Pros and Cons of Job Designing methods (Job Rotation, Job Enlargement and Job Enrichment)

Job designing is one of the main characteristic of a productive organization which follows proper HRM practices. there are three methods which used by the HR managers to design the jobs. These methods help to analyze the job, design its content and to decide how the job must be carried out in order to achieve the organizational goals and objectives (Rajguru, 2022). 

1. Job Rotation

“Job rotation involves shifting a person from one job to another, so that he is able to understand and learn what each job involves. The company tracks his performance on every job and decides whether he can perform the job in an ideal manner. Based on this he is finally given a particular posting. Job rotation gives an idea about the jobs to be performed at every level. Once a person is able to understand this he is in a better understanding of the working of organization (Ortega, 2001).”

Advantages of Job Rotation

I.   Providing opportunity to broaden the knowledge

II.  Avoid fraudulent practices of the employees

III. Avoiding the monopoly in job and give the chance to learn new things

IV. Providing of employee motivation  

Disadvantages of Job Rotation

I.   Frequent interruptions due to sudden shifting of the job positions

II.  Uniformity of the quality work get disrupted as new worker takes time to learn the new job, and may cause mistakes in the process. 

III.  Misunderstanding with Union members as they might think that employees are being punished by assigning different jobs frequently. 

2. Job Enlargement

"Job enlargement involves combining various activities at the same level in the organization and adding them to the existing job. It increases the scope of the job and also called the horizontal expansion of job activities. The new activities which are added should belong to the same hierarchy level in the organization. Job enlargement provides a greater variety of activities to the individual so that it increases the interest to perform the job and to get maximum use of employee’s skill (Raza and Nawaz, 2011)."

Advantages of Job Enlargement

 I.   Improve and increase the employee's skill levels

 II.  Get the opportunity to learn more which ultimately improves the earning capacity

 III. Wide range  of activities perform by a single person reduces the company employee count which ultimately saves salary cost of the company 

Disadvantages of Job Enlargement

 I.   No additional payment for the extra work and it burden the work efforts

 II.  Increase frustration of the employees

 III.  Misunderstanding with Union members as they might think as it is an exploitation of employees.

3. Job Enrichment

"Job enrichment adds few motivators to a job to make it more rewarding, challenging and interesting. The motivators are 

• Giving more freedom
• Encouraging participation
• Giving employees the freedom to select the method of working
• Allowing employees to select the place at which they would like to work
• Allowing workers to select the tools that they require on the job
• Allowing workers to decide the layout of plant or office

Job enrichment gives lot of freedom to the employee but at the same time increases the responsibility. There are some employees which are in hunger of power and responsibility. for such workers, Job enrichment is the best option (Umstot et al., 1976)." 

Advantages of Job Enrichment

  I.   Improve decision making ability of the employees

  II.  Able to identify potential employees for future promotions

 III. Identifies higher order needs of the employees according to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Need theory. 

 IV. Reduces the workload of senior staff

Disadvantages of Job Enrichment

 I.   As Job enrichment is totally based on the assumption that the employees are fully educated to make decisions, it may cause problems due to mismatch of work with decisions.

 II.  Superiors may feel that power is being taken away from them and given to the junior’s and this might lead to ego problems

 III.  For the employees which are totally dissatisfied with the organization, Job enrichment will not becomes a motive anymore.

Conclusion

Based on the organizational structure and the goals & objectives, the HR manager should be responsible for selecting the best Job designing method for the company.

References

Ortega, J., 2001. Job rotation as a learning mechanism. Management science, 47(10), pp.1361-1370.

Rajguru, K., 2022. What is Job Design? Available at: https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/human-resource-management/what-is-job-design/31762 Accessed on: 05.08.2022.

Raza, M.A. and Nawaz, M.M., 2011. Impact of job enlargement on employees' job satisfaction, motivation and organizational commitment: Evidence from public sector of Pakistan. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(18).

Umstot, D.D., Bell, C.H. and Mitchell, T.R., 1976. Effects of job enrichment and task goals on satisfaction and productivity: Implications for job design. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61(4), p.379.