team working.
• provide a good work environment in terms of working conditions
• Take account of the need to provide a healthy and safe system of work ( ' build safety into the system ' ) bearing in mind the need to minimize stress and pay attention to ergonomic considerations in the design of equipment an work stations to  eliminate or at least significantly reduce the risk of such conditions as repetitive strain injury ; 
• Take account of environmental considerations ;
• Operate generally in accordance with the principles of  ' smart working as described below .     

SMART WORKING

As define by the CIPD ( 2006 : 4 ) , smart working is : ' an approach to organizing work that aims to drive greater efficiency and effectiveness in achieving job outcomes through a combination of flexibility , autonomy collaboration , in parallel of optimizing tools and working environments for employees '. The characteristics of smart working as established by the CIPD research were ;

• Self - management - a high degree of autonomy and a philosophy of  empowerment ;
• The use of virtual teams or work groups ;
• Focus on outcome- based indicators of  performance ;
• High - performance working ;
• Flexibility in work locations and hours ;
• Use of more advanced communications technology;
• Hot - desking and working from home ;
• Ways of working that are underpinned by or drive high - trust working relationships ;
• Alignment of smart working with business objectives ;   

typical smart working arrangements identified by the CIPD research include flexible working , high - performance working , 'lean ' production designing jobs in which there is a higher degree of freedom to act , The role of each of  those arrangement in work design is described below.

FLEXIBLE WORKING 

Flexible working is a pattern of working practice or working hours that deviates from the standard or normal arrangement. The aim is o provide for greater operational flexibility , improve the use of employees' skills and capacities , increase productivity an reduce employment costs. Flexible working has become increasingly important as a means of enhancing operational effectiveness.

Flexible working means reconsidering traditional employment patterns . This could include operational flexibility , multiskilling , the use of subcontracting  and outsourcing , or introducing working arrangements such as flexible hours , job sharing and homeworking .

The three forms of operational flexibility are ;

• Functional flexibility - employees can be replayed quickly to new tasks and activities (  eg. multi- skilled craftsman and team - workers )
• Numerical flexibility - enabling the organization quickly to increase and decrease the numbers employed in response to market demand .
• Financial flexibility - pay systems that reinforce the requirement for flexibility (  eg, performance- related pay , pay - for - skills ).             

HIGH PERFORMANCE WORKING

High performance working was defined by Combs et al  ( 2006 ) as the sum of the processes, practice and policies put in place by employer to enable employees to perform to their full potential . They  referred to employee participation and flexible working arrangements as examples of such systems that have a direct impact on ways of working and therefore flow through to job design.

Sung and Ashton (2005) defined high-performance work practices as a set or 'bundle' of 35 complementary work practices covering three broad areas:

• High employee involvement work practice - eg , self - directed teams ,  quality circles and sharing / access to company information.
• Human resource practices - eg, sophisticated recruitment processes, performance appraisals, mentoring and work redesign.
• Reward and commitment practices - eg, various financial rewards, family- friendly policies, job rotation  and flexible hours.

JOB DESIGN ;

Job Design specifies the contents of jobs in order to satisfy work requirements and meet the personal needs of the job holder , thus increasing levels of employee engagement . As observed by Wall and Clegg ( 1998 : 265 ) ;

Jobs are created by people for people . Whether deliberately or by default , choices are made about which tasks to group together to form a job  , the extent to which job holders should follow prescribed procedures in completing those tasks , how closely the job incumbent will be supervised , and numerous other aspect of the work. Such choices are the essence of job design .  

There are factors affecting job design ;

• The characteristics of job
• The characteristics of task structure
• The process of intrinsic motivation
• The job characteristics model
•  The implications of group activities 

And also Job range , Job depth , Job relationships are three fundamental characteristics shared by all jobs.                                        

New forms of employment (Henderson, 2017)

• Employee sharing, where an individual worker is jointly hired by a group of employers.
• Interim management, in which highly skilled experts are hired temporarily for a specific project or to solve a specific problem.
• Casual work, where an employer is not obliged to provide work regularly to the employee but has the flexibility of calling them on demand.
• Voucher- based work, where the employment relationship is based on payment for services with a voucher purchased form an authorized organization that covers both pay and social security contributions.
• Portfolio work, where a self-employed individual works for a large number of clients.

CONCLUTION

Organization are not statics things. Changes are constantly taking place in the business it self, in the environment in which the business operates , and in the people who work in the business. There is no such things as an 'ideal ' organization . The Most that can be done is to optimize the processes involved , remembering that whatever structure evolves it will be contingent on the circumstances of the organization .    

References

Wall, T D and Clegg , ( 1998 ) job design , in  ( ed ) N Nicholson , Blackwell's Encyclopaedic  Dictionary of organizational Behavior  , Oxford , Blackwell , pp 265-68

 

Atkinson, J (1984) Manpower strategies for flexible organizations, Personnel Management, August, pp 28-31.

Batt, R (1999) Work organization, technology and performance in customer service and sales, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 52 (4), pp 539-64.

Buchanan, D A (1987) Job enrichment is dead: long live high performance work design!, Personnel Management, May, pp 40-43.

Child, D (1997) Strategic choice in the analysis of action, structure, organizations and environment: retrospective and prospective, Organizational Studies, 18 (1), pp 43-76.

Child, J (1972) Organizational structure, environment and performance: the role of strategic choice, Sociology, 6 (1), pp 1-22.

Combs, J, Liu, Y and Hall, A (2006) How much do high-performance work practices matter? A meta-analysis of their effects on organizational performance, Personnel Psychology, 59 (3), pp 501-28.

CIDP ( 2008 ) Smart Working : how smart is UK PLC ? Findings from  organizational practice , London , CIPD