When different job tasks are divided into a job that an employee performs repetitively?

Job enlargement means increasing the scope of a job through extending the range of its job duties and responsibilities generally within the same level and periphery. Job enlargement involves combining various activities at the same level in the organization and adding them to the existing job. It is also called the horizontal expansion of job activities. This contradicts the principles of specialisation and the division of labour whereby work is divided into small units, each of which is performed repetitively by an individual worker and the responsibilities are always clear. Some motivational theories suggest that the boredom and alienation caused by the division of labour can actually cause efficiency to fall. Thus, job enlargement seeks to motivate workers through reversing the process of specialisation. A typical approach might be to replace assembly lines with modular work; instead of an employee repeating the same step on each product, they perform several tasks on a single item. In order for employees to be provided with Job Enlargement they will need to be retrained in new fields to understand how each field works.

The objective of job enlargement is to motivate an employee by increasing his efforts and exposure towards achieving the organizational objectives as set for the job.[1] By doing this, an employee can get a wider range of his or her objectives without his or her job in a repetitious manner. Job enlargement requires the management of the organization to provide their support in providing appropriate training to the employees to make them able to adapt to the enlarged job scope.[1]

Some advantages of job enlargement are a variety of skills, improves earning capacity, and wide range of activities.

• Variety of skills – Job enlargement helps the organization to improve and increase the skills of the employee due to organization as well as the individual benefit.
• Improves earning capacity – with all the new activities a person learns from job enlargement, they are able to try to get a better salary when they apply for a new job.
• Wide range of activities – Employees are able to learn more activities which can help a company save money by reducing the number of employees they have.

However results have shown that this process can see its effects diminish after a period of time, as even the enlarged job role become the mundane, this in turn can lead to similar levels of demotivation and job dissatisfaction at the expense of increased training levels and costs. The continual enlargement of a job over time is also known as 'job creep', which can lead to an unmanageable workload.

Hulin and Blood (1968)[2] define job enlargement as the process of allowing individual workers to determine their own pace (within limits), to serve as their own inspectors by giving them responsibility for quality control, to repair their own mistakes, to be responsible for their own machine set-up and repair, and to attain choice of method. Frederick Herzberg[3] referred to the addition of interrelated tasks as 'horizontal job loading'.

See also[edit]

• Job enrichment
• Personnel management
• Human resource management
• Job satisfaction

References[edit]

1. ^ a b "Job Enlargement". www.mbaskool.com.
2. ^ HULIN, CHARLES L.; BLOOD, MILTON R. (1968). "JOB ENLARGEMENT, INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES, AND WORKER RESPONSES". Psychological Bulletin. 69 (1): 41–55. doi:10.1037/h0025356.
3. ^ Herzberg, F. (1968). One more time: How do you motivate employees. Boston: Harvard Business Review. pp. 46–57.

What is Job Specialization?

Early in the last century, Henry Ford became rich and famous by building automobiles on an assembly line. Every Ford worker was assigned a specific, repetitive task. For instance, one person would just put on the right-front wheel and someone else would install the right-front door. By breaking jobs up into small standardized tasks, which could be performed over and over again, Ford was able to produce cars at the rate of one every ten seconds while using employees who had relatively limited skills.

Ford demonstrated that work can be performed more efficiently if employees are allowed to specialize. Today, the term, job specialization, or division of labor, is used to describe the degree to which tasks in the organization are subdivided into separate jobs.

By definition, Job specialization is the degree to which the overall task of the organization is broken down and divided into smaller component parts.

Job specialization occurs when a job is composed of a small part of a larger task or process. Specialized jobs are characterized by simple, easy-to-learn steps; low variety; and high repetition, such as the Ford's automobiles assembly line just described.

The essence of job specialization is that, rather than an entire job being done by one individual, it is broken down into a number of steps, each step being completed by a separate individual. In essence, individuals specialize in doing a part of an activity rather than the entire activity.

Although specialization is generally thought of in terms of operating jobs, many organizations have extended the basic elements of specialization to managerial and professional level as well.

Benefits and Limitations of Specialization

Job specialization provides four benefits to organizations.

• First, workers performing small, simple tasks will become very proficient at each task.
• Second, transfer time between tasks decreases. If employees perform several different tasks, some time is lost as they stop doing the first task and start doing the next.
• Third, the more narrowly defined a job is, the easier it is to develop specialized equipment to assist with that job.
• Fourth, when an employee who performs a highly specialized job is absent or resigns, the manager is able to train someone new at relatively low cost.

Equally important, training for specialization is more efficient from the organization’s perspective. It is easier and less costly to find and train workers to do specific and repetitive tasks. This is especially true of highly sophisticated and complex operations. For example, could Cessna produce one Citation jet a year if one person had to build the entire plane alone?

On the hand, job specialization can have negative consequences. The foremost criticism is that workers who perform highly specialized jobs may become bored and dissatisfied.

The job may be so specialized and easy to learn that it offers no challenge or stimulation. Boredom and monotony set in, absenteeism and employee turnover rises, and the quality of the work may suffer, all of which are very costly to organizations.

Furthermore, the anticipated benefits of specialization do not always occur. For example, a classic study conducted at Maytag found that the time spent moving work in process from one worker to another was greater than the time needed for the same individual to change from job to job.

Thus, although some degree of specialization is necessary, it should not be carried to extremes because of the possible negative consequences.

What is work division or specialization?

What is the separation of work performed into individual tasks?

How are the jobs divided in the organization?

What is the meaning of work specialisation?