The Evolution of Job Design

1. Changes in Job Design

A job is a formalized position within an organization that contributes to its overall goals. It entails a set of specific duties and responsibilities performed by an employee. These duties are outlined in a job description, which serves as a blueprint for the role. The description details the required skills and qualifications for job applicants and a set of guidelines for those with the position.

These skills can be categorized into hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are special training in a particular role, such as software proficiency or technical knowledge. Soft skills are more general and transferrable abilities like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. The daily tasks involved in any job require both hard skills and soft skills to achieve the outlined responsibilities, but the balance of hard skills and soft skills can vary.

EXAMPLE

Two commonly confused but distinct professions are pharmacologists and pharmacists. Pharmacologists develop and formulate medicine. As such, they require a set of hard skills in the understanding of medicines, their interactions with the body and other medicines, and the techniques for formulating them. Pharmacists work with both doctors and patients, disseminating medicine in consultation with patients. This position requires some scientific knowledge but emphasizes the soft skills of customer service and communication.

Job design is the systematic and purposeful allocation of tasks to individual and group roles within an organization. While job design has existed to some extent for as long as there have been jobs, in terms of outlining basic expectations for a person hired for a job, it has its roots in the late industrial revolution in the early 20th century and has changed considerably since then. Initially focused on standardizing tasks and maximizing efficiency, job descriptions were often highly detailed and descriptive, saying exactly what workers would do. Over time, they have evolved to encompass skills and qualifications alongside duties. Today's job descriptions are more dynamic, giving parameters of a role that give the worker room to grow. Job design increasingly emphasizes outcomes and competencies rather than tasks.

EXAMPLE

A descriptive job description in customer service would list tasks like answering the phone, fulfilling orders, and processing refunds. A more developed job description will focus on outcomes, like customer satisfaction and strengthening the company’s relationship with customers. While the roles might be very similar, the first does not consider customer satisfaction, only fulfillment of duties. The second gives a clear idea of how performance will be measured and what competencies the person filling the role must have.

A deeper look at the history of job design follows.

terms to know

Job

A formalized position within an organization that contributes to its overall goals.

Job Description

A blueprint of the skills and qualifications for a formalized role within an organization.

Hard Skills

Specialized training in a particular role, such as software proficiency or technical knowledge.

Soft Skills

General and transferrable abilities like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills.

Job Design

The systematic and purposeful allocation of tasks to individual and group roles within an organization.

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2. Taylorism

Taylorism, also known as scientific management, is a foundation for systematic job design, named for Frederick Winslow Taylor, an early management consultant of the late 19th and early 20th century who focused his work on workplace efficiency. Taylor developed this theory to develop a “science” for every job within an organization, publishing his theory in 1911 as The Principles of Scientific Management. His "scientific management" theory aimed to transform every job within an organization into a precise, efficient process. Taylor advocated for breaking down tasks into their most basic components, analyzing worker movements, and establishing standardized workflows. This scientific approach sought to identify the "one best way" to perform each job, maximizing output and minimizing wasted effort. While Taylor's methods faced criticism for worker satisfaction, his emphasis on systematic job design remains a foundational concept in modern approaches to workplace efficiency. A summary of these principles is:

• Experiment with different methods of performing a specific task to find the most efficient way to do it.
• Standardize the jobs around those efficiencies.
• Select and hire workers most suited to those tasks and train them to do the job to those standards.
• Monitor worker performance to ensure continued efficiency, providing any support needed.

In time, Taylorism drew criticism as dehumanizing workers by giving them monotonous jobs with little variability, autonomy, or opportunity for advancement. Even as an efficiency method, Taylorism had drawbacks since having specialized workers assigned to each role made the entire process vulnerable to slowdown or stoppage based on one person’s absence or poor performance. Nevertheless, Taylor’s influence on the way businesses design jobs and measure performance is significant; the very idea of taking such a methodical and “scientific” approach was revolutionary at the time.

term to know

Taylorism (also known as Scientific Management)

A foundational approach to systematic job design, standardizing roles around efficiencies.

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3. Sociotechnical Systems Theory

The sociotechnical systems theory (STS) approach to job design is based on the evolution from individual work under Taylorism to work groups. This approach was developed shortly after World War II by researchers at the Tavistock Institute in London, England. A team led by Eric Trist, Ken Bamforth, and Fred Emery studied work in the context of English coal mines, and as the name suggests, the sociotechnical approach considers the basic human social needs in work. However, the term “technical” here does not refer to technology as we usually understand it but is closer to its original meaning in English as “procedural.” In short, Trist, Bamforth, and Emory looked at jobs not as discrete tasks done by individuals, but as a social process.

This approach has the following guiding principles:

• The structure of the organization must fit its overall goals.
• Employees must be actively involved in designing the structure of the organization.
• Control of variances in production or service must be undertaken as close to their source as possible.
• Subsystems must be designed around relatively self-contained and recognizable units of work.
• Support systems must fit in with the design of the organization.
• The design should allow for a high-quality working life.
• Changes should continue to be made as necessary to meet changing environmental pressures.

You may see similarities to Taylorism, such as each group being assigned to specific tasks that fit within an overall organizational process, but there are significant differences in a focus on employee participation and making the work environment more favorable to workers. Understanding the origins of the concept in the coal mines is important, since mining is historically a job with harsh conditions for workers with little control over their environment. This approach to job design was more thoughtful about the quality of life for workers and how they related to one another within the organization.

term to know

Sociotechnical Systems Theory (STS)

An approach to job design based on the evolution from individual work under Taylorism to work groups and more emphasis on meeting social needs.

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4. Job Characteristics Theory

Another job design theory that considers human needs is the job characteristics theory (also called “core characteristics theory”), which emerged in the 1960s and flourished in the 1970s, primarily by faculty at the Harvard Business School. Job characteristics theory (JCT) can be placed in a broader trend of job enrichment, the practice of designing jobs not just for efficiency, but to be challenging and rewarding for the people who hold them. Essential to the idea of job enrichment is the understanding that workers who have enriching jobs that are challenging and rewarding are also better performers, with less absenteeism and turnover, so it is also better for the organization.

Job characteristics theory maintains five important job elements, or core characteristics, that motivate workers and lead to better performance:

• Skill variety: Each worker is capable of doing several different things and may be developing new skills at any time.
• Task identity: Workers can identify their accomplishments as individuals.
• Task significance: Workers understand how their accomplishments serve the greater organizational goals and can see the outcomes of their work.
• Autonomy: Workers have some control over their work, such as being able to set priorities and make other decisions about how it should be done rather than just following instructions.
• Job feedback: Workers get prompt and constructive feedback on how they are doing their job.

This model directly addresses the criticisms of Taylorism by creating jobs that provide stimulation and significance to workers, and by giving workers some control over their work. In the core characteristics model, workers have more control but also more responsibility; their performance is measured as it is under Taylorism, but workers receive the feedback directly and find ways to do their job more efficiently.

terms to know

Job Characteristics Theory (JCT) (also called Core Characteristics Theory)

A job design process that centers less on efficiency and more on challenging and rewarding the people who hold the jobs.

Job Enrichment

The practice of designing jobs not just for efficiency, but to be challenging and rewarding for the people who hold them.

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5. Employee Experience

Employee experience (or employee empowerment) is further elaboration of job design around employees’ cognitive states and psychological health that emerged (and is part of) the job characteristics theory and is now the approach of most organizational behaviorists and human resources departments. This concept revolves around four connected principles:

• Every job should be meaningful; as with the idea of job identity and task significance, workers understand the importance and impact of each task and how it fits with organizational goals.
• Workers at every level want to feel competent. This usually requires opportunities for professional growth and further training; this also means feedback that helps workers both feel appreciated and improve.
• The worker has autonomy; while the worker has a set of responsibilities, each has some control over the daily work routine.
• The worker has influence; the worker has a voice in the direction and decisions of the organization.

The change in job design was the result of a convergence of research in the fields of industrial and organizational psychology, and broader advances in the fields of sociology and psychology. Perhaps most important was the hierarchy of human needs from Abraham Maslow, which you may have learned about in an earlier class. Maslow’s influential idea is that humans are motivated by a hierarchy of needs and must have basic biological and social needs met to pursue higher-level goals like job satisfaction. This concept was applied to management by Douglas McGregor, who coined the terms “theory x” and “theory y” for management styles that see workers as simply fulfilling duties and requiring constant oversight (theory x) and managers who took a more collaborative approach, seeing workers as pursuing their own goals through work (theory y).

It is now understood by organizations that workers who are empowered in these ways feel more accountable for their work and perform better. In this model, they see themselves not just as valuable contributors to organizational goals but can help set those goals and decide how to achieve them.

term to know

Employee Experience (or Employee Empowerment)

A further elaboration of job design around employees’ cognitive states and psychological health that is now the basis for most job design.

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6. Trends in Job Design

You may see an evolution in job design in this tutorial from the early 20th century focus on efficiency by exerting tight control over workers who perform routine tasks to models that consider the psychological health of workers and the overall organization. This has proven not only better for workers, but better for the business, since it leads to a more motivated workforce that performs better, with lower absenteeism and turnover. This continues to evolve and be enabled by technology, such as more workplaces offering flexible schedules and opportunities to work from home, as well as more emphasis on the social aspects of work.

There's a noticeable shift in the workforce towards project-based work. This trend sees individuals opting for gigs, contracts, and freelance projects instead of traditional full-time employment. Factors like the rise of online platforms facilitating freelance work and a growing desire for flexibility among employees are contributing to this movement. Companies are also increasingly recognizing the benefits of utilizing a contingent workforce for specific projects or scaling up during busy periods. This trend holds implications for both employers and employees, with the need for strong self-management and business acumen on the individual side, and a focus on building a talent pool of skilled freelancers on the company side. There is also the serious issue of benefits, or the lack thereof, associated with contingent labor.

However, it’s important to pay attention to employee experience as a complement to, not a challenge to, the idea of efficiency. Job design is still attentive to the most efficient practices, and many fields have organizations devoted to finding the best way to do things.