Job design.

Job design is the process by which managers determine the work tasks, the
responsibilities and the authority of each position (Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly & Konopaske,
2011).

Its importance is substantial in the employee's life as it can directly impact

their performance, in the effectiveness of their actions in economic and monetary terms; likewise,
they can provide income, boost self-esteem, enhance interpersonal relationships, and generate
meaningful life experiences and, in extreme cases, can also be a source of tension,
psychological and mental damage for its occupants.

The problem lies in the fact that most organizations, especially small and medium-sized ones,
they consider job design as a simple list or enumeration of tasks, activities or
functions that must be fulfilled and not as a source of satisfaction for people.
But the current challenge is to consider it not as a routine, static, and mechanistic process, but rather as
the opposite is a dynamic and continuous process, that is well-structured and properly aligned with
the strategic platform can produce well-being in organizations and improve quality of
life for the people who are part of them.

Therefore, job design can play a prominent role in trying to identify

the needs of employees and the organization and eliminate obstacles in the workplace
that frustrate such needs.

Job design approaches.

According to Gómez (Gómez, Balkin & Cardy, 2000), the approaches that job design records are:
Job enrichment, Job simplification, Job enlargement and rotation, and Design
of the work (hereinafter DT) based on teams.

Job enrichment. Its main function is to make positions more

interesting and improve the adjustment, motivation, and satisfaction of employees, offering greater
autonomy, variety, feedback, and meaning. It is the permanent adjustment of the position to
professional growth of the occupant, gradually increasing responsibilities, objectives
and challenges specific to the tasks of the position, to the characteristics of those who occupy it. It involves
changes in the depth of the position.

Some adjustments to enrich the positions refer to

(Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly & Konopaske, 2011, p. 376):

• Direct feedback: performance evaluation must be

opportune and direct.

• New learning: a good job allows people to settle

that are growing. All positions must provide opportunities to learn.

• Programming: people should be able to program some part

from his work.

• Unique condition: each position must have unique qualities or characteristics.

• Control over resources: employees must have some control

about their work tasks.

• Personal responsibility: people must have the opportunity

to take responsibility for their work.

Enrichment can be horizontal or vertical. In horizontal enrichment, additional...

responsibilities of equal complexity and responsibility within the same hierarchical level of
cargo. Vertical enrichment adds responsibilities of greater complexity, such
as planning, organization, and control (Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman, 2009).
In order to successfully implement enrichment, it is necessary to give employees greater responsibility.
delegation of authority for decision-making, to set their own goals and
self-evaluate your performance.

The greatest impact of job enrichment lies in the fact that it not only raises motivation, the
performance, satisfaction, and improvement in conditions affecting the culture and climate of the
organization, but also increases productivity and can reduce the turnover and absenteeism rate
by turning work activities into something more interesting and challenging that adds more value
value. The enrichment of work does not consist of adding new tasks, but in converting to
employee in the manager of his own position (Myers, 1970).

Negative effects could include feelings of anxiety and anguish due to fear of
failure, the overload of work and exploitation by the occupant of the position, if the company does not
have the clarity necessary at the time of applying the job enrichment and does it more like
a shock measure in the face of potential crises, being the case for conservative organizations and
traditionalists, whose approach is not to encourage creativity and innovation in their people.

Simplification of work. It assumes that the activity can be divided into simple and repetitive tasks.
that maximize efficiency.

You can use labor effectively to produce a large quantity of products.

standardized. An example of this approach is the assembly line of automobiles in which the
workers perform very repetitive mechanical tasks.

Simplification can be efficient in stable environments, but less effective in environments

changing in which consumers demand high-quality personalized products.
It can lead to high levels of turnover due to the monotony of the positions and the consequent decline of
motivation and satisfaction.
Application and job rotation. It is generally used to redesign some positions.
boring, routine, and repetitive.
The expansion increases the tasks and obligations of a position, which allows for an increase in the
satisfaction from the reduction of monotony and boredom. Its implementation leads to
to train employees to perform various tasks, which require a lot
skills, whether in manufacturing or service organizations.

Some people do not easily adjust to expanded positions because they do not achieve
understand its complexity, or do not develop the required skills. However, if they do record
the skills and the attitude needed to face the challenge of reducing turnover and the
absent from the position. The rotation causes workers to alternate from one position to another or
they are turned into different well-defined tasks without interrupting the flow of the operation, for
reduce waste and raise motivation. Both expansion and rotation have limitations.
because they focus on eliminating the less motivating aspects and improving some of the
essential characteristics of the position, which will be seen later.

Job design based on teams. In this case, the work is designed for the teams of
so that they complete a task.
It is the members who decide how they will carry out the operation. The design prototype is adjusted.
better in flat and flexible organizational structures.

A clear example is General Motors with the assembly process of the Saturn car.
in which teams recruit, select, train, and evaluate their members and gestate their
own budget.

As workers are given more decision-making power in their work, feelings

of possession, responsibility and commitment become more significant impacting
improvements in productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, and cost. However, the ETAD do not
they will always succeed as the demands of the concept may be greater than what some
Managers, supervisors, and workers are willing to endure because it involves a whole change.
of organizational culture. (Fernández, 2010)

Groups and work teams are starting to make a difference in the competitiveness of many.
companies, for they are the ones that add value to products and processes. While to each one they
he is paid separately and is required for his individual contribution, his performance in the group is the
that determines part of the value-added offer of a company.
For a customer who is looking for something and receives a response that the person in charge is not available and that
He will return in 2 hours, it's not the same as if he is attended to immediately by someone else even if not.
be in charge.

In the first case, the person in charge may be doing something even more important than attending to
this specific customer. But, in the second case, the customer ends up satisfied, which increases the
probability of return, while in the first case that probability decreases.
In the second case, there was teamwork. There was someone who covered for the absence of the other.
whereas in the first case there was no team. For all intents and purposes, it will be understood that a
A team is a group of people who collaborate and assist each other in times.
specific.

While the group is a set of individuals working towards the same goal.
objective, but based on individual contributions. It is the high-performance groups that
they are capable of achieving the best results. An individual alone will only have the
scope of their own possibilities, but a potentially group has the resources that
they expand the possibilities of individuals.

Among entrepreneurs, there is a popular belief that teamwork can lead to more
high levels of productivity and employees increase their satisfaction. But that statement
it remains to be demonstrated, since there are work teams that work for themselves and not for
the company. For example, when they are able to cover absences without their bosses noticing.
pervade.

Approaches to job design.

There are three approaches through which positions can be designed in organizations:
classical, humanistic, and situational (Chiavenato, 2009).

The classical model. Its emphasis is on the task and on maximum possible efficiency; it defines methods.
standardized, grants salary incentives for production and fragments the work. An aspect
important of this model is to consider the person as an appendix to the machine and as a
productive resource. This design is usually used by maquiladora companies and with lines
of manufacturing in its production process.

Its main advantages are cost reduction, because in this case the charges are simple and
facilitate the selection and training processes, standardization of activities or allow the
supervision and control, and better performance through the use of the assembly or manufacturing line.
Its limitations concentrate on the fact that the positions become repetitive and monotonous, it becomes
present the demotivation in work activity which can lead to turnover and absenteeism
of the workers, it stipulates individualized and isolated work, demanding the permanent presence of
A supervisor; in the face of repetitive activity, the employee tends to make variations that are not always
they are functional, and limit the application of the initiative and the development of the worker's potential or
employee.

Model of human relations or humanistic.

The emphasis is on the interaction between people and social groups in the work environment.
cohesive and pleasant in which the task must be carried out, and free time intervals, that
it could well be considered a precursor approach to today’s networks. It seeks personal fulfillment,
as much as possible, but without altering the essence of the task or the conditions under which
is executed (Chiavenato, 2001).

It arises from the Hawthorne experiment, carried out by Elton Mayo and F. J. Roethlisberger between
1920 and 1930 (Davis & Newstrom, 1991, p. 8), under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences
from the United States, in response to the previously noted classic Taylor model and includes
the concepts of informal organization, leadership, social rewards, group behavior and
communication.

Situational or contingent model.

The model is based on the premise that job design must have a systemic approach. It is
composed of inputs (information, raw materials, resources) with which the system operates; the
operations, or transformation processes, and the outputs are the result of the occupant's work.
Finally, feedback is the follow-up on the results and the comparison with the
performance standards.
It contemplates three elements to know: the people, the task, and the structure of the organization. It is based on
in the dynamism, the continuous change, the personal development of the person in charge and the development
technological task. It assumes self-direction and self-control of the members, since not
visualize the static, rigid or permanent charge (Davis & Newstrom, 1991, p. 16)

In summary, the situational approach anticipates changes and provides flexibility to adapt to
effective and creative way to the challenges of a dynamic, intense, and uncertain environment. A
a clear indication of the need to design positions with a situational approach is the
labor and organizational flexibilization.

CENTRAL DIMENSIONS IN THE DESIGN OF WORKSTATIONS

The model for the design of work proposed by Hackman and Oldham (1975) expresses that the
Well-designed positions lead to high motivation, quality performance, satisfaction and
lower rates of absenteeism and turnover. These results occur when people experience
three critical psychological states:
They believe they are going to do something significant because their work is important to other people.

They feel personally responsible for the results of the work.

They learn how well they perform their job.

According to the Hackman and Oldman model, the job must record five essential dimensions:
variety in tasks, significance of the position, identity, autonomy, feedback.

Variety: when the position registers a diversity of operations, activities, and tasks, they are used
different teams, procedures and methods that break with the routine, monotony and the
constant repetition. They involve the use of a set of the person's talents.

Autonomy: it is the degree of independence and freedom that the occupant has to plan and
fully execute the methods and the scheduling of activities, the break intervals,
the physical mobility, the procedures to follow, among others.
Meaning of the tasks: it is the interdependence of the position with the other positions of the
organization and its contribution to the overall activity of the department or of the organization. If the
The employee understands the importance of the role they perform, the greater their level of contribution will be.
and commitment and will create the necessary conditions to adapt your position to the needs of the
company.

Task identity: it is the degree to which a person can perform a complete task and
can clearly identify the results of your activities. There is no identity with the task
when the occupant of a position carries out fragmented, partial, and incomplete activities without
to be able to know for sure the usefulness of their work in the organizational gear.

•Feedback: refers to the return information that the employee receives to evaluate
the results of your effort in the position, which reveals to you how you are performing your task and
allows for continuous and constant self-evaluation.

The previous dimensions can cause motivational, performance effects,

absence, of rotation and incidence also in the productivity of the company, since the person
can enjoy independence to carry out their tasks, uses their skills, recognizes the
the reason for being of the position, is responsible for the success or failure of the actions and evaluates its performance
(Chiavenato, 2009).
Additionally, Dolan Valle and others (2007) propose adding physical and cognitive elements of the position.
teams, tools and working instruments:
Cognitive elements of the position: it is made up of aspects such as communication, decision making
decisions, information processing, among others. Technology has indeed replaced
many cognitive functions and standardized them, the capacity for analysis, thinking
Critique and attention become important in detecting errors and implementing improvements.

Physical elements of the position: are those such as lighting, ventilation, colors, sounds,
location, interaction with the environment.

•Equipment, tools, and work instruments: it is the set of elements required for the
the execution of the work and how the official relates to them.

Key aspects in job design are also considered the characteristics

individuals, the crimes, the purposes, and the technology of the company.

The individual characteristics refer to the prior knowledge that the organization
must possess for the person in order to achieve the alignment between the job requirements and the
knowledge, skills and attitudes present in the individual that will lead to favorable results
for the company. The above can be achieved through measurements and psychometric tests that
they reveal the coincidences, as well as the gaps that individuals register and facilitate the
adaptation and development programs.

The tasks are the specific activities and behaviors that constitute the position.
work that is the reason Design and analysis of the job. These elements are essential
when designing a position, since if we wrongly consider and analyze these
components can lead us to a wrong selection of people and to not obtaining
of the expected results.

Finally, technology can have a great impact when designing positions and the
content of the positions. For example, assembly lines require extremely demanding positions.
simple and repetitive, unlike those performed by qualified employees or managers, as these
They can use various skills and can control the work pace.