March 5, 2013

Alhumaid, Croteau, Frangie, Lou & MacIsaac

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Question 1: Symptoms

The symptoms that there is something wrong within the Personnel Records Office (PRO)
are:
1) Unclear work responsibility
2) Possessiveness with work
3) Insufficient inter-employee communication
4) Morale problems
5) High turnover
6) Decreasing productivity
Question 2: Job Characteristics

The five Job Characteristics are:

1) Skill Variety
2) Task Identity
3) Task Significance
4) Autonomy
5) Feedback from job
Skill variety and task identity appear to have low values in the PRO, as the employees do the
same thing every day, and do not realize how important it is to communicate what they do to
others (ie not sharing files). Task significance is likely a mixed value, as each is possessive of their
task and believes it to be overly important; however, they also do not understand its
significance to other parts of the PRO.



Alhumaid, Croteau, Frangie, Lou & MacIsaac
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Question 3: Implementing Principle

Job Enlargement could be used to redesign these jobs by making everyone in the PRO
responsible for an entire record (all five areas). This would increase skill variety and task identity
as people would see the whole picture, do a variety of tasks per employee record, and see how
each employee benefits from a complete record. This would also minimize protectiveness of
their area and the presumption that somehow your task is more significant than others. Lastly,
this would require less inter-employee communication, so poor inter-employee communication
is no longer an issue.
Question 4: Job Rotation

If the company introduced a job rotation program, there may be increased skill variety;
however, employees may only do a "good" job when rotated to the area they feel most
possessive of. In addition, they may forget how to do the other areas over time and have to
spend a significant portion of their rotation learning the skill they are supposed to be using.
Inputting data requirements can be complex and multi-layered, and attempting to remember
one set after not using these skills for months may result in inconsistent work quality.