Have you ever been to a restaurant, a store,

or any other place where one person seems Suppose your company requires the
to be doing several different jobs? For candidate for a job to be capable of lifting up
example,is that person the maitre d’,the to 250 pounds. Few people will qualify for
wine steward,the wait staff,the chef,or the the job. But if the company can reduce the
dishwasher? And does that person have to lifting requirement to 50 pounds, many more
switch jobs at a moment’s notice? people will qualify.
Productive employees are employees who
know what is expected of them and what to Suppose your company can reduce a job’s
expect of themselves. They know what their lifting requirement from a maximum 250
role is in the company,and they understand pounds to a maximum 50 pounds because
the goals of their job. the company can buy materials in smaller
quantities and pack them in lighter boxes. If
Suppose your company is an organization the materials are more expensive, however,
with an objective to operate a fancy, upscale the company has to weigh the higher
restaurant.To achieve its objective,the material costs against the higher labor
restaurant must define a set ofjobs,the tasks costs, choose the alternative that makes
each job consists of,and a system for more sense economically, or even come up
evaluating the employee’s performance in with a third alternative—for example, hire
the job.The set ofjobs at your restaurant two workers to lift the heavy packages.
would include a chef,a trained kitchen staff,
a professional wait staff,a maitre d’,a wine Employees at companies like Google, The
steward,and so forth.The chef’s tasks would AES Corporation, The Men’s Wearhouse,
include developing the food motifand menu, SAS, and Southwest Airlines stay with their
for example.The performance measurement companies because work is fun. In this
would be based on revenue. Job design case, fun means working in a place where
ensures that each employee’s duties and people can use their talents and skills and
responsibilities are geared toward achieving work with others in an atmosphere of mutual
the restaurant’s mission.Methods analysis respect.
eliminates unnecessary tasks and improves
the process for completing tasks.Work A final concern in job design is whether or
measurement is a process for evaluating not the job can and should be automated.
employee performance and comparing Let’s discuss the pros and cons of machines
alternative processes.Let’s begin with job versus people in job design.
design.
For example, we use calculators to do
For example, if one of your company’s arithmetic or when we need high levels of
objectives is to establish itself as a leader in precision. We use a machine when a job
customer service, jobs must be designed to might be dangerous. We also use machines
encourage and reward good customer to lift or move very heavy objects or very hot
service practices. In addition, performance objects or to do simple, repetitive tasks. On
measurements for each job must validate the other hand, people are vastly superior to
the behavior that supports the company’s machines in a number of activities.
objective. Examples are personal interactions with
others, creative thinking, judgments
involving multiple variables, expressions of In an effort to reduce workers’ boredom, a
compassion or empathy, complex number of behavioral approaches have
operations that may not follow linear logic, been suggested. Discussion of these
and teaching. approaches follows.

For example, automated voice messaging For example, an assembly worker gets to
systems are the norm in offices today. But do additional tasks that complete a portion
do these automated systems create a of the final product, which enables the
favorable impression on the customer? Is it worker to experience pride in the final
worth the extra expense to provide a live product. The worker can then point to the
receptionist so your customers can talk to a final product and take pride in the portion
person rather than a machine? When your that he or she was responsible for building.
company makes a decision about machines By reducing the level of specialization,
versus people in job design, support of the however, job enlargement may result in
company’s objectives is the deciding factor. some lost productivity compared to what
was specified in the original job design.
In the professions, worker satisfaction is
one reason for specialization in a particular For example, workers know they must
area of expertise. A doctor who specializes complete 100 model A’s, 50 model B’s, and
in heart disease, a lawyer who specializes 150 model C’s in one week, but the
in international law, or a professor who sequence is up to them. They can do all of
specializes in operations management may the C’s first, then the B’s followed by the A’s,
do so because of intrinsic satisfaction in the and so forth, as long as the work is finished
job. Without question, other factors also inf in one week. Or, for example, workers do
luence people to enter into particular their own inspection before the part or
professional careers. On the other hand, an product is passed to the next workstation.
assembly or service worker whose work is This procedure instills pride in the output
highly specialized often has a monotonous and has the worker perform tasks usually
job. These individuals may have narrowly done at a higher level in the organization.
focused jobs because their skill levels are
limited. Yet specialized assembly and The purpose of problem-solving teams is to
service workers contribute to organizational use the employees’ knowledge of
objectives because they yield high operational procedures. Management
productivity and low unit costs. Consider the cannot know as much about detailed
assembly worker who inserts and tightens operations as the employees who do the
four bolts into each product as it passes by work daily. Problem-solving teams are
on the assembly line. The work is repetitive, useful for improving operations and as a
but the worker quickly becomes very way to improve communications between
proficient. A file clerk who spends eight employees and management.
hours each day filing documents and the
data-entry person keying in data eight hours For example, a university might use a
each day also have highly specialized, special-purpose team to hire a new,
narrowly focused jobs. high-level administrator. The team has a
specific task and a limited time frame to do A survey of alternative workplace
that task. Since the new administrator will employees at IBM revealed that 87 percent
have many constituencies, the team may believed their personal productivity and job
consist of representatives from each effectiveness had increased significantly.
college, the operating staff, the The alternative workplace offers the
professional/administrative staff, trustees, flexibility some employees need to balance
alumni, and students. Including each work and family, which helps companies
constituency in the selection process build and keep a valuable workforce.
ensures that their concerns are made
known. Suppose your restaurant has an accepted
procedure for communicating a customer’s
The team decides on compensations and dinner choices to the kitchen without errors.
disciplinary actions when team rules are Methods analysis documents this accepted
broken and acts as a profit center. A procedure, including specific notations that
self-managed team is a group of people identify customer preferences. The result is
working together in their own ways toward a a standard operating procedure your
common goal that is defined by a source restaurant can use for training new
outside of the team. The team does its own employees and for evaluating the
work scheduling and training and provides performance of existing employees.
its own rewards and recognition, but does
not set its overall objective. Temperature, relative humidity, ventilation,
lighting, and noise level are all factors in
A good example of self-directed work teams work system design. People work well when
is The SCO Group. At The SCO Group the temperature is comfortable; typically, the
Operation, the initial team consisted of more strenuous the work, the lower the
twelve people, including five assemblers temperature should be. Excess humidity is
and a quality control person, for both the uncomfortable for most people and can be
day and evening shifts. The team detrimental to some equipment. Too little
subsequently added two material handlers, humidity results in dry air and may create
a product specialist, and a master undesirable static charges. Exchanging or
scheduler. The team was responsible for filtering the air can prevent the stale air
building 65 computer operating system caused by poor ventilation. Inadequate
products on a single assembly line. lighting can lead to production mistakes
and/or physical discomfort such as
The cost reduction is achieved through headaches. Detailed work normally needs
eliminating offices people do not need, stronger light. Also, high noise levels can be
consolidating others, and thereby reducing distracting and can result in errors or
overhead expenses.Alternative workplaces accidents as well as impair hearing.
can improve productivity because
employees tend to devote more time to
customers and/or meaningful work activities In our restaurant example, the time needed
and less time to unproductive office routines to take the customer’s order and
like socializing, making up work to look communicate that information to the kitchen
busy, and attending unnecessary meetings. staff can be calculated as the standard time.
 occurrence by dividing 1 by the number of
For example, if a company invests three cycles between occurrences (1 divided by
standard hours of labor in building a product 10 cycles between occurrences means that
and its labor cost is $22 per hour, then the F 0.1).
standard labor content is $66 per unit. This
does not mean each unit has exactly three With the first method, the PFD allowance is
hours of labor spent on it: some units will based on individual jobs the worker does
have slightly more labor content, and others throughout the day. This is typically used
will have slightly less. Thus the company when workers perform several different
estimates that it should take three hours of types of jobs, with some of the jobs more
labor to build that product. For pricing fatiguing than others and other jobs having
purposes, the company charges for three longer unavoidable delays. In this case, the
labor hours of content in each unit. amount of output expected must take into
account the actual jobs performed by the
If an operation takes 0.30 standard hour of worker. The PFD allowance factor is
labor and you need 1000 of these computed as AFJob 1 PFD where PFD
operations to complete a job, then you need percentage allowance adjustment is based
300 standard hours to complete the job on the individual job. The other method is
(0.30 hour times 1000 operations). used when all of the different jobs an
employee does are similar, having the same
If a factor of 1.0 represents an average work allowance factor. We compute this
pace, any performance rating below 1.0 is a allowance factor as 1 1 AFTime worked
below-average work pace. A performance PFD
rating of above 1.0 is an above-average
work pace. Performance rating is an attempt For example, in many jobs the operator has
to counterbalance any unusual patterns to reach for materials, position an item, or
noted in the worker’s performance. For any insert and tighten something. Instead of
element in which the worker performs below recalculating the time it should take to do a
average, the worker may need additional particular work element, the time-study
training to improve efficiency. analyst checks the database for a valid time
study. If the company has already done a
It is not uncommon for workers to work time study for that work element, the analyst
faster than normal when they are observed uses it in the standard time for the job.
or, in some cases, to work more slowly than
normal when they are observed. The
performance rating is used to develop a
standard that is fair to the worker and to the
company.

If an element is done every other cycle, it