chapter 7 motivation tools i: job design and goal setting

chapter

77MOTIVATION TOOLS I:

JOB DESIGN ANDGOAL SETTING

CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Copyright © 2002 Prentice-Hall

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Insert Figure 7.1 here



Job Design• Definition: The process of linking

specific tasks to specific jobs and deciding what techniques, equipment, and procedures should be used to perform those tasks.

• Early approaches:– Scientific Management– Job Enlargement– Job Enrichment

• More recent approaches:– Job Characteristics Model– Social Information Processing Theory

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Scientific Management• A set of principles and practices designed to

increase the performance of individual workers by stressing job simplification and job specialization.

• Job simplification: The breaking up of the work that needs to be performed in an organization into the smallest identifiable tasks.

• Job specialization: The assignment of workers to perform small, simple tasks.

• Time and motion studies: Studies that reveal exactly how long it takes to perform a task and the best way to perform it.

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Scientific Management in Practice• Pay is the principal outcome used to motivate

workers to contribute their inputs.– Piece-rate pay system

• Scientific management focuses exclusively on extrinsic motivation and ignores the important role of intrinsic motivation.

• Specific disadvantages:– Workers may feel that they have lost control over their

work behaviors.– Workers may feel as if they are part of a machine and

are treated as such.– Workers have no opportunity to develop and acquire

new skills.

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Job Enlargement• Increasing the number of tasks a worker

performs but keeping all of the tasks at the same level of difficulty and responsibility; also called horizontal job loading.

• Advantage: Adds variety to a worker’s job.

• Disadvantage: Jobs may still be simple and limited in how much control and variety workers have.

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Job Enrichment• Increasing a worker’s responsibility and control over his

or her work; also called vertical job loading.• Ways of enriching jobs:

– Allow workers to plan their own work schedules.– Allow workers to decide how the work should be performed.– Allow workers to check their own work.– Allow workers to learn new skills.

• Advantage: Gives workers more autonomy, responsibility, and control.

• Disadvantages– Not all workers want enriched jobs– May be expensive and/or inefficient

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The Job Characteristics Model• An approach to job design that aims to identify

characteristics that make jobs intrinsically motivating and to specify the consequences of those characteristics.

• Four key components– Core job dimensions

• Motivating potential score

– Critical psychological states

– Consequences: work and personal outcomes

– Individual differences

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Skill Variety: The extent to which a job requires a worker to use different skills, abilities, or talents.

Task Identity: The extent to which a job involves performing a whole piece of work from its beginning to its end.

Task Significance: The extent to which a job has an impact on the lives or work of other people in or out of the organization.

Autonomy: The degree to which a job allows a worker the freedomand independence to schedule work and decide how to carry it out.

Feedback: The extent to which performing a job provides a worker with clear information about his or her effectiveness.

Core Job Dimensions

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Motivating Potential Score (MPS)• A measure of the overall potential of a job

to foster intrinsic motivation.• The score is a computational combination of

the measures of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback.

• Formula (see Fig. 7.2)

MPS = ((SV + TI + TS)/3)*A*F• MPS scores can range from 1 to 343. The

average MPS for jobs in the US is around 128.

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Ways to Redesign Jobs to Increase MPS

Combine tasks so that aworker is responsible fordoing a piece of work fromstart to finish.

Skill varietyTask identityTask significance

A production worker is responsible for assembling a whole bicycle, not just attachingthe handlebars.

Group tasks into natural workunits so that workers areresponsible for an entire setof important activities rather than just a part of them.

Task identityTask significance

A computer programmer handles allprogramming requests from one division instead of one type of request from severaldifferent divisions.

Allow workers to interact withcustomers or clients, and make workers responsible formanaging these relationshipsand satisfying customers.

Skill varietyAutonomyFeedback

A truck driver who delivers photocopiers notonly sets them up but also trains customers inhow to use them, handles customer billing, andresponds to customer complaints.

Vertically load jobs so thatworkers have more controlover their work activities andhigher levels of responsibility.

Autonomy A corporate marketing analyst not only preparesmarketing plans and reports but also decides when to update and revise them, checks them for errors, and presents them to upper management.

Open feedback channelsso that workers know howthey are performing theirjobs.

Feedback In addition to knowing how many claims he handlesper month, an insurance adjuster receives his clients’responses to follow-up questionnaires that hiscompany uses to measure client satisfaction.

Change Made Job Dim Inc Example

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Critical Psychological States• Experienced meaningfulness of the workExperienced meaningfulness of the work: The

degree to which workers feel their jobs are important, worthwhile, and meaningful.– Skill variety, task identity, and task significance

• Experienced responsibility for work outcomesExperienced responsibility for work outcomes: The extent to which workers feel personally responsible or accountable for their job performance.– Autonomy

• Knowledge of resultsKnowledge of results: The degree to which workers know how well they perform their jobs on a continuous basis.– Feedback

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Work and Personal Outcomes

• The critical psychological states result in four key outcomes for workers and their organizations:– High intrinsic motivation– High job performance– High job satisfaction– Low absenteeism and turnover

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The Role of Individual Differences• Growth-need strengthGrowth-need strength: The extent to which an

individual wants his or her work to contribute to personal growth, learning, and development.

• Knowledge and skillsKnowledge and skills• Satisfaction with the work contextSatisfaction with the work context: How

satisfied workers are with extrinsic outcomes they receive from their jobs (e.g., pay, benefits, job security, relationships with coworkers).

• All of these must be high for job design changes to increase intrinsic motivation.

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Advice to Managers• Realize that increasing subordinates’ intrinsic motivation decreases

your need to closely supervise subordinates and frees up your time for other activities.

• To increase levels of intrinsic motivation and job satisfaction, increase levels of the five core dimensions.

• Do not redesign jobs to increase levels of the five core dimensions if workers do not desire personal growth and development at work.

• Before any redesign effort, make sure that workers are satisfied with extrinsic job outcomes. If workers are not satisfied with these factors, try to increase satisfaction levels prior to redesigning jobs.

• Make sure that workers have the necessary skills and abilities to perform their jobs. Do not redesign jobs to increase levels of the core dimensions for workers whose skills and abilities are already stretched by their current jobs.

• Periodically assess workers’ perceptions of the core dimensions of their jobs as well as their levels of job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation.

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The Social Information Processing Model• An approach to job design based on the idea that

information from other people and workers’ own past behaviors influence workers’ perceptions of and responses to the design of their jobs.

• The social environment (i.e., the other individuals with whom workers come in contact) provides information about which aspects of their jobs workers should pay attention to and which they should ignore.

• The social environment also provides workers with information about how they should evaluate their jobs and work outcomes.

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Advice to Managers

• Place newcomers into work groups whose members like their jobs and are intrinsically motivated and satisfied.

• Avoid placing newcomers into work groups whose members are disgruntled and dissatisfied.

• When you assign workers to supervise or help train a newcomer, pick workers who are satisfied with and intrinsically motivated by their jobs and who are high performers.

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Goal Setting• Goal: What an individual is trying to accomplish

through his or her behavior and actions. • Goal Setting Theory: A theory that focuses on

identifying the types of goals that are most effective in producing high levels of motivation and performance and why goals have these effects.

• Goal setting can operate to enhance both intrinsic motivation (in the absence of any extrinsic rewards) and extrinsic motivation (when workers are given extrinsic rewards for achieving their goals).

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Characteristics of Motivating Goals

• SpecificitySpecificity– Often quantitative

• DifficultyDifficulty– Should be hard but not impossible for most

workers to achieve

• AcceptabilityAcceptability– Especially important when managers set goals for

subordinates

• FeedbackFeedback– So that workers know how well they are doing

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Specific, Difficult Goals Affect Motivation and Performance by:

• Directing workers’ attention and action toward goal-relevant activities

• Causing workers to exert higher levels of effort

• Causing workers to develop action plans to achieve their goals

• Causing workers to persist in the face of obstacles or difficulties

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Limits to Goal Setting Theory• There are two circumstances under which

setting specific, difficult goals will not lead to high motivation and performance:– When workers lack the skills and abilities

needed to perform at a high level.– When workers are given complicated and

difficult tasks that require all of their attention and require a considerable amount of learning.

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Management by Objectives (MBO)• A goal-setting process in which a manager meets

with his or her supervisor to set goals and evaluate the extent to which previously set goals have been achieved.

• Although less common, MBO can also be used as a motivational tool for nonmanagers.

• Necessary characteristics for MBO success:– Set goals should contribute to organizational

effectiveness.– Goals should be specific and difficult.– A certain amount of trust and rapport must exist

between managers and their supervisors.

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Advice to Managers1. Be sure that a worker’s goals are specific and

difficult, whether set by you, by the worker, or by both of you.

2. Express confidence in your subordinates’ abilities to attain their goals, and give subordinates regular feedback on the extent of goal attainment.

3. When workers are performing difficult and complex tasks that involve learning, do not set goals until the workers gain some mastery over the task.

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chapter 7 motivation tools i: job design and goal setting

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