Designing Work

This will make them most likely to achieve good results.

It is very difficult to completely change how a person performs, so try to match people to jobs that they are good at. This will make them most likely to achieve good results.

Enhance the five dimensions of work with the following:

1. Combine Tasks. Put existing fragmented tasks together to form larger modules of work. This can help to increase skill variety and task identity.
2. Create Natural Work Units. Design tasks to form an identifiable whole to increase employee "ownership" and to encourage workers to view their jobs as important.
3. Establish Client Relationships. Building direct relationships between the worker and the client--the user of the product or the service that the employee works on--increases skill variety, autonomy, and feedback.
4. Expand Jobs Vertically. Giving employees responsibilities formerly reserved for managers closes the gap between the "doing" and "controlling" aspects of the job, and increases autonomy.
5. Improve Feedback Channels. Feedback tells employees how well they are performing, and whether their performance is improving, deteriorating or remaining constant . Employees should receive feedback directly as they do their jobs.

ACTION POINT: Use the foundation above for designing the work of your team.

Designing Work

Well-designed jobs lead to high motivation, high-quality performance, high satisfaction, and low absenteeism and turnover.

Job design refers to the way tasks are combined to form complete jobs. It involves trying to shape the right jobs to conform to the right people, taking into account both the organization's goals and the employees' satisfaction. Well-designed jobs lead to high motivation, high-quality performance, high satisfaction, and low absenteeism and turnover.

Jobs vary considerably however any job can be described in terms of five core job dimensions:

• Skill variety; the degree to which a job requires a variety of different activities so that the worker can employ a number of different skills and talents.
• Task identity: the degree to which a job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work.
• Task significance: the degree to which a job has an impact on the lives of other people.
• Autonomy: the degree to which a job provides freedom and discretion to the worker in scheduling their tasks and in determining how the work will be carried out.
• Feedback: the degree to which the worker gets direct and clear information about the effectiveness of his or her performance.

As a manager you can maximize your team's performance by enhancing these five dimensions. Skill, variety, task identity, and task significance combine to create meaningful work. Jobs with these characteristics will be perceived as important, valuable, and worthwhile. Jobs that possess autonomy give workers a sense of responsibility for their results. Jobs that provide feedback indicate to the employee how effectively he or she is performing.

ACTION POINT: Enhance the five dimensions, skill, variety, task identity, and task significance to maximize team performance.