Unit 5

Techno Structural Intervention

Techno-structural interventions focus on improving the organizational effectiveness and human performance
by focusing on technology and structure. These interventions are rooted in the fields of engineering,
sociology, and psychology, combined with socio-technical systems, job analysis and design. These types of
interventions rely on an improvement based approach; the idea is to shape the organizational techno-
structural elements to get a best fit to the current situation and future development of the company. The two
main focus points of techno-structural intervention approaches are the improvement of an organization’s
technology, for example, task methods and job design, and structure, for example division of labor and
hierarchy.  The following interventions are included in techno-structural interventions

1.Industrial Engineering

CONCEPT:
Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering which deals with the optimization of
complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement, and implementation of
integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis
and synthesis, as well as the mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and
methods of engineering design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems
or processes. While industrial engineering is a traditional and longstanding engineering discipline subject to
(and eligible for) professional engineering licensure in most jurisdictions, its underlying concepts overlap
considerably with certain business-oriented disciplines such as operations management.
Depending on the subspecialties involved, industrial engineering may also be known as, or overlap with,
operations management, management science, operations research, systems engineering, management
engineering, manufacturing engineering, ergonomics or human factors engineering, safety engineering, or
others, depending on the viewpoint or motives of the user. For example, in health care, the engineers known
as health management engineers] or health systems engineers are, in essence, industrial engineers by another
name.
TYPES:
Traditionally, a major aspect of industrial engineering was planning the layouts of factories and designing
assembly lines and other manufacturing paradigms. And now, in so-called lean manufacturing systems
(systemic method for the elimination of waste Muda within a manufacturing process), industrial engineers
work to eliminate wastes of time, money, materials, energy, and other resources. It now includes
 Accounting –
The measurement, processing and communication of financial information about economic entities
 Operations Research or Management Science –
The discipline that deals with the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better
decisions
 Operations Management –
An area of management concerned with overseeing, designing, and controlling the process of
production and redesigning business operations in the production of goods or services.
 Project Management –
The process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, procedures
and protocols to achieve specific goals in scientific or daily problems.
 Job Design –
The specification of contents, methods and relationship of jobs in order to satisfy technological and
organizational requirements as well as the social and personal requirements of the job holder.
 Financial Engineering -
The application of technical methods, especially from mathematical finance and computational
finance, in the practice of finance
 Management Engineering -
A specialized form of management that is concerned with the application of engineering principles to
business practice
 Supply Chain Management –
It is the management of the flow of goods. It includes the movement and storage of raw materials,
work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption.
 Process Engineering –
It includesdesign, operation, control, and optimization of chemical, physical, and biological
processes.
 Systems Engineering –
An interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex
engineering systems over their life cycles.
 Ergonomics –
The practice of designing products, systems or processes to take proper account of the interaction
between them and the people that uses them.
 Safety Engineering –
An engineering discipline which assures that engineered systems provide acceptable levels of safety.
 Cost Engineering –
Thepractice devoted to the management of project cost, involving such activities as cost- and
control- estimating, which is cost control and cost forecasting, investment appraisal, and risk
analysis.
 Value Engineering –
A systematic method to improve the "value" of goods or products and services by using an
examination of function.
 Quality Engineering -
A way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when
delivering solutions or services to customers.
 Industrial Plant Configuration –
 Sizing of necessary infrastructure used in support and maintenance of a given facility.
 Facility Management –
An interdisciplinary field devoted to the coordination of space, infrastructure, people and
organization
 Engineering Design Process –
Formulation of a plan to help an engineer build a product with a specified performance goal.
 Logistics –
The management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption in
order to meet some requirements, of customers or corporations.
Examples of where industrial engineering might be used include flow process charting, process mapping,
designing an assembly workstation, strategizing for various operational logistics, consulting as an efficiency
expert, developing a new financial algorithm or loan system for a bank, streamlining operation and
emergency room location or usage in a hospital, planning complex distribution schemes for materials or
products (referred to as supply-chain management), and shortening lines (or queues) at a bank, hospital, or a
theme park

2.Re-Engineering Meaning:
The redesign of Business process and operations or workflows in an organization is called Re-Engineering.
Re-engineering is the process of changing the way we do our work so we do it better to accomplish the goals
of our business. It is a Business Management Strategy.

Re-engineering identifies, analyzes, and re-designs an organization's core business processes with the
aim of achieving dramatic improvements in critical performance measures, such as cost, quality, service, and
speed.

 The concept of business processes - interrelated activities aiming at creating a value added output to a
customer - is the basic underlying idea of Business Process Re-Engineering. These processes are
characterized by a number of attributes: Process ownership, customer focus, value adding, and cross-
functionality.

Aim:

Business process Re-Engineering is aimed to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their
work in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs.

Definition:

“Fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business process to achieve dramatic improvements in

critical measures of performance such as cost, service, and speed.”- Michael Hammer and James
Champy(1993).

Definition 2:

“Encompasses the envisioning of new work strategies, the actual process design activity, and the
implementation of the change in all its complex technological, human, and organizational dimensions.”-
Thomas H. Davenport(1993).
Reengineering starts with a high-level assessment of the organization's mission, strategic goals,
and customer needs. 

Principles of Re-Engineering by Hamper and Champy:

1. Organize around outcomes, not tasks.

2. Identify all the processes in an organization and prioritize them in order of redesign urgency.
3. Integrate information processing work into the real work that produces the information.
4. Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized.
5. Link parallel activities in the workflow instead of just integrating their results.
6. Put the decision point where the work is performed, and build control into the process.
7. Capture information once and at the source.

These Principles are helped to streamline the work process and thereby achieve significant levels of
improvement in quality, time management, speed and profitability.

Basic phase of Re-Engineering:

1. Re-think.
2. Re-design
3. Re-tool

Important Elements of Re-Engineering:

1. Top Management’s Approval and support

2. Clear plan of review
3. A vision
4. Information Technology(to forecast a company’s goal)
5. Necessary Databases and Network.

Comparison with Kaizen Management

Business Process Re- Engineering Kaizen management

1. Technology Oriented 1. People Oriented

2. Harder to Implement 2. Easier to Implement
3. Radical change 3. Gradual Change
4. Requires change management skills 4. Requires Long term Discipline

Benefits of Re-Engineering:

1. Radical Improvement in performance like cost, Quality, and cycle time.

2. It boosts competitiveness.
3. It encourages revolutionary thinking in an Organization.
4. It promotes breakthrough Improvements.
5. It transforms an organization from job centered to customer focused organization.
6. It helps to radically change the Corporate Culture.
7. It encourages the workers at all level to make their suggestions for Improvement.
8. It helps to create more challenging and more rewarding jobs for employees.
9. It helps company to respond well to competitive pressure.
 10. It eliminates the conventional practices in favor of problem solving and decision making.

Business Process Reengineering Life Cycle

Define corporate visions and business goals

Visioning

Identify business processes to be reengineered

Identifying

Analyze and measure an existing process

Analyzing

Identify enabling IT & generate alternative process redesigns

Redesigning

Evaluate and select a process redesign

Evaluating

Implement the reengineered process

Implementing

Continuous improvement of the process

Improving

Manage change and stakeholder

interests

3.Process Mapping
Process mapping is one of the basic quality or process improvement tools used in Lean Six Sigma. It has
acquired more importance in recent times, given the complexities of processes and the need to capture and
visualize knowledge that resides with the people who perform the task. Often process mapping is looked at
as an exercise in drawing some boxes and arrows and then filling up the boxes with a few words. This
commonly results in process maps that run into many pages, making it very difficult to read and understand
and that take too much time to modify. Some basic rules can be applied to creating process maps that make
them easier to understand and use. 

Process mapping is a workflow diagram to bring forth a clearer understanding of a process or series of
parallel processes.

Most organizations that want to move "up a notch" are process mapping using one or more of the following:
Deming's Total Quality Management model, International Standard Organization criteria, Goldratt's Theory
of Constraints, Baldrige Criteria for Excellence, or the Balanced Score Card.

Work Flow Mapping

Work-flow (process) mapping is one of the fastest ways to lower errors, increase productivity, and affect
customer service. It generally follows these steps:

1. Choose a process. You have to first decide what you want to improve. Some examples are the
process of making reservations at a corporate travel centre, handling a customer's repair order at a car
dealership, or registering students at a college. The best bet is a process which is time-consuming,
error-prone, or critical to success; starting where there is a strong potential for improvement will
build morale and help launch later mapping projects.
2. Assemble a team. Preferably, the team will include people from the lowest and highest levels
directly involved in the operation, such as customer service agents, their supervisors and managers,
and the head of operations. The team must be empowered (given the responsibility and sufficient
authority or leeway) to make significant changes in the work flow.
3. Map out the way work is currently done. Diagram each step, showing decision branches, time
spent, any distances travelled or people contacted, and other important aspects of the work. It is often
be easier to sketch out the individual tasks first, then go back and fill in the details.
4. Identify problem areas. These are areas where people feel there are currently major issues to be
resolved, such as poor customer satisfaction, "dropping the ball," large expenses, or significant
delays. Where there are many areas to choose from, try to follow the 80/20 rule: work on the 20% of
the areas that cause 80% of the problems.
5. Brainstorm solutions. Identify all possible action steps for each problem area, without evaluating
them.
6. Evaluate action steps. Set up a set of "final" action steps by group consensus.
7. Assign responsibilities. Ask people to volunteer to take responsibility for each action step judged to
be worthwhile by the group, and to set deadlines.
 8. Create a master plan. Summarize who has responsibility for what actions and the deadlines.
Distribute the plan and make sure everyone agrees with it and that it accurately reflects the decisions
made during the sessions.
9. Follow through. The meetings are useless without appropriate follow-through. Try meeting again
every two weeks to see what went well and what did not. When the time is right, try having another
brainstorming session. This is where having a detailed, clear, and well communicated master plan is
invaluable. To be effective, work flow mapping should be facilitated by an experienced process
consultant.
A Working Definition of Employee Involvement

Employee involvement seeks to increase members’ input into decisions that affect organization performance
and employee well-being. It can be described in terms of four key elements that promote worker
involvement:
Power. This element of EI includes providing people with enough authority to make work-related decisions
covering various issues such as work methods, task assignments, performance outcomes, customer services
and employee selection. The amount of power afforded employees can vary enormously, from simply asking
them for input into decisions that managers subsequently make, to managers and workers jointly making
decisions, to employees making decisions themselves.

Information. Timely access to relevant information is vital to making effective decisions. Organizations can
promote EI by ensuring that the necessary information flows freely to those with decision authority. This
can include data about operating results, business plans, competitive conditions, new technologies and work
methods, and ideas for organizational improvement.

Knowledge and skills. Employee involvement contributes to organizational effectiveness only to the extent
that employees have the requisite skills and knowledge to make good decisions. Organizations can facilitate
EI by providing training and development programs for improving members’ knowledge and skills. Such
learning can cover an array of expertise having to do with performing tasks, making decisions, solving
problems, and understanding how the business operates.

Rewards. Because people generally do those things for which they are recognized, rewards can have a
powerful effect on getting people involved in the organization. Meaningful opportunities for involvement
can provide employees with internal rewards, such as feelings of self-worth and accomplishment. External
Rewards, such as pay and promotions, can reinforce EI when they are linked directly to performance
outcomes that result from participation in decision making.

Those four elements power information, knowledge and skills, and rewards contribute to El success by
determining how much employee participation in decision making is possible in organization. The farther
that all four elements are moved downward throughout the organization, the greater the employee
involvement. Furthermore, because the four elements of El are interdependent they must be changed
together to obtain positive results. For example, if organization members are given more power and
authority to make decisions but do not have the information or knowledge and skill to make good decisions,
then the value of involvement is likely to be negligible. Similarly, increasing employees' power information,
and knowledge and skills but not linking rewards to the performance consequences of changes gives
members little incentive to improve organizational performance. The El methods that will be described here
vary in how much involvement is afforded employees. Parallel structures, such as union- management
cooperative efforts and quality circles, are limited in the degree that the four elements of EI are moved
downward in the organization; high-involvement organizations and total quality management provide far
greater opportunities for involvement.

How Employee Involvement Affects Productivity?

An assumption underlying much of the El literature is that such interventions will lead to higher
productivity. Although this premise has been based mainly on anecdotal evidence and a good deal of
speculation, there is now a growing body of research findings to support that linkage. Studies have found a
consistent relationship between El practices and such productivity measures as financial performance,
customer satisfaction, labor hours, and waste rates. Attempts to explain this positive linkage traditionally
have followed the idea that giving people more involvement in work decisions raises their job satisfaction
and, in turn, their productivity. There is growing evidence that this satisfaction- causes-productivity premise
is too simplistic and sometimes wrong. El practices, such as participation in workplace decisions, can
improve productivity in at least three ways.
First, such interventions can improve communication and coordination among employees and
organizational departments and help integrate the different jobs or departments that contribute to an overall
task.
Second, El interventions can improve employee motivation, particularly when they satisfy important
individual needs. Motivation is translated into improved performance when people have the necessary skills
and knowledge to perform well and when the technology and work situation allow people to affect
productivity. For example, some jobs are so rigidly controlled and specified that individual motivation can
have little impact on productivity.

Third, EI practices can improve the capabilities of employees, thus enabling them to perform better. For
example, attempts to increase employee participation in decision making generally include skill training
ingroup problem solving and communication

Parallel Structures:

Parallel structures involve members in resolving ill-defined, complex problems and build adaptability into
bureaucratic organizations. Also known as "collateral structures," "dualistic structures,' or "shadow
structures," parallel structures operate in conjunction with the formal organization. They provide members
with an alternative setting in which to address problems and to propose innovative solutions free from the
formal organization structure and culture. For example, members may attend periodic off-site meetings to
explore ways to improve quality in their work area or they may be temporarily assigned to a special project
or facility to devise new products or solutions to organizational problems. Parallel structures facilitate
problem solving and change by providing time and resources for members to think, talk, and act in
completely new ways. Consequently, norms and procedures for working in parallel structures are entirely
different from those of the formal organization. This section describes the application steps associated with
most parallel structures; discusses two specific applications cooperative union-management projects and
quality circles; and reviews the research on their effectiveness

Application Stages Cooperative union–management projects and quality circle interventions fall at the
lower end of the EI scale. Member participation and influence typicallyare restricted to making proposals
and to offering suggestions for change because subsequent decisions about implementing the proposals are
reserved for management. Membership in parallel structures also tends to be limited, primarily to volunteers
and to numbers of employees for which there are adequate resources. Management heavily influences the
conditions under which parallel structures operate. It controls the amount of authority that members have in
making recommendations, the amount of information that is shared with them, the amount of training they
receive to increase their knowledge and skills, and the amount of monetary rewards for participation.
Because parallel structures offer limited amounts of EI, they are most appropriate for organizations with
little or no history of employee participation, top-down management styles, and bureaucratic cultures.
Cooperative union–management and quality circle programs typically are implemented in the following
steps:

1.Define the Purpose and Scope.

This first step involves defining the purpose for the parallel structure and initial expectations about how it
will function. Organizational diagnosis can help clarify which specific problems and issues to address, such
as productivity, absenteeism, or service quality. In addition, management training in the use of parallel
structures can include discussions about the commitment and resources necessary to implement them; the
openness needed to examine organizational practices, operations, and policies; and the willingness to
experiment and learn.

2.Form a Steering Committee.

Parallel structures typically use a steering committee composed of acknowledged leaders of the various
functions and constituencies within the formal organization. For example, in cooperative union–
management projects, the steering committee would include key representatives from management, such as
a president or chief operating officer, and each of the unions and employee groups involved in the project,
such as local union presidents. This committee performs the following tasks:

Refining the scope and purpose of the parallel structure Developing a vision for the effort Guiding the
creation and implementation of the structure Establishing the linkage mechanisms between the parallel
structure and the formal organization Creating problem-solving groups and activities Ensuring the support of
senior management. OD practitioners can play an important role in forming the steering committee. First,
they can help to establish the team and select appropriate members. Second, they can assist in developing
and maintaining group norms of learning and innovation. These norms set the tone for problem solving
throughout the parallel structure. Third, they can help the committee create a vision statement that refines
the structure’s purpose and promotes ownership of it. Fourth, they can help committee members develop and
specify objectives and strategies, organizational expectations and required resources, and potential rewards
for participation in the parallel structure.

3. Communicate with Organization Members.

The effectiveness of a parallel structure depends on a high level of involvement from organization members.
Communicating the purpose, procedures, and rewards of participation can promote that involvement.
Moreover, employee participation in developing a structure’s vision and purpose can increase ownership and
visibly demonstrate the “new way” of working. Continued communication concerning parallel structure
activities can ensure member awareness.
4. Create Forums for Employee Problem Solving.
These forums are the primary means of accomplishing the purpose of the parallel learning structure. The
most common forum is the employee problem-solving group. Their formation involves selecting and
training group members, identifying problems for the groups to work on, and providing appropriate
facilitation. Selecting group members is important because success often is a function of group
membership.17 Members need to represent the appropriate hierarchical levels, expertise, functions, and
constituencies that are relevant to the problems at hand. This allows the parallel structure to identify and
communicate with the formal structure. It also provides the necessary resources to solve the problems. Ad
hoc committees may also be formed, as when workers and managers initiate action to address an issue of
 interest to the parallel organization. Ad hoc teams are typically charged with a particular task and have a
limited lifetime.
Once formed, the groups need appropriate training. This may include discussions about the vision of the
parallel structure, the specific problems to be addressed, and the way those problems will be solved. As in
the steering committee, group norms promoting openness, creativity, and integration need to be established.

1.Work Design

This refers to OD interventions aimed at creating jobs, and workgroups that generate high levels of
employee fulfilment and productivity. This techno-structural intervention can be part of a larger employee
involvement application, or it can be an independent change program. Work design has been researched and
applied extensively in organizations. Recently, organizations have tended to combine work design with
formal structure and supporting changes in goal setting, reward systems, work environment, and other
performance management practices. There are three approaches to work design. The Engineering approach
focuses on efficiency and simplification, and results in traditional job and work group designs. Telephone
operators and data-entry positions are examples of this job design. A second approach is work enrichment
and rests on motivational theories and attempts to enrich the work experience. Job enrichment involves
designing jobs with high levels of meaning, discretion, and knowledge of results. A well researched model
focusing on job attributes has helped clear up methodological problems with this important intervention. The
third approach is socio-technical approach and seeks to optimize both social and technical aspects of work
systems. This method has led to a popular form of work design called “self managed teams” which are
composed of multi-skilled members performing interrelated tasks. Members are given the knowledge,
information, and power necessary to control their own task behaviours with relatively little external control.

1.Work Design at group level

The following interventions deal with interpersonal relationships and group dynamics.

 T Groups: The basic T Group brings ten to fifteen strangers together with a professional trainer to
examine the social dynamics that emerge from their interactions.
 Process Consultation: This intervention focuses on interpersonal relations and social dynamics
occurring in work groups.
 Third Party Interventions: This change method is a form of process consultation aimed at
dysfunctional interpersonal relations in organizations.
 Team Building: This intervention helps work groups become more effective in accomplishing tasks.

The following Interventions deal with human processes that are more system wide than individualistic
or small-group oriented.
 Organization Confrontation Meeting: This change method mobilizes organization members to
identify problems, set action targets, and begin working on problems.
 Intergroup Relations: These interventions are designed to improve interactions among different
groups or departments in organizations.
 Large-group Interventions: These interventions involve getting abroad variety of stakeholders into
a large meeting to clarify important values, to develop new ways of working, to articulate a new vision for
the organization, or to solve pressing organizational problems.
 Grid Organization Development: This normative intervention specifies a particular way to manage
an organization.

These interventions deal with an organization’s technology (for examples its task methods and job design)
and structure (for example, division of labour and hierarchy).

These interventions are rooted in the disciplines of engineering, sociology, and psychology and in the
applied fields of socio-technical systems and organization design. Practitioners place emphasis both on
productivity and human fulfilment.
 Structural Design: This change process concerns the organization’s division of labour – how to
specialize task performances. Diagnostic guidelines exist to determine which structure is appropriate for
particular organizational environments, technologies, and conditions.
 Downsizing: This intervention reduces costs and bureaucracy by decreasing the size of the
organization through personnel layoffs, organization redesign, and outsourcing.
 Re-engineering: This recent intervention radically redesigns the organization’s core work processes
to create tighter linkage and coordination among the different tasks
 Parallel Structures
 High-involvement Organizations (HIO’s)
 Total Quality Management
 Work design: This refers to OD interventions aimed at creating jobs, and work groups that generate
high levels of employee fulfilment and productivity.
 Goal Setting: This change program involves setting clear and challenging goals.  It attempts to
improve organization effectiveness by establishing a better fit between personal and organizational
objectives.
 Performance Appraisal: This intervention is a systematic process of jointly assessing work-related
achievements, strengths and weaknesses,
 Reward Systems: This intervention involves the design of organizational rewards to improve
employee satisfaction and performance.
 Career Planning and development: It generally focuses on managers and professional staff and is
seen as a way of improving the quality of their work life.
 Managing workforce diversity: Important trends, such as the increasing number of women, ethnic
minorities, and physically and mentally challenged people in the workforce, require a more flexible set
of policies and practices.
 Employee Wellness: These interventions include employee assistance programs (EAPs) and stress
management.

2.Work Design at individual level

Work Design At Individual Levels

Work design has been researched and applied extensively in organizations. Recently, organizations have
tended to combine work design with formal structure and supporting changes in goal setting, reward
systems, work environment, and other performance management practices. These organizational factors can
help structure and reinforce the kinds of work behaviours associated with specific work designs We will
examine three approaches to work design. First, the engineering approach, which focuses on efficiency and
simplification, and results in traditional job and work group designs. Second approach to work design rests
on motivational theories and attempts to enrich the work experience. The third and most recent approach to
work design derives from socio-technical systems methods, and seeks to optimize both the social and the
technical aspects of work systems. The Engineering Approach: The oldest and most prevalent approach to
designing work is based on engineering concepts and methods. It proposes that the most efficient work
designs can be determined by clearly specifying the tasks to be performed, the work methods to be used, and
the work flow among individuals. The engineering approach is based on the pioneering work of Frederick
Taylor, the father of scientific management. He developed methods for analyzing and designing work and
laid the foundation for the professional field of industrial engineering. The engineering approach
scientifically analyses workers' tasks to discover those procedures that produce the maximum output with
the minimum input of energies and resources. This generally results in work designs with high levels of
specialization and specification. Such designs have several benefits: they allow workers to learn tasks
rapidly; they permit short work cycles so performance can take place with little or no mental effort; and they
reduce costs because lower-skilled people can be hired and trained easily and paid relatively low wages. The
engineering approach produces two kinds of work design: traditional jobs and traditional work groups.
When the work can be completed by one person, such as with bank tellers and telephone operators,
traditional jobs are created. These jobs tend to be simplified, with routine and repetitive tasks having clear
specifications concerning time and motion. When the work requires coordination among people, such ason
automobile assembly lines, traditional work groups are developed. They are composed of members
performing relatively routine yet related tasks.

The overall group task is typically broken into simpler, discrete parts (often called jobs). The tasks and work
methods are specified for each part, and the parts are assigned to group members. Each member performs a
routine and repetitive part of the group task. Members' separate task contributions are coordinated for overall
task achievement through such external controls as schedules, rigid work flows, and supervisors. In the
1950s and 1960s, this method of work design was popularized by the assembly lines of American
automobile manufacturers and was an important reason for the growth of American industry following
World War II. The engineering approach to job design is less an OD intervention than a benchmark in
history. Critics of the approach argue that the method ignores workers' social and psychological needs. They
suggest that the rising educational level of the workforce and the substitution of automation for menial labor
point to the need for more enriched forms of work in which people have greater discretion and are more
challenged. Moreover, the current competitive climate requires a more committed and involved workforce
able to make online decisions and to develop performance innovations. Work designed with the employee in
mind is more humanly fulfilling and productive than that designed in traditional ways. However, it is
important to recognize the strengths of the engineering approach. It remains an important work design
intervention because its immediate cost savings and efficiency can be measured readily, and because it is
well understood and easily implemented and managed.

Motivational Approach:

The motivational approach to work design views the effectiveness of organizational activities primarily as a
function of member needs and satisfaction, and seeks to improve employee performance and satisfaction by
enriching jobs. The motivational method provides people with opportunities for autonomy, responsibility,
closure (that is, doing a complete job), and performance feedback. Enriched jobs are popular in the United
States at such companies as AT&T Universal Card, TRW, Dayton Hudson, and GTE. The motivational
approach usually is associated with the research of Herzberg and of Hackman and Oldham. Herzberg's two-
factor theory of motivation proposed that certain attributes of work, such as opportunities for advancement
and recognition, which he called motivators, help increase job satisfaction. Other attributes that Herzberg
called hygiene factors, such as company policies, working conditions, pay, and supervision, do not produce
satisfaction but rather prevent dissatisfaction-important contributors because only satisfied workers are
motivated to produce. Successful job enrichment experiments at AT&T, Texas Instruments, and Imperial
Chemical Industries helped to popularize job enrichment in the 1960s. Although Herzberg's motivational
factors sound appealing, increasing doubt has been cast on the underlying theory. Motivation and hygiene
factors are difficult to put into operation and measure, and that makes implementation and evaluation of the
theory difficult. Furthermore, important worker characteristics that can affect whether people will respond
favourably to job enrichment were not included in his theory. Finally, Herzberg's failure to involve
employees in the job enrichment process itself does not suit most OD practitioners today. Consequently, a
second, well-researched approach to job enrichment has been favoured. It focuses on the attributes of the
work itself and has resulted in a more scientifically acceptable theory of job enrichment than Herzberg's
model. The research of Hackman and Oldham represents this more recent trend in job enrichment.

The Core Dimensions of Jobs:

Considerable research has been devoted to defining and understanding core job dimensions. Figure below
summarizes the Hack man and Oldham model of job design. Five core dimensions of work affect three
critical psychological states, which in turn produce personal and job outcomes. These outcomes include high
internal work motivation, high-quality work performance, satisfaction with the work, and low absenteeism
and turnover. The five core job dimensions--skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and
feedback from the work itself--are described below and associated with the critical psychological states that
they create.
Skill Variety, Task Identity, and Task Significance:

These three core job characteristics influence the extent to which work is perceived as meaningful.

Skill variety refers to the number and types of skills used to perform a particular task. Employees at
Lechmere's, a retail chain in Florida, can work as warehouse stock clerks, cashiers, and salespeople. The
more tasks an individual performs, the more meaningful the job becomes. When skill variety is increased by
moving a person from one job to another, a form of job enrichment called job rotation is accomplished.
However, simply rotating a person from one boring job to another is not likely to produce the outcomes
associated with a fully enriched job.

Task identity describes the extent to which an individual performs a whole piece of work. For example, an
employee who completes an entire wheel assembly for an airplane, including the tire, chassis, brakes, and
electrical and hydraulic systems has more task identity and will perceive the work as more meaningful than
someone who only assembles the braking subsystem. Job enlargement, another form of job enrichment that
combines increases in skill variety with task identity, blends several narrow jobs into one larger, expanded
job. For example, separate machine set-up, machining, and inspection jobs might be combined into one. This
method can increase meaningfulness, job satisfaction, and motivation when employees comprehend and like
the greater task complexity.

Task significance represents the impact that the work has on others. In jobs with high task significance,
such as nursing, consulting, or manufacturing something like sensitive parts for the space shuttle, the
importance of successful task completion creates meaningfulness for the worker. Experienced
meaningfulness is expressed as an average of these three dimensions. Thus, although it is advantageous to
have high amounts of skill variety, task identity, and task significance, a strong emphasis on any one of the
three dimensions can, at least partially, make up for deficiencies in the other two. Autonomy: This refers to
the amount of independence, freedom, and discretion that the employee has to schedule and perform tasks.
Salespeople, for example, often have considerable autonomy in how they contact, develop, and close new
accounts, whereas assembly-line workers often have to adhere to work specifications clearly detailed in a
policy-and-procedure manual. Employees are more likely to experience responsibility for their work
outcomes when high amounts of autonomy exist.

Feedback from the Work Itself: This core dimension represents the information that workers receive about
the effectiveness of their work. It can derive from the work itself, as when determining whether an
assembled part functions properly or it can come from such external sources as reports on defects, budget
variances, customer satisfaction, and the like. Because feedback from the work itself is direct and generates
intrinsic satisfaction, it is considered preferable to feedback from external sources. Skill variety, task
identity, and task significance jointly determine jobs meaningfulness.

These three dimensions are treated as one dimension in the Motivation Potential Score formula, or MPS

Motivation Potential Score (MPS) = Job Meaningfulness x Autonomy x Job Feedback

The first variable in the formula, job meaningfulness, is a function of skill variety, task identity, and task
significance. Thus the formula can further be refined: Motivation Potential Score (MPS) = [Skill Variety
+ Task identity + Task significance] x Autonomy x Job Feedback

Individual Differences:

Not all people react in similar ways to job enrichment interventions. Individual differences--among them, a
worker's knowledge and skill levels, growth-need strength, and satisfaction with contextual factors--
moderate the relationships among core dimensions, psychological states, and outcomes. "Worker knowledge
and skill" refers to the education and experience levels characterizing the workforce. If employees lack the
appropriate skills, for example, increasing skill variety may not improve a job's meaningfulness. Similarly, if
workers lack the intrinsic motivation to grow and develop personally, attempts A to provide them with
increased autonomy may be resisted. Finally, contextual factors include reward systems, supervisory style,
and co-worker satisfaction. When the employee is unhappy with the work context, attempts to enrich the
work itself may be unsuccessful.

Application Stages: The basic steps for job enrichment as described by Hackman and Oldham include
making a thorough diagnosis of the situation, forming natural work units, combining tasks, establishing
client relationships, vertical loading, and opening feedback channels.

Making a Thorough Diagnosis: The most popular method of diagnosing a job is through the use of the Job
Diagnostic Survey (JDS) or one of its variations. An important output of the JDS is the motivating potential
score, which is a function of the three psychological states--experienced meaningfulness, autonomy, and
feedback. The survey can be used to profile one or more jobs, to determine whether motivation and
satisfaction are really problems or whether the job is low in motivating potential, and to isolate specific job
aspects that are causing difficulties.

Forming Natural Work Units: As much as possible, natural work units should be formed. Although there
may be a number of technological constraints, interrelated task activities should be grouped together. The
basic question in forming natural work units is "How can one increase 'ownership' of the task?" Forming
such natural units increases two of the core dimensions--task identity and task significance--that contribute
to the meaningfulness of work.

Combining Tasks: Frequently, divided jobs can be put back together to form a new and larger one. In the
Medfield, Massachusetts, plant of Corning Glass Works, the task of assembling laboratory hotplates was
redesigned by combining a number of previously separate tasks. After the change, each hotplate was
completely assembled, inspected, and shipped by one operator, resulting in increased productivity of 84
percent. Controllable rejects dropped from 23 percent to less than 1 percent, and absenteeism dropped from
8 percent to less than 1 percent. A later analysis indicated that the change in productivity was the result of
the intervention. Combining tasks increases task identity and allows a worker to use a greater variety of
skills. The hotplate assembler can identify with a product finished for shipment, and self-inspection of his or
her work adds greater task significance, autonomy, and feedback from the job itself.