JOB DESIGN

AND

EMPLOYEE

MOTIVATION Abstract

In this paper, we discuss how Motivation (a human variable) and Job Design

(a technical variable) interact with each other and affect the performance of

an organization. We discuss the impacts of these variables on certain

outcome variables like productivity, absenteeism and OCB etc.

Ankit Prakash Gupta (Y8091) Nagesh Rathi (Y8309)

1. Introduction

Organization is the strength of any business. The more organized and

efficient the different components of an organization are, the better it

functions and produces. Breaking down tasks associated with each

component in the system has led to the concept of job design. Job design

came about with rapid technological advancement sat the turn of the 20th

century when mass production and assembly line operations emerged. As

jobs continue to become more sophisticated and specialized, the need for an

educated and motivated workforce has become indispensable.

Workers today are motivated by many different intentions. Some of these

causes are considered as a needed entity or as a desired. Many

organizations all over the globe throughout the past hundred years have

focused on theories that motivate the workers to be the best they can be.

Many of the theories of motivation have proven to be true.

Managers have the responsibility of designing jobs. If they ignore this

responsibility, employees will design their own jobs. Not surprisingly, the

jobs designed by employees are more likely to be attuned to employee

experiences and preferences than to the goals of the business. Neither the

business nor the employees are long-term winners from managers defaulting

job design to employees.

Job design serves to improve performance and motivation. Job-design

analysis starts by looking at a job with a broad perspective and swiftly

moves toward identifying the specific activities required to do the job. This is

done for the purpose of identifying and correcting any deficiencies that affect

performance and motivation.

In this study we intend to explore the major features of job design and

motivation affecting the organizations today and their effect on the

performance of the organization. Section 2 discusses Motivation and the

various theories of Motivation. Job Design is discussed in section 3. Section 4

includes the theories on the interaction between Job Design and Motivation.

Then, we talk about the various approaches to Job Design in Section 5

followed by the effects of Job Design and Motivation on the various outcome

variables in Section 6.

2. Motivation

Motivation is defined as the psychological processes that account for an

individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort towards any goal

[Stephen P. Robbins]. The three key elements in this definition are intensity,

direction and persistence. Intensity is concerned with how hard a person

tries. However, high intensity is unlikely to lead to favorable job-

performance outcomes unless the effort is channeled in a direction that

benefits the organization. Thus the quality and the intensity of the effort

both need to be considered. Persistence is the measure of how long a person

can maintain their effort. Most psychologists believe that all motivation is

ultimately derived from a tension that results when one or more of our

important needs are unsatisfied (Dessler 1986, 332).

Motivation is an organization's life-blood; yet "motivation," as a business

subject, is largely ignored. Even when not ignored, it certainly is not a focal

point for strategic thinking. Seldom is a clear, coherent, and overall

approach taken to the challenge of motivating people. Most organizations

don't give it much thought until something starts to go wrong. Essentially

three factors explain why some employees are motivated to work, while

others are not:

1. The motivation to work varies widely in people.

2. In the past decade, there has been a significant change in many

employees’ attitude towards work.

3. The increase in various government social support programs has

contributed significantly to the decline in work motivation in many

people (Stanton 1983, 211).

A review of classical literature and recent theory on motivation reveals four

major theory areas:

1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The needs hierarchy system devised by Maslow (1954), is a commonly

used scheme for classifying human motives. It involves five categories

of motives arranged with lower level needs at bottom which must be

satisfied first, before the higher level needs come into play. The five

general levels of need are shown in the figure below.

To the extent that lower-order needs become satisfied, the next

higher-order level of needs becomes the most pre-potent determinant

of behavior. The extent to which the jobs incorporate the elements

that satisfy some higher order human needs determines their potential

for motivating workers.

2. Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene Theory

This theory has been discussed later under the topic Job Design and

Motivation.

3. McGregor X-Y theory

Douglas McGregor, an American social psychologist, proposed his

famous X-Y theory in his 1960 book 'The Human Side Of Enterprise'.

XY theory proposes that organizations follow one of two approaches in their

management of people.

Theory X

This theory is also referred to as “the authoritarian management

style”, as it states that the average person needs to be coerced (even

threatened with punishment), into working towards organizational

objectives.

The average employee does not like work and will attempt to avoid it.

As employees are lazy they do not want responsibility and have no

ambition.

Individuals prefer to be directed and want security above everything

else.

Individuals need to be closely supervised and controlled.

Theory Y

Also known as “the participative management style” it states that:

The average employee likes work, and is self-motivated.

Individuals are ambitious not lazy, and work is as natural as rest and

play.

Individuals exercise self-control and self-direction to achieve objectives

that they are committed to. Threats of punishment are unnecessary.

The rewards of achievement generate commitment from employees.

If individuals are given freedom there is opportunity to increase

productivity.

Managers applying theory Y believe that if employees are given the

opportunity, they will develop a desire to be imaginative and creative at

work. They will therefore try and remove obstacles that prevent

employees from realizing their potential.

4. McClelland’s Need for Achievement Theory (n Ach)

The theory proposes that when a need is strong in a person, its effect

is to motivate the person to use behavior which leads to satisfaction of

the need. The need for achievement or n Ach involves the desire to

independently master objects, ideas and other people, and to increase

one’s self esteem through the exercise of one’s talent.

People with a high need for achievement (nAch) seek to excel and thus

tend to avoid both low-risk and high-risk situations. Achievers avoid

low-risk situations because the easily attained success is not a genuine

achievement. In high-risk projects, achievers see the outcome as one

of chance rather than one's own effort. High nAch individuals prefer

work that has a moderate probability of success, ideally a 50%

chance.

3. Job Design

During the early part of 20th century, organizational theorists attempted to

improve the efficiency and effectiveness of organizations by developing a set

of principles. The idea was that efficiency would be the ultimate criterion

toward which organizations should strive and that the use of rational

administrative practices and procedures would enable managers to reach

this goal. Classical theorists developed a number of principles that they

believed would maximize the rationality and efficiency of the organization.

These principles emphasized the importance of clear and unambiguous

channels of authority, centralization of decision making, adherence to rules

and regulations, and the division of labor. In essence, this principle specifies

that maximum work efficiency will be achieved if jobs are simplified and

specialized to the greatest extent possible.

The dawn of the Industrial Revolution changed the nature of work, spawning

the use of assembly-line systems that maximized employee efficiency and

minimized the employee skills needed to perform the work. This new nature

of work simultaneously led to employee problems with morale, working

conditions, and safety. A report of the special task force to the secretary of

Health, Education and Welfare in USA stated, “Significant numbers of

American workers are dissatisfied with the quality of their working lives.

Dull, repetitive, seemingly meaningless tasks, offering little challenge or

autonomy, are causing discontent among workers at all levels.” As

limitations in these approaches became obvious, personnel practitioners and

researchers began to focus their attention upon a more motivationally

oriented approach. The result was Job Redesign. Job design and its

approaches are usually considered to have begun with scientific

management in the year 1900. Pioneering scientific managers such as Taylor

(1947), Gilbreth (1911), and Gilbreth (1917) systematically examined jobs

with various techniques. They suggested that task design might be the most

prominent element in scientific management.

The term Job Redesign refers to activities that involve the alteration of

specific jobs (or systems of jobs) with the intent of improving both

productivity and the quality of employee work experiences. Derived from

psychological research on job enrichment and enlargement and theories of

work motivation, it primarily sought to enhance worker satisfaction and

provide for intrinsic needs. More attention is being paid to job design for

three major reasons:

Job design can influence performance in certain jobs, especially those

where employee motivation can make a substantial difference. Lower cost

through reduced turnover and absenteeism are also related to good job

design.

Job design can affect job satisfaction. Because people are more satisfied

with certain job configurations than with others, it is important to be able

to identify what makes a “good” job.

Job design can affect both physical and mental health. Example problems

such as backache or leg pain can sometimes be traced directly to job

design, as can stress and related high blood pressure and heart disease.

4. Job Design and Motivation

Over the past 10 years, behavioral scientists have studied the characteristics

of jobs and how they affect the employee’s motivation to work. In general,

individuals may experience higher-order needs satisfaction when they learn

that as a result of their own efforts they have accomplished something

worthwhile or meaningful. In an attempt to coalesce the major findings from

this literature, three major factors appear relevant.

First, the job should allow a worker to feel personally responsible for a

meaningful portion of his or her work. A job is meaningful to an individual

when he or she feels personally responsible for the job’s success or failure.

The key to this is autonomy.

Second, the job should involve doing something intrinsically meaningful or

otherwise experienced as worthwhile to the individual.

Third, the job should provide feedback about what is accomplished.

Knowledge of one’s task performance is a requirement for higher-order

needs satisfaction. If an employee is working on a task that is meaningful,

for which he or she is held personally responsible, satisfaction of higher

order needs will not he obtained unless some form of task feedback is

provided. Feedback can originate from either doing the task itself, or from

others, such as supervisors, co-workers, or customers.

4.1. Theories of Job Design & Motivation

Most work redesign activities are guided by one or another of the four

theoretical approaches.

ACTIVATION THEORY

Employees who work on highly routine jobs are often observed to daydream,

to chat with others rather than work on their tasks, to make frequent

readjustments of posture and position, and so on. Numerous human

problems have been associated with work on routine, repetitive tasks.

Included are diminished alertness, decreased responsiveness to new

stimulus inputs, and even impairment of muscular coordination. Activation

theory can help account for such behaviors (Scott, 1966).

Basically, activation theory specifies that a person's level of activation or

"arousal" decreases when sensory input in unchanging or repetitive, leading

to the kinds of behavior specified above. Varying or unexpected patterns of

stimuli, on the other hand, keep an individual activated and more alert. One

approach to work redesign that is based on activation theory is that of job

rotation, that is, rotating an individual through a number of different jobs in

a given day or week, with the expectation that these varied job experiences

will keep the person from suffering the negative consequences of excessively

low activation.

Except for the pioneering work by Scott (1966) and more recent theorizing

by Schwab and Cummings(1976), relatively little progress has been made in

applying the tenets of activation theory to the design of jobs so that they

foster and maintain high task-oriented motivation.

MOTIVATION-HYGIENE THEORY

The most influential theory of work redesign to date has been the Herzberg

two-factor theory of satisfaction and motivation (Herzberg, 1976; Herzberg,

Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959). This theory proposes that factors intrinsic to

the work determine how satisfied people are at work. These factors, called

"motivators," include recognition, achievement, responsibility, advancement,

and personal growth in competence. Dissatisfaction, on the other hand, is

caused by factors extrinsic to the work, termed "hygienes." Examples

include company policies, pay plans, working conditions, and supervisory

practices. According to the Herzberg theory, a job will enhance work

motivation only to the extent that motivators are designed into the work

itself; changes that deal solely with hygiene factors will not generate

improvements.

Motivation-hygiene theory has inspired a number of successful change

projects involving the redesign of work. Because the message of motivation-

hygiene theory is simple, persuasive, and directly relevant to the design and

evaluation of actual organizational changes, the theory continues to be

widely known and generally used by managers of organizations.

JOB CHARACTERISTICS THEORY

This approach attempts to specify the objective characteristics of jobs that

create conditions for high levels of internal work motivation on the part of

employees. Based on earlier research by Turner and Lawrence (1965),

current statements of the theory suggest that individuals will be internally

motivated to perform well when they experience the work as meaningful;

they feel they have personal responsibility for the work outcomes, and they

obtain regular and trustworthy knowledge of the results of their work. Five

objective job characteristics are specified as the key ones in creating these

conditions: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and

feedback from the job itself (Hackman & Lawler, 1971; Hackman & Oldham,

1976).

When a job is redesigned to increase its standing on these characteristics,

improvements in the motivation, satisfaction, and performance of job

incumbents are predicted. However, individual differences in employee

knowledge and skill and in need for personal growth are posited as

influencing the effects of the job characteristics on work behaviors and

attitudes. Strongest effects are predicted for individuals with ample job-

relevant knowledge and skill and relatively strong growth needs.

SOCIOTECHNICAL SYSTEMS THEORY

The sociotechnical systems approach emphasizes the importance of

designing entire work systems, in which the social and technical aspects of

the workplace are integrated and mutually supportive of one another (Emery

& Trist, 1969).

This approach emphasizes the fact that organizations are imbedded in, and

affected by, an outside environment. Especially important are cultural values

that specify how organizations "should" function and generally accepted

roles that individuals, groups, and organizations are supposed to play in

society. Thus, there is constant interchange between what goes on in any

given work organization and what goes on in its environment. This

interchange must be carefully attended to when work systems are designed

or changed (Davis & Trist, 1974).

When redesigned in accord with the sociotechnical approach, organization

members examine all aspects of organizational operations that might affect

how well the work is done or the quality of organization members'

experiences. Changes that emerge from these explorations invariably involve

numerous aspects of both the social and technical systems of the

organization. Such changes involve the formation of groups of employees

who share responsibility for carrying out a significant piece of work—the

"autonomous work group" (Cummings, 1978). Such groups are becoming an

increasingly popular organizational innovation and now are frequently seen,

even in work redesign projects that are not explicitly guided by

sociotechnical theory.

5. Approaches to Job Design

The approaches to job design have worked in different perspectives for

various organizational developments. These approaches are: job engineering

(J.Eng.); job enrichment (JE); quality of work life (QWL); social information

processing approach (SIPA) and job characteristics. Each approach has its

own costs and benefits, and no single approach is best; trade-offs will be

required in most practical situations.

Too often, jobs are developed haphazardly; they become arbitrary groupings

of activities that our machines cannot do. Little consideration is given to the

mental and physical capabilities, limitations, and needs of the workers who

must perform them.

Because of the academic discipline bases of the various job-design

approaches, each approach tends to be owned by a different staff specialty

or profession within an organization.

Job enrichment (JE)

The technique entails enriching the job, which refers to the inclusion of

greater variety of work content, requiring a higher level of knowledge and

skill, giving workers autonomy and responsibility in terms of planning,

directing, and controlling their own performance, and providing the

opportunity for personal growth and meaningful work experience.

Job engineering (JEng)

The scientific management approach evolved into what is now generally

called job engineering. It is closely associated with cybernation and

sophisticated computer applications, computer assisted design (CAD), and

human-machine interactions. In fact, it has been the dominant aspect of job

design analysis.

Quality of work life (QWL) and socio-technical design

The overriding purpose of quality of work life is to change the climate at

work so that the human-technological-organizational interface leads to a

better quality of work life.

Social information processing approach (SIPA)

The social information processing approach to job design suggests that

individual needs, task perceptions, and reactions are socially constructed

realities. The process includes choice, revocability, publicness, explicitness,

social norms and expectations, and external priming, which combine with

social information (from others and the organizational environment) and

influence the jobholders' perceptions, attitudes and behaviors.

The job characteristics approach to job design

To meet the limitations of Herzberg's approach to job enrichment (which he

prefers to call orthodox job enrichment (OJE), Hackman and Oldham (1976)

developed the most widely recognized model of job characteristics.

Basically, this model recognized certain job characteristics that contribute to

certain psychological states and that the strength of employees' need for

growth has an important moderating effect. The core job characteristics are

summarized below:

• Skill variety: This refers to the extent to which the job requires the

employee to draw from a number of different skills and abilities as well as

upon a range of knowledge.

• Task variety: This refers to whether the job has an identifiable beginning

and end or how complete a module of work the employee performs.

Individual jobs can focus on an entire unit as opposed to just a portion of it.

• Task significance: This involves the importance of the task. It involves both

internal significance (i.e. how important the task is to the organization) and

external significance (i.e. how proud employees are to tell their relatives,

friends, and neighbors what they do and where they work).

• Autonomy: This refers to job independence. How much freedom and

control employees have to perform their job, for example, schedule their

work, make decisions or determine the means to accomplish the objectives.

• Feedback: This refers to objective information about progress and

performance that can come from the job itself, from supervisors or from any

other information system.

Critical psychological states can be summarized as follows:

• Meaningfulness: This cognitive state involves the degree to which

employees perceive their work as making a valued contribution, as being

important and worthwhile.

• Responsibility: The degree to which the employee feels personally

accountable for the results of the work they do.

• Knowledge of results: The degree to which the employee knows and

understands, on a continuous basis, how effectively they perform their job.

In turn, the critical psychological states are accountable for increased work

satisfaction, internal work motivation, performance and reduced absence

and employee turnover. The model assumes that autonomy and feedback

are more important than the work characteristics, and that individuals with

higher growth need strength (i.e. desire for challenges and personal

development) will respond more positively to enriched jobs than others.

6. Outcomes of Job Design and Employee Motivation

Hackman et al. (1975) conducted a study and claimed that people on

enriched jobs are definitely more motivated and satisfied by their jobs. A

meta-analysis of the job characteristics model (Fried and Ferris, 1987) found

general support for the model and for its effects on motivation and

satisfaction and performance outcome. Another study conducted by Griffin

(1989) on 1,000 tellers from 38 banks of a large holding company found

from the job design intervention that employees perceive meaningful

changes and tend to recognize those changes over time. In addition to this,

Adler (1991) found that systems in which employees reported higher

perceptions of skill variety, task significance, autonomy, and feedback

reported higher levels of satisfaction and internal work motivation. Dodd and

Ganster (1996) examined the interactive relationship between feedback,

autonomy and variety by manipulating the characteristics in lab. Loher (et al.

1985) found the relation between job characteristics and job satisfaction and

also found that the relation was stronger for employees high in growth need

strength (GNS). Another study conducted by Morrison et al. (2005) found

that job designs that provide for high levels of employee control also provide

increased opportunities for the development and exercise of skill. Also,

mediational influence of perceived skill utilization on job control job

satisfaction has been observed. Love and Edwards (2005) concluded that

perceived work demands, job control and social support through job design

leads to high productivity.

Sokoya (2000) found in his study that the level of job satisfaction is

determined by a combination of jobs, work and personal characteristics.

Rotating managers to different jobs adds the benefit of task variety,

resulting in increased performance of employees. Bassey (2002) observed in

his study that skills, task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback, job

security and compensation are important factors for the motivation of

employees.

Effects on some individual variables are shown below:

1. Productivity: - Job Redesign effects the production adversely during the

change period when the jobs are being redesigned. This happens

primarily because the employee needs time to develop the required

skills for the new redesigned jobs. During the change the work

environment is characterized by uncertainty, work overload (extent to

which the job performance required is excessive, Iverson et al., 1995),

role overload (extent to which employees lack the necessary skills to

deal with job requirements, Iverson, et al., 1995) and stress level as

employees struggle to assume the work duties and responsibilities.

Emotional reactions to all of these include, fear, anxiety, feelings of job

insecurity, and sense of loss of friendly coworkers. This can hinder the

production during the change period significantly.

The efficiency and quality of work may increase over time as employees

gain experience with the task, gain a better understanding of

performance standards, increase proficiency at catching errors, and

become more aware of the most relevant sources of feedback.

Parker (2003) found that when autonomy was reduced through lean

production practices, employee-reported skill utilization also declined.

This suggests that increased autonomy should lead to increased

utilization of employee skills. Increases in autonomy allow an

organization to tap into the existing knowledge of the workforce as well

as fostering further learning (Parker, Wall, & Jackson, 1997; Wall &

Jackson, 1995). If employees learn more about an organizational

system, they are better able to anticipate and avoid problems (Wall,

Jackson, & Davids, 1992). Thus, job incumbents are better able to

leverage their existing knowledge (and develop new knowledge),

enhancing problem-solving behaviors.

The quality of the product or service provided generally improves. When

a job is well designed from a motivational point of view, the people who

work on that job tend to experience self-rewards when they perform

well. And, for most people, performing well means producing high-

quality work of which they can be proud (J. Richard Hackman, 1980).

The quantity of work done sometimes increases, sometimes is

unchanged, and sometimes even decreases. What happens to

production quantity when work is redesigned may depend mostly on the

state of the work system prior to redesign (Hackman & Oldham, 1980).

Specifically, productivity gains would be expected under two

circumstances: (a) when employees were previously exhibiting

markedly low productivity because they were actively "turned off by

highly routine or repetitive work or (b) when there were hidden

inefficiencies in the work system, as it was previously structured—for

example, redundancies in the work, unnecessary supervisory or

inspection activities, and so on. If such problems preexisted in the work

unit, then increases in the quantity of work performed are likely to

appear after the work is redesigned. If such problems were not present,

then quantity increases would not be anticipated; indeed, decreases in

quantity might even be noted as people worked especially hard on their

enriched jobs to produce work of especially high quality.

2. Job Satisfaction: - Work redesign, when competently executed in

appropriate organizational circumstances generally increases the work

satisfaction and motivation of employees whose jobs are enriched.

Especially strong effects have been found for employees' level of

satisfaction with opportunities for personal growth and development on

the job as well as for their level of internal work motivation (i.e.,

motivation to work hard and well because of the internal rewards that

good performance brings)(J. Richard Hackman, 1980).

Griffin (1982b, 1991) studied the effects of work redesign on employee

perception, attitudes and behaviors and found positive and desired

association between work redesign and attitudes (job satisfaction and

commitment), and increased productivity. Wall et al. (1986) conducted

studies that actually assessed the effects of work redesign at both 6

months after the redesign and at 30 months after the redesign. They

found that in terms of perceived autonomy and intrinsic job satisfaction,

both increased after the redesign, but there were no differences

between the increase found at 6 months and that found at 30 months.

3. Absenteeism: - is a major problem for managers because of lowered

productivity and other costs associated with poor attendance of

employees. Porter and Steers reviewed research from the early 1960s

through 1973 on absenteeism and other forms of "job withdrawal." They

categorized these factors into four groups: organization wide factors,

immediate work environment factors, job-related factors, and personal

factors. Hackman et al. determined that high skill variety, task

significance, autonomy, and feedback were related to high attendance

records. Based on the review of 32 empirical studies, Kopelman (1985)

concluded that job redesign programs typically result in a 14.5%

decrease in absenteeism.

4. Turnover: - Turnover may increase immediately after the job

redesigning process. Several terminations can be attributed directly to

the redesign of the work. The new jobs required increased responsibility

and accountability. Individual employees who were not performing well

could no longer “hide in the crowd.”

As employees realize that they are doing more highly-skilled work they

may demand higher compensation. Their value in the labor market

increases and they may leave the job for a greener pasture.

A study on a telephone company by Lawler, Hackman and Stanley

(1973) however indicated that job redesigning leads to lower

absenteeism and turnover due to the increased job satisfaction.

Employees have a strong need to be informed. Organization with strong

communication systems enjoyed lower turnover of staff (Labov, 1997).

Employees feel comfortable to stay longer, in positions where they are

involved in some level of the decision-making process. That is

employees should fully understand about issues that affect their working

atmosphere (Magner et al. (1996). Thus with increase in autonomy and

better feedback systems, job redesigning results in lower turnover

rates.

5. Intent to quit: - Job involvement describes an individual’s ego

involvement with work and indicates the extent to which an individual

identifies psychologically with his/her job (Kanungo, 1982). Involvement

in terms of internalizing values about the goodness or the importance of

work made employees not to quit their jobs and these involvements are

related to task characteristics. (Couger, 1988; Couger and Kawasaki,

1980; Garden, 1989; Goldstein and Rockart, 1984). Employees who are

more involved in their jobs are more satisfied with their jobs and more

committed to their organization (Blau and Boal, 1989; Brooke and Price,

1989; Brooke et al., 1988; Kanungo, 1982).

6. Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB): - OCB represents

"individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly

recognized by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate

promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization"

[Organ, 1988]. This behavior is seen not as an enforceable

requirement of the job description but an individual’s choice that when

an employee failed to perform OCB he is not liable for punishment. In

the management research literature, OCB has been found to affect

overall organizational effectiveness (Walz & Niehoff, 1996). The results

have indicated that managers consider OCB when appraising

performance and determining promotions and pay increases

(Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1993). Thus employees engaging in

citizenship behavior are expected to have high job motivation and job

satisfaction that may lead to higher productivity and consequently

higher profitability of firms.

Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer (1996) reported that task

characteristics had strong relationships with OCB dimensions of

altruism, conscientiousness, courtesy, and civic virtue. Podsakoff et

al.,(1993) reported positive correlations between task feedback and

intrinsically satisfying tasks with both OCB dimensions of altruism and

conscientiousness, and negative correlations between task

routinization and both altruism and conscientiousness. Drago and

Garvey (1998) on the other hand verified that job variety was

positively related to helping efforts (a form of OCB). Williams and

Anderson (1991), who investigated the role of job satisfaction as a

predictor of OCB using a sample of 461 full- time employees, found

that the cognitive component of job satisfaction significantly predicted

OCB.

The motivational job characteristics have both direct and indirect

effects on influencing employee to engage in OCB. As a result,

managers can design or redesign jobs to increase the motivational job

characteristics such as autonomy, variety, and importance of jobs.

7. Conclusion

In this paper we have looked at different variables of job design, employee

motivation, job performance and their impact on organizations. The

challenge facing managers now and in future is that of employing new

technology in ways which not only meet the organization’s need but also the

expectations and aspirations of employees. In order to achieve this more

effectively there is the need to further develop the approaches to job design

which facilitates these broader criteria being incorporated into the design

process as well as the tools with which to achieve the task.

There are various approaches that allow management to design jobs for

employee motivation, increased productivity and future growth. In order for

the job design to be effective, management needs to look at what aspects of

the jobs are important and better fit the organizational goals. Thus, one of

the major purposes of job design is to be able to discuss what is needed

from the job and the employees. It is of current interest in establishing a link

between human resource management (HRM) or high involvement practices

and organizational performance with an increase in intrinsic motivation.

Job design is a tool for helping to motivate and challenge employees. Like all

other motivational tools, it fails to provide a magical answer for all

employees in all situations. Nevertheless, appropriate job design will lead to

proactive performance and finally to learning and developing nations.

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