Human Resource Management Notes: Human Resource Planning and Job Analysis

Unit – II: Human Resource Planning and Job Analysis
Meaning and Definition of Human Resource Planning
Human resource planning can be defined as the process of identifying the number of people required by an organization in terms of quantity and quality. All human resource management activities start with human resource planning. So we can say that human resource planning is the principle/primary activity of human resource management.
According to Gordon Mc Beath, “HRP is concerned with two things: Planning of manpower requirements and Planning of Manpower supplies”.
According to Beach, “HRP is a process of determining and assuming that the organization will have an adequate number of qualified persons, available at proper times, performing jobs which meet the needs of the enterprise and which provides satisfaction for the individuals involved”
Simply HRP can be understood as the process of forecasting an organization’s future demands for and supply of the right type of people in the right number. In other words HRP is the process of determining manpower needs and formulating plans to meet these needs.
Nature/Characteristics of Human Resource Planning
Characteristics of effective human resource planning are as follows:
1.       Future Oriented: Human resource planning is prepared to assess the future requirement of manpower in the organization. It helps identify the size and composition of resources for future purpose.
2.       Continuous Process: Human resource planning is a continuous process. The human resource planning prepared today may not be applicable for future due to ever changing external forces of the environment.
3.       Optimum Utilization of Human Resources: Human resource planning focuses on optimum utilization of resources in the organization. It checks how the employees are utilized in a productive manner.
4.       Right Kinds and Numbers: Human resource planning determines the right number and kind of people at the right time and right place that are capable of performing the required jobs.
5.       Determination of Demand and Supply: Human resource planning is a process of determining demand for and supply of human resources in the organization.  Then a match between demand and supply estimates the optimum level of manpower.
6.       Environmental Influence: Human resource planning is influenced by environmental changes, hence, it is to be updated as per the change occupied in the external environment.
7.       Related to Corporate Plan: Human resource planning is an integral part of overall corporate plan of the organization. It can be formulated at strategic, tactical and operational levels.
8.       A Part of Human Resource Management System: As a part of total human resource management system, human resource planning is regarded as a component or element of HRM which is concerned with acquisition and assessment of manpower.
Objectives of Human Resource Planning
1. To ensure optimum utilization of human resources currently available in the organization.
2. To assess or forecast the future skill requirement of the organization.
3. To provide control measures to ensure that necessary resources are available as and when required.
4. A series of specified reasons are there that attaches importance to manpower planning and forecasting exercises. They are elaborated below:
Ø  To link manpower planning with the organizational planning
Ø  To determine recruitment levels.
Ø  To anticipate redundancies.
Ø  To determine optimum training levels.
Ø  To provide a basis for management development programs.
Ø  To cost the manpower.
Ø  To assist productivity bargaining.
Ø  To assess future accommodation requirement.
Ø  To study the cost of overheads and value of service functions.
Ø  To decide whether certain activity needs to be subcontracted, etc.
HRP exists as a part of planning process of business. This is the activity that aims to coordinate the requirements for the availability of the different types of employers. The major activities are the forecasting, inventorying, anticipating and planning.
The HR forecasts are responsible for estimating the number of people and the jobs needed by an organization to achieve its objectives and realize its plans in the most efficient and effective manner. HR needs are computed by subtracting HR supplies or number of the employees available from expected HR demands or number of people required to produce a desired level of outcome. The objective of HR is to provide right personnel for the right work and optimum utilization of the existing human resources.
The objectives of human resource planning may be summarized as below:
1. Forecasting Human Resources Requirements: HRP is essential to determine the future needs of HR in an organization. In the absence of this plan it is very difficult to provide the right kind of people at the right time.
2. Effective Management of Change: Proper planning is required to cope with changes in the different aspects which affect the organization. These changes need continuation of allocation/reallocation and effective utilization of HR in organization.
3. Realizing the Organizational Goals: In order to meet the expansion and other organizational activities the organizational HR planning is essential.
4. Promoting Employees: HRP gives the feedback in the form of employee data which can be used in decision-making in promotional opportunities to be made available for the organization.
5. Effective Utilization of HR: The data base will provide the useful information in identifying surplus and deficiency in human resources. The objective of HRP is to maintain and improve the organizational capacity to reach its goals by developing appropriate strategies that will result in the maximum contribution of HR.
Significance or need or Importance of Human Resource Planning
Human resource planning aims at fulfilling the objectives of manpower requirement. It helps to mobilize the recruited resources for the productive activities. The human resource planning is and important process aiming to link business strategy and its operation. The importances of human resource planning are as follows:
1. Future Personnel Needs: Human resource planning is significant because it helps to determine the future personnel needs of the organization. If an organization is facing the problem of either surplus or deficiency in staff strength, then it is the result of the absence of effecting HR planning. All public sector enterprises find themselves overstaffed now as they never had any planning for personnel requirement and went of recruitment spree till late 1980’s. The problem of excess staff has become such a prominent problem that many private sector units are resorting to VRS ‘voluntary retirement scheme’. The excess of labor problem would have been there if the organization had good HRP system. Effective HRP system will also enable the organization to have good succession planning.
2. Part of Strategic Planning: HRP has become an integral part of strategic planning of strategic planning. HRP provides inputs in strategy formulation process in terms of deciding whether the organization has got the right kind of human resources to carry out the given strategy. HRP is also necessary during the implementation stage in the form of deciding to make resource allocation decisions related to organization structure, process and human resources. In some organizations HRP play as significant role as strategic planning and HR issues are perceived as inherent in business management.
3. Creating Highly Talented Personnel: Even though India has a great pool of educated unemployed, it is the discretion of HR manager that will enable the company to recruit the right person with right skills to the organization. Even the existing staff hope the job so frequently that organization face frequent shortage of manpower. Manpower planning in the form of skill development is required to help the organization in dealing with this problem of skilled manpower shortage
4. International Strategies: An international expansion strategy of an organization is facilitated to a great extent by HR planning. The HR department’s ability to fill key jobs with foreign nationals and reassignment of employees from within or across national borders is a major challenge that is being faced by international business. With the growing trend towards global operation, the need for HRP will as well will be the need to integrate HRP more closely with the organizations strategic plans. Without effective HRP and subsequent attention to employee recruitment, selection, placement, development, and career planning, the growing competition for foreign executives may lead to expensive and strategically descriptive turnover among key decision makers.
5. Foundation for Personnel Functions: HRP provides essential information for designing and implementing personnel functions, such as recruitment, selection, training and development, personnel movement like transfers, promotions and layoffs.
6. Increasing Investments in Human Resources: Organizations are making increasing investments in human resource development compelling the increased need for HRP. Organizations are realizing that human assets can increase in value more than the physical assets. An employee who gradually develops his/ her skills and abilities become a valuable asset for the organization. Organizations can make investments in its personnel either through direct training or job assignment and the rupee value of such a trained, flexible, motivated productive workforce is difficult to determine. Top officials have started acknowledging that quality of work force is responsible for both short term and long term performance of the organization.
7. Resistance to Change: Employees are always reluctant whenever they hear about change and even about job rotation. Organizations cannot shift one employee from one department to another without any specific planning. Even for carrying out job rotation (shifting one employee from one department to another) there is a need to plan well ahead and match the skills required and existing skills of the employees.
8. Uniting the Viewpoint of Line and Staff Managers: HRP helps to unite the viewpoints of line and staff managers. Though HRP is initiated and executed by the corporate staff, it requires the input and cooperation of all managers within an organization. Each department manager knows about the issues faced by his department more than anyone else. So communication between HR staff and line managers is essential for the success of HR Planning and development.
9. Succession Planning: Human Resource Planning prepares people for future challenges. The ‘stars’ are picked up, trained, assessed and assisted continuously so that when the time comes such trained employees can quickly take the responsibilities and position of their boss or seniors as and when situation arrives.
10. Other Benefits: (a) HRP helps in judging the effectiveness of manpower policies and programmes of management. (b) It develops awareness on effective utilization of human resources for the overall development of organization. (c) It facilitates selection and training of employees with adequate knowledge, experience and aptitudes so as to carry on and achieve the organizational objectives (d) HRP encourages the company to review and modify its human resource policies and practices and to examine the way of utilizing the human resources for better utilization.
Disadvantages of human resource planning
Although human resource planning comes with so many advantages, it can also have some disadvantages, which sometimes prevent some organizations from engaging in it. Some of the disadvantages associated with human resource planning include the following:
1. The future is uncertain: The future in any country is uncertain i.e. there are political, cultural, technological changes taking place every day. This effects the employment situation. Accordingly the company may have to appoint or remove people. Therefore HRP can only be a guiding factor. We cannot rely too much on it and do every action according to it.
2. Conservative attitude of top management: Much top management adopts a conservative attitude and is not ready to make changes. The process of HRP involves either appointing. Therefore it becomes very difficult to implement HRP in organization because top management does not support the decisions of other department.
3. Problem of surplus staff: HRP gives a clear out solution for excess staff i.e. Termination, layoff, VRS,. However when certain employees are removed from company it mostly affects the psyche of the existing employee, and they start feeling insecure, stressed out and do not believe in the company. This is a limitation of HRP i.e. it does not provide alternative solution like re-training so that employee need not be removed from the company.
4. Time consuming activity: HRP collects information from all departments, regarding demand and supply of personnel. This information is collected in detail and each and every job is considered. Therefore the activity takes up a lot of time.
5. Expensive: Human resource planning can be quite expensive for some organizations to engage in. The huge cost involved in HR planning can be quite unbearable for some organizations especially for small organisation. In addition to money, businesses also invest a great deal of time towards human resource planning. Sometimes companies simply do not have the amount of time or money needed to be invested into human resource planning.
6. Unproductive activity: Another disadvantage of human resource planning is that the time and effort used in retraining employees could have been used by the employees to offer services or produce more goods. In the short run, human resource planning can sometimes be unproductive. This however, is not the case in the long run.
Process/Steps in HRP
HRP is done by the HRD manager. He is supported by the HRD department. He takes following Steps in the process of Human Resource Planning HRP.
1. Review of Organisation's Objectives: The HRD Manager first studies the objectives of the organisation. Then he prepares a list of all the activities (jobs) that are required to achieve the objectives. He also does Job's analysis.
2. Estimation of Manpower Requirements: The HRD manager then estimates the manpower requirement of the organisation. That is, he finds out how many people (manager and employers) will be required to do all the jobs in the organisation. Estimation of manpower requirements must be made in terms of quantity and quality.
3. Estimation of Manpower Supply: The HRD manager then estimates the manpower supply. That is, he finds out how many managers, and employers are available in the organisation.
4. Comparison of Manpower: The HRD manager then compares the manpower requirements and manpower supply.
5. In case of no difference: If there is no difference between the manpower requirements and the manpower supply, then the HRD manager does not take any action. This is because manpower requirements are equal to the manpower supply.
6. In case of difference: If there is a difference between the manpower requirements and the manpower supply the HRD manager takes the following actions:
a. Manpower Surplus: If the manpower requirements are less then the manpower supply then there is a surplus. During manpower surplus, the HRD manager takes the following actions: Termination i.e. removal of staff, Lay-off, Voluntary retirement.
b. Manpower Shortage: If the manpower requirements are greater than the manpower supply then there is manpower shortage. During manpower shortage, the HRD manager takes the following actions : Promotions, Overtime, Training to improve quality, Hire staff from outside, etc.
7. Motivation of Manpower: HRP also motivates the employers and managers by providing, financial and non-financial incentives.
8. Monitoring Manpower Requirements: The HRD manager must continuously monitor the manpower requirements. This is because many employees and managers leave the organisation by resignation, retirement, etc. and new work force must take their place fill the manpower gap. This helps in uninterruptible functioning of the organisation.
Barriers in Human Resource Planning
Human Resource Planners face significant barriers while formulating an HRP. The major barriers are elaborated below:
1.       HR practitioners are perceived as experts in handling personnel matters, but are not experts in managing business. The personnel plan conceived and formulated by the HR practitioners when enmeshed with organizational plan, might make the overall strategic plan of the organization ineffective.
2.       HR information often is incompatible with other information used in strategy formulation. Strategic planning efforts have long been oriented towards financial forecasting, often to the exclusion of other types of information. Financial forecasting takes precedence over HRP.
3.       Conflict may exist between short term and long term HR needs. For example, there can be a conflict between the pressure to get the work done on time and long term needs, such as preparing people for assuming greater responsibilities. Many managers are of the belief that HR needs can be met immediately because skills are available on the market as long as wages and salaries are competitive. Therefore, long times plans are not required, short planning are only needed.
4.       There is conflict between quantitative and qualitative approaches to HRP. Some people view HRP as a number game designed to track the flow of people across the department. Others take a qualitative approach and focus on individual employee concerns such as promotion and career development. Best result can be achieved if there is a balance between the quantitative and qualitative approaches.
5.       Non-involvement of operating managers renders HRP ineffective. HRP is not strictly an HR department function. Successful planning needs a co-ordinated effort on the part of operating managers and HR personnel.
Reasons for increased importance for HRP/Factors affecting HRP in the organization
Human resource planning can be defined as the process of identifying the number of people required by an organization in terms of quantity and quality. All human resource management activities start with human resource planning. So we can say that human resource planning is the principle/primary activity of human resource management.
1.       Employment: HRP is affected by the employment situation in the country i.e. in countries where there is greater unemployment; there may be more pressure on the company, from government to appoint more people. Similarly some company may force shortage of skilled labour and they may have to appoint people from other countries.
2.       Technical changes in the society: Technology changes at a very fast speed and new people having the required knowledge are required for the company. In some cases, company may retain existing employees and teach them the new technology and in some cases, the companies have to remove existing people and appoint new.
3.       Organizational changes: Changes take place within the organization from time to time i.e. the company diversify into new products or close down business in some areas etc. in such cases the HRP process i.e. appointing or removing people will change according to situation.
4.       Demographic changes: Demographic changes refer to things referring to age, population, composition of work force etc. A number of people retire every year. A new batch of graduates with specialization turns out every year. This can change the appointment or the removal in the company.
5.       Shortage of skill due to labour turnover: Industries having high labour turnover rate, the HRP will change constantly i.e. many new appointments will take place. This also affects the way HRP is implemented.
6.       Multicultural workforce: Workers from different countries travel to other countries in search of job. When a company plans it’s HRP it needs to take into account this factor also.
7.       Pressure groups: Company has to keep in mind certain pleasure. Groups like human rights activist, woman activist, media etc. as they are very capable for creating problems for the company, when issues concerning these groups arise, appointment or retrenchment becomes difficult.
How Human Resource Planning is made effective?
Some of the suggestions for making manpower planning effective are as follows:
1.       Integration with organizational plans: Human resource planning must be integrated with the organizational plans and objectives to be successful. Moreover, there should also be a good channel of communication between the organizational planners and the human resource planners to get a successful human resource planning.
2.       Period of manpower planning: The period of manpower planning should have a connection with the needs and circumstances of the enterprise. The size and structure of an enterprise as well as the anticipated changes must be taken into consideration while going for manpower planning.
3.       Proper organization: It is necessary to organize the planning function properly in order to make it successful. It is advisable to have a separate cell or constitute a committee within the human resource department in order to provide adequate focus and to coordinate the planning work at various levels.
4.       Support of top management: The top management should give full support and cooperation to make the manpower planning effective. The support of top management facilitates the process of getting necessary resources, cooperation and other things as per requirement to make the planning successful.
5.       Involvement of operating executives: Human resource planning is not a function of manpower planners only but also of the operating executives too. An effective manpower planning highly solicits the active participation and coordination of the operating executives. Such participation is sought to make the process of manpower planning understandable to everyone so that chances of resistance can be rooted out in time.
6.       Efficient and reliable information system: An adequate data base must be developed for the human resources of an organization to facilitate the process of human resource planning.
7.       Balanced approach: Both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of manpower should be given equal weightage by the human resource experts. Emphasis should be more on filling the future vacancies with right people rather than matching the existing jobs. The matters of promotions, career planning and development, skill levels, morale etc. should also be given due importance by the planners.
Meaning and Definition Job analysis:
The process of studying and collecting informations relating to the operations and responsibilities of a specific job. The immediate product of this analysis are job description and job specification. It analyze the content & characteristics of the job and requirements/ qualifications needed to perform those jobs.
According to Michael L. Jucius, “Job analysis refers to the process of studying the operations, duties and organizational aspects of jobs in order to derive specifications or as they called by some, job descriptions.”
According to DeCenzo and P. Robbins, “A job analysis is a systematic exploration of the activities within a job. It is a basic technical procedure, one that is used to define the duties, responsibilities, and accountabilities of a job.”
Thus, job analysis involves the process of identifying the nature of a job (job description) and the qualities of the likely job holder (job specification).
Job description: Job description is an organized, factual statement of the duties and responsibilities of a specific job. It should tell what is to be done, how it is done, and why. It is a standard of function. It defines the authorized content of the job. It contains : job title, location, job summary, duties, machine, tools and equipments, materials used, supervision given or received, working conditions, hazards etc.
Job specification: A statement of the minimum acceptable human qualities necessary to perform a job properly. It is a standard of personnel and designates the qualities required for acceptable performance. A statement of human qualifications necessary to do the job. Usually contains such items: education, experience, training, judgement, initiative, physical effort, physical skills, communication skills, emotional characteristics, sensory demands such as sight, smell, hearing and many others depends upon the nature of job.
Importance/Uses of Job analysis
1.       Achievement of Goals: Weather and Davis have stated, “Jobs are at the core of every organization’s productivity, if they are designed well and done right, the organization makes progress towards its objectives. Otherwise, productivity suffers, profits fall, and the organization is less able to meet the demands of society, customer, employees, and other with a stake in its success.”
2.       Organizational Design: Job analysis will be useful in classifying the jobs and the interrelationships among the jobs. On the basis of information obtained through job analysis, sound decisions regarding hierarchical positions and functional differentiation can be taken and this will improve operational efficiency.
3.       Organization and Manpower Planning: It is helpful in organization planning, for it defines labour in concrete terms and co-ordinates the activities of the work force, and clearly divides duties and responsibilities.
4.       Recruitment and Selection: Job analysis provides you with information on what the job entails and what human requirements are required to carry out these activities. This information is the basis on which you decide what sort of people to recruit and hire.
5.       Placement and Orientation: Job analysis helps in matching the job requirements with the abilities, interests and aptitudes of people. Jobs will be assigned to persons on the basis of suitability for the job. The orientation programme will help the employee in learning the activities and understanding duties that are required to perform a given job more effectively.
6.       Employee Training and Management Development: Job analysis provides the necessary information to the management of training and development programmes. It helps in to determine the content and subject matter of in training courses. It also helps in checking application information, interviewing test results and in checking references.
7.       Job Evaluation and Compensation: Job evaluation is the process of determining the relative worth of different jobs in an organization with a view to link compensation, both basic and supplementary, with the worth of the jobs. The worth of a job is determined on the basis of job characteristics and job holder characteristics. Job analysis provides both in the forms of job description and job specification.
8.       Performance Appraisal: Performance appraisal involves comparing each employee’s actual performance with his or her desired performance. Through job analysis industrial engineers and other experts determine standards to be achieved and specific activities to be performed.
9.       Health and Safety: It provides an opportunity for identifying hazardous conditions and unhealthy environmental factors so that corrective measures may be taken to minimize and avoid the possibility of accidents.
10.   Employee Counselling: Job analysis provides information about career choices and personal limitation. Such information is helpful in vocational guidance and rehabilitation counselling. Employees who are unable to cope with the hazards and demands of given jobs may be advised to opt for subsidiary jobs or to seek premature retirement.
Methods of job analysis
A job is defined as a collection of duties and responsibilities which are given together to an individual employee. Job analysis is the process of studying and collecting information relating to operations and responsibilities of a specific job. There are different methods used by organization to collect information and conduct the job analysis. These methods are:
1.       Personal observation: In this method the observer actually observes the concerned worker. He makes a list of all the duties performed by the worker and the qualities required to perform those duties based on the information collected, job analysis is prepared.
2.       Actual performance of the job: In this method the observer who is in charge of preparing the job analysis actually does the work himself. This gives him an idea of the skill required, the difficulty level of the job, the efforts required etc.
3.       Interview method: In this method an interview of the employee is conducted. A group of experts conduct the interview. They ask questions about the job, skilled levels, and difficulty levels. They question and cross question and collect information and based on this information job analysis is prepared.
4.       Critical incident method: In this method the employee is asked to write one or more critical incident that has taken place on the job. The incident will give an idea about the problem, how it was handled, qualities required and difficulty levels etc. critical incident method gives an idea about the job and its importance.
5.       Questioner method: In this method a questioner is provided to the employee and they are asked to answer the questions in it. The questions may be multiple choice questions or open ended questions. The questions decide how exactly the job analysis will be done. The method is effective because people would think twice before putting anything in writing.
6.       Log records: Companies can ask employees to maintain log records and job analysis can be done on the basis of information collected from the log record. A log record is a book in which employee’s record /write all the activities performed by them on the job. The records are extensive as well as exhausted in nature and provide a fair idea about the duties and responsibilities in any job.
7.       HRD records: Records of every employee are maintained by HR department. The record contain details about educational qualification, name of the job, number of years of experience, duties handled, any mistakes committed in the past and actions taken, number of promotions received, area of work, core competency area, etc. based on these records job analysis can be done.
Steps in Job Analysis
The various steps of job analysis are given below:
1.       Determine the Use of the Job Analysis Information: Start by identifying the use to which the information will be put, since this will determine the type of data you collect and the technique you use to collect them.
2.       Collection of Background Information: According to Terry, “The make-up of a job, its relation to other jobs, and its requirements for competent performance are essential information needed for a job evaluation. This information can be had by reviewing available background information.
3.       Selection of Jobs for Analysis: To do job analysis is a costly and time consuming process. It is hence, necessary to select a representative sample of jobs for purposes of analysis. Priorities of various jobs can also be determined. A job may be selected because it has undergone undocumented changes in job content. The request for analysis of a job may originate with the employee, supervisor, or a manager.
4.       When the employee requests an analysis it is usually because new job demands have not been reflected in changes in wages. Employee’s salaries are, in part, based upon the nature of the work that they perform. Some organizations establish a time cycle for the analysis of each job. For example: A job analysis may be required for all jobs every three years. New jobs must also be subjected to analysis.
5.       Collection of Job Analysis Data: Job data on features of the job, requited employee qualification and requirements, should be collected either form the employees who actually perform a job; or from other employees (such as foremen or supervisors) who watch the workers doing a job and there by acquire knowledge about it; or from the outside persons, known as the trade job analysis who are appointed to watch employees performing a job. The duties of such a trade job analyst are (i) to outline the complete scope of a job and to consider all the physical and mental activities involved in determining what the worker does.; (ii) find out why a worker does a job; and for this purpose he studies why each task is essential for the overall result; and (iii) the skill factor which may be needed in the worker to differentiate between jobs and establish the extent of the difficulty of any job.
6.       Processing the Information: Once job analysis information has been collected, the next step is to place it in a form that will make it useful to those charged with the various personnel functions. Several issues arise with respect to this. First, how much detail is needed? Second, can the job analysis information be expressed in quantitative terms? These must be considered properly.
7.       Preparing Job Descriptions and Job Classifications: Job information which has been collected must be processed to prepare the job description form. It is a statement showing full details of the activities of the job. Separate job description forms may be used for various activities in the job and may be compiled later on. The job analysis is made with the help of these description forms. These forms may be used as reference for the future.
8.       Developing Job Specifications: Job specifications are also prepared on the basis of information collected. It is a statement of minimum acceptable qualities of the person to be placed on the job. It specifies the standard by which the qualities of the person are measured. Job analyst prepares such statement taking into consideration the skills required in performing the job properly. Such statement is used in selecting a person matching with the job.
Meaning and principles of Job design
Job design is of comparatively recent origin. The human resource managers have realized that the design of a job has considerable influence on the productivity and job satisfaction; poorly designed jobs often result in boredom to the employees, increased turnover, job dissatisfaction, low productivity and an increase in overall costs of the organization. All these negative consequences can be avoided with the help of proper job design.
Job design has been defined by Davis (1966) as: “The specification of the contents, methods, and relationships of jobs in order to satisfy technological and organizational requirements as well as the social and personal requirements of the job-holder.”
Michael Armstrong has defined job design as “the process of deciding on the content of a job in terms of its duties and responsibilities, on the methods to be used in carrying out the job, in terms of techniques, systems and procedures, and on the relationships that should exist between the job holder and his superiors, subordinates and colleagues.”
Job design is an attempt to create a match between job requirements and human attributes. It involves organizing the components of the job and the interaction patterns among the members of a work group. It helps in developing appropriate design of job to improve efficiency and satisfaction.
Principles of Job Design: Principles are the bases of the approach used in job design. Robertson and Smith (1985) have suggested the following five principles of job design:
1.       To influence skill variety, provide opportunities for people to do several tasks and combine tasks.
2.       To influence task identity, combine tasks and from natural work units.
3.       To influence task significance, form natural work units and inform people of the importance of their work.
4.       To influence autonomy, give people responsibility for determining their own working systems.
5.       To influence feedback; establish good relationship and open feedback channels.
The various techniques of job design and redesign are discussed below:
1. Job Simplification: In job simplification, the complete job is broken down into small subparts; this is done so that employee can do these jobs without much specialized training. Moreover, small operations of the job can also be performed simultaneously so that the complete operation can be done more quickly. For job simplification, generally time and motion studies are used.
2. Job Rotation: Another technique designed to enhance employee motivation is job rotation, or periodically assigning employees to alternating jobs or tasks. For example, an employee may spend two weeks attaching bumpers to vehicles and the following two weeks making final checks of the chassis. During the next month, the same employee may be assigned to two different jobs. Therefore, the employee would be rotated among four jobs. The advantage of job rotation is that employees do not have the same routine job day after day. Job rotation only addresses the problem of assigning employees to jobs of limited scope; the depth of the job does not change. The job cycle of the actual daily work performed has not been lengthened or changed. Instead, employees are simply assigned to different jobs with different cycles.
3. Job Enlargement: Another means of increasing employee’s satisfaction with routine jobs is job enlargement, or increasing the number of tasks performed (i.e. increasing the scope of the job). Job enlargement, like job rotation, tries to eliminate short job cycles that create boredom. Unlike job rotation, job enlargement actually increases the job cycle. When a job is enlarged, either the tasks being performed are enlarged or several short tasks are given to one worker. Thus, the scope of the job is increased because there are many tasks to be performed by the same worker. Job enlargement programs change many methods of operation- in contrast to job rotation, in which the same work procedures are used by workers who rotate through work stations. Although job enlargement actually changes the pace of the work and the operation by reallocating tasks and responsibilities, it does not increase the depth of a job.
4. Job Enrichment: The concept of job enrichment has been derived from Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation in which he has suggested that job content is one of the basic factors of motivation. If the job is designed in such a manner that it becomes more interesting and challenging to the job performer and provides him opportunities for achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement and growth, the job itself becomes a source of motivation to the individual.
JOB ENLARGEMENT vs. JOB ENRICHMENT
Job enlargement and job enrichment are both important forms of job design in order to enhance productivity and satisfaction of the employees. They differ from each other in the following respects:
1.       Nature of Job: The major difference between job enrichment and enlargement lies in the nature of additions to the job. Enlargement involves a horizontal loading or expansion, or addition of tasks of the same nature. Enrichment involves vertical loading of tasks and responsibility of the job holder; it improves the quality of the job in terms of its intrinsic worth.
2.       Purpose: The purpose of job enlargement is to reduce the monotony in performing repetitive jobs by lengthening the cycle of operation. On the other hand, the purpose of job enrichment is making the job lively, challenging and satisfying. It satisfies the higher level needs such as ego satisfaction, self expression, sense of achievement and advancement of Job holders.
3.       Skill Requirement: Job enlargement may not necessarily require the use of additional skills which the job holder was using in performing the job before the enlargement. This is due to similarity of additional tasks. Enrichment calls foe development and utilization of higher skills, initiative, and innovation on the part of the job holder in performing the job.
4.       Direction and Control: Job enlargement requires direction and control from external sources, say supervisor. In fact, the job holder may require more direction and control because of enlargement of his responsibility. Enrichment does not require external direction and control as these come from the job holder himself. He requires only feedback from his supervisor.