“Job design,” according to Professor John Slocum, co-author of the frequently reprinted manager’s handbook, Organizational Behavior, “is the deliberate, purposeful planning of the job, including all its structural and social aspects and their effect on the employee.”

The relevant structural and social aspects of jobs include:

• Technology;
• Tasks;
• Organisational structure;
• Wages, salaries and benefits;
• Individuals, and the differences between them;
• Workplace relationships;
• Managerial style and workplace culture;
• Personnel systems;
• Unions; and
• Working conditions.

Jobs can be designed—or redesigned--to improve:

• Job satisfaction;
• Productivity;
• Employee commitment;
• Resilience;
• Flexibility;
• Motivation;
• Employee health and wellbeing;
• Customer satisfaction and
• Performance.

Many of the above are also workplace determinants of health, which suggests that jobs can be redesigned to improve health.

Understanding the elements of job design may also assist RTWCs / supervisors  identify appropriate modified duties, particularly when the worker is expected to be on modified duties for some time.

Research undertaken with employees of a large Egyptian bank shows that:

• Skill variety and task significance affect job satisfaction;
• Skill variety, task significance, autonomy and feedback affect resilience;
• Skill variety and task significance affect commitment; and
• Feedback and autonomy affect flexibility.

What are the characteristics of well-designed jobs?

In a well-designed job:

• The worker feels personally responsible for a meaningful proportion of his or her work.
• The job involves doing something intrinsically meaningful to the individual, or seems somehow worthwhile. This is not necessarily about making a grand contribution to society. It might simply involve:
  • Being responsible for an entire process, rather than just a small part of one;
  • Developing and using a variety of skills and abilities.
• The task is seen to have an impact on the welfare of the organisation.
• Workers regularly receive some form of feedback about performance—from customers, supervisors, managers, colleagues, or simply from the successful completion of the task itself.

How is job redesign best managed?

1. “Diagnose” jobs, getting employee feedback and asking:

• Can these jobs be meaningfully changed, in a way that will make a real difference for workers?
• If so, what specific aspects of these jobs are currently causing problems?
• Are employees reasonably prepared for change, and will they be able to handle their new assignments?
• Is management reasonably willing to take on the extra burdens created by change?
• What other aspects of work are likely to be affected? How can we deal with these affects?

2. Be up-front about all the goals of the job redesign, which may include:

• Increased productivity;
• Improvements to health and wellbeing—for example reducing physical and psychological injury;
• Reductions in absenteeism and presenteeism;
• Increases to customer satisfaction; and
• Increased worker satisfaction / happiness.

3. Involve unions at the outset.

4. Seek worker input. The main reason for doing so is that employee ideas have substance. They know how their job makes them feel, and if they’re unhappy chances are that they have given some thought to how things might be improved. Participation also raises morale, increases satisfaction and commitment to the process, decreases suspicion and creates a sense of partnership.

5. Express appreciation for employee’s involvement in the process.

6. Where relevant, ensure that remuneration and status increase with responsibility.

7. Be aware that not all workers want more control, variety etc. Allow some flexibility throughout the redesign process.

8. Consider employee fears that may ensue (for example, of downsizing) and address these openly and honestly.

9. Evaluate the process (again, getting employee participation), and make changes as required.

Sources

“The effect of job redesign on job satisfaction, resilience, commitment and flexibility: the case of an Egyptian public sector bank” by Mohga A. Badran and Jihan H. Kafafy. International Journal of Business research.

“Job Redesign: Improving the Quality of Work Life” John W. Slocum Jr.

"Redesigning Jobs: Northwestern Mutual Life," in A Great Place to Work by Robert Levering.