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MOTIVATION TOOLS I: JOB DESIGN AND GOAL SETTING

CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Job Design
Definition: The process of linking specific tasks to specific jobs and deciding what techniques, equipment, and procedures should be used to perform those tasks. Early approaches:
Scientific Management Job Enlargement Job Enrichment

More recent approaches:

Job Characteristics Model Social Information Processing Theory
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Scientific Management
A set of principles and practices designed to increase the performance of individual workers by stressing job simplification and job specialization. Job simplification: The breaking up of the work that needs to be performed in an organization into the smallest identifiable tasks. Job specialization: The assignment of workers to perform small, simple tasks. Time and motion studies: Studies that reveal exactly how long it takes to perform a task and the best way to perform it.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Scientific Management in Practice

Pay is the principal outcome used to motivate workers to contribute their inputs.
Piece-rate pay system

Scientific management focuses exclusively on extrinsic motivation and ignores the important role of intrinsic motivation. Specific disadvantages:
Workers may feel that they have lost control over their work behaviors. Workers may feel as if they are part of a machine and are treated as such. Workers have no opportunity to develop and acquire new skills.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Job Enlargement
Increasing the number of tasks a worker performs but keeping all of the tasks at the same level of difficulty and responsibility; also called horizontal job loading. Advantage: Adds variety to a workers job. Disadvantage: Jobs may still be simple and limited in how much control and variety workers have.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Job Enrichment
Increasing a workers responsibility and control over his or her work; also called vertical job loading. Ways of enriching jobs:
Allow workers to plan their own work schedules. Allow workers to decide how the work should be performed. Allow workers to check their own work. Allow workers to learn new skills.

Advantage: Gives workers more autonomy, responsibility, and control. Disadvantages

Not all workers want enriched jobs May be expensive and/or inefficient
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

The Job Characteristics Model

An approach to job design that aims to identify characteristics that make jobs intrinsically motivating and to specify the consequences of those characteristics. Four key components
Core job dimensions
Motivating potential score

Critical psychological states Consequences: work and personal outcomes Individual differences
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Core Job Dimensions

Skill Variety: The extent to which a job requires a worker to use different skills, abilities, or talents. Task Identity: The extent to which a job involves performing a whole piece of work from its beginning to its end. Task Significance: The extent to which a job has an impact on the lives or work of other people in or out of the organization. Autonomy: The degree to which a job allows a worker the freedom and independence to schedule work and decide how to carry it out. Feedback: The extent to which performing a job provides a worker with clear information about his or her effectiveness.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Motivating Potential Score (MPS)

A measure of the overall potential of a job to foster intrinsic motivation. The score is a computational combination of the measures of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. Formula (see Fig. 7.2) MPS = ((SV + TI + TS)/3)*A*F MPS scores can range from 1 to 343. The average MPS for jobs in the US is around 128.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Ways to Redesign Jobs to Increase MPS

Change Made
Combine tasks so that a worker is responsible for doing a piece of work from start to finish. Group tasks into natural work units so that workers are responsible for an entire set of important activities rather than just a part of them. Allow workers to interact with customers or clients, and make workers responsible for managing these relationships and satisfying customers. Vertically load jobs so that workers have more control over their work activities and higher levels of responsibility. Open feedback channels so that workers know how they are performing their jobs.

Job Dim Inc

Skill variety Task identity Task significance Task identity Task significance

Example
A production worker is responsible for assembling a whole bicycle, not just attaching the handlebars. A computer programmer handles all programming requests from one division instead of one type of request from several different divisions. A truck driver who delivers photocopiers not only sets them up but also trains customers in how to use them, handles customer billing, and responds to customer complaints. A corporate marketing analyst not only prepares marketing plans and reports but also decides when to update and revise them, checks them for errors, and presents them to upper management. In addition to knowing how many claims he handles per month, an insurance adjuster receives his clients responses to follow-up questionnaires that his company uses to measure client satisfaction.

Skill variety Autonomy Feedback Autonomy

Feedback

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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Critical Psychological States

Experienced meaningfulness of the work The work: degree to which workers feel their jobs are important, worthwhile, and meaningful.
Skill variety, task identity, and task significance

Experienced responsibility for work outcomes outcomes: The extent to which workers feel personally responsible or accountable for their job performance.
Autonomy

Knowledge of results The degree to which results: workers know how well they perform their jobs on a continuous basis.
Feedback
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Work and Personal Outcomes

The critical psychological states result in four key outcomes for workers and their organizations:
High intrinsic motivation High job performance High job satisfaction Low absenteeism and turnover

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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

The Role of Individual Differences

Growth-need strength The extent to which an Growthstrength: individual wants his or her work to contribute to personal growth, learning, and development. Knowledge and skills Satisfaction with the work context How context: satisfied workers are with extrinsic outcomes they receive from their jobs (e.g., pay, benefits, job security, relationships with coworkers). All of these must be high for job design changes to increase intrinsic motivation.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Advice to Managers
Realize that increasing subordinates intrinsic motivation decreases your need to closely supervise subordinates and frees up your time for other activities. To increase levels of intrinsic motivation and job satisfaction, increase levels of the five core dimensions. Do not redesign jobs to increase levels of the five core dimensions if workers do not desire personal growth and development at work. Before any redesign effort, make sure that workers are satisfied with extrinsic job outcomes. If workers are not satisfied with these factors, try to increase satisfaction levels prior to redesigning jobs. Make sure that workers have the necessary skills and abilities to perform their jobs. Do not redesign jobs to increase levels of the core dimensions for workers whose skills and abilities are already stretched by their current jobs. Periodically assess workers perceptions of the core dimensions of their jobs as well as their levels of job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

The Social Information Processing Model

An approach to job design based on the idea that information from other people and workers own past behaviors influence workers perceptions of and responses to the design of their jobs. The social environment (i.e., the other individuals with whom workers come in contact) provides information about which aspects of their jobs workers should pay attention to and which they should ignore. The social environment also provides workers with information about how they should evaluate their jobs and work outcomes.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Advice to Managers
Place newcomers into work groups whose members like their jobs and are intrinsically motivated and satisfied. Avoid placing newcomers into work groups whose members are disgruntled and dissatisfied. When you assign workers to supervise or help train a newcomer, pick workers who are satisfied with and intrinsically motivated by their jobs and who are high performers.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Goal Setting
Goal: What an individual is trying to accomplish through his or her behavior and actions. Goal Setting Theory: A theory that focuses on identifying the types of goals that are most effective in producing high levels of motivation and performance and why goals have these effects. Goal setting can operate to enhance both intrinsic motivation (in the absence of any extrinsic rewards) and extrinsic motivation (when workers are given extrinsic rewards for achieving their goals).
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Characteristics of Motivating Goals

Specificity
Often quantitative

Difficulty
Should be hard but not impossible for most workers to achieve

Acceptability
Especially important when managers set goals for subordinates

Feedback
So that workers know how well they are doing
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Specific, Difficult Goals Affect Motivation and Performance by:

Directing workers attention and action toward goal-relevant activities Causing workers to exert higher levels of effort Causing workers to develop action plans to achieve their goals Causing workers to persist in the face of obstacles or difficulties
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Limits to Goal Setting Theory

There are two circumstances under which setting specific, difficult goals will not lead to high motivation and performance:
When workers lack the skills and abilities needed to perform at a high level. When workers are given complicated and difficult tasks that require all of their attention and require a considerable amount of learning.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Management by Objectives (MBO)

A goal-setting process in which a manager meets with his or her supervisor to set goals and evaluate the extent to which previously set goals have been achieved. Although less common, MBO can also be used as a motivational tool for nonmanagers. Necessary characteristics for MBO success:
Set goals should contribute to organizational effectiveness. Goals should be specific and difficult. A certain amount of trust and rapport must exist between managers and their supervisors.
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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

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CHAPTER 7 Motivation Tools I: Job Design and Goal Setting

Advice to Managers
1. Be sure that a workers goals are specific and difficult, whether set by you, by the worker, or by both of you. 2. Express confidence in your subordinates abilities to attain their goals, and give subordinates regular feedback on the extent of goal attainment. 3. When workers are performing difficult and complex tasks that involve learning, do not set goals until the workers gain some mastery over the task.
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