Job Satisfaction Increases Employee Productivity and Boredom - Essay Example

Job specialization Author Course Tutor Date According to Bjorn (2004) job specialization involves dividing jobs into smaller sections and assigning employees sections they can perform better. Employees are allocated tasks where they are perceived to be experts and they give their best in terms of performance. Employees with specialized activities perform them repeatedly, which eventually leads to boredom. Specialization of labour is encouraged by many organizations due to its contribution to economic welfare. Unuvar, (2006) argues that there are two significant sources of economic advantages that result from specialization of activities in the organization. The first advantage is the economies of scale; where by the division of job into several tasks enables an employee to have a better understanding of the job than it was before specializing. The second advantage of specialization originates from the fact that employees demonstrate diverse relative abilities of performance at various jobs. Thus, breaking down complex jobs into smaller components enables employees to perform exclusively the duties which they have a comparative advantage. Many companies use job specialization because it helps to increase the productivity of employees and their output. This is applicable especially where a product goes through several stages before completion, for example in an assembly line of production. Employees are therefore placed at the production levels where they have acquired relevant skills to work. The contribution of each employee when brought together saves on time and increases the level of production (Erin, 2007). Thus, it is right to argue that job specialization enhances production of goods in large quantities. Job specialization helps to reduce employee changeovers. In most cases changing tasks requires employees to learn and gain experience for the new tasks. Training may take a lot of time and also lowers down the productivity of employees. Specialization allows employees to remain on a particular task for a considerably long time, and therefore no time is wasted on shifting from one job to another. Also, the company is able to safe on the costs that would otherwise be incurred on training employees to perform new assignments. Switching jobs may worsen the performance of an individual, especially when he or she has no experience doing the new task (Unuvar, 2006). Specialization in a particular task helps an employee to learn and discover more about the job. Repetitive tasks not only lead to mastery of the procedures of doing the job, but also help him an employee realize the opportunities for improvement on how to perform the task (Unuvar, 2006). Therefore, employees are able to develop new methods of going their jobs in more effective way that saves on time and uses less resources, and this is beneficial not only to the employee nut also to the entire company. The advantages of job specialization may be realized even if an employee performed the similar job several days before. The daily experience should help the employee move his or her memory of working to makes the job easier to perform (Bjorn, 2004). Daily experience gives employees both the mental and physical benefits. Doing the same job repeatedly within a short time helps an employee to perfect in the job, which eventually improves the performance. Companies also prefer using job specialization because it helps to reduce possible losses that arise due to poor employee performance. Job specialization discourages changing of tasks, and substitutability of labour is easy (Unuvar, 2006). Therefore, employees are maintained on particular tasks for a long time due to their vast skills and experience for performing assigned tasks. Employees who have specialised duties are held by the company for long because they are trusted the company puts in them. Despite the advantages associated with job specialization, in order to maintain employee productivity in the long-run, allowing employees to perform variety of tasks is very important (Maslach,19 87). In this respect, specialized jobs can be modified by the company to make it interesting and create job satisfaction among employees. Modifying specialized jobs can be effectively conducted by the use of the Job characteristic model. Unuvar (2006) asserts that researchers in the literature of organizational behaviour have tried several times to establish the extent to which job design, the scope of job and job characteristics affect the behaviour of employees in an organization. There are particular characteristics of job like variety of skills, job identity, feedback, autonomy and task significance that motivate employees during job performance. Research indicates that job enrichment has as an impact on job satisfaction and the performance of employees. To some extent it can also lead to employee withdrawal. Job characteristic model was established on the basis that certain features in the work must be present in order to for the job to enhance employee satisfaction on the job, have improved job performance and to reduce employee turnover due to boredom. Skill variety is an attribute of the job characteristic model used to make the job interesting and to increase employee motivation and job performance. It is extent to which a job has a variety of several activities for it to be performed, and the applicability of various skills by an employee in performing the task until it is successfully completed (Maslach,1987). An example of a job with low skill variety is where a data entry operator enters similar data to the computer for eight hours a day. This kind of job is likely to become boring to the employees, especially when repeated severally. It can also adversely affect the employees’ job performance and output level. Unlike this routine job environment, other work environments that comprise of different tasks with several employee skills and abilities like garage operator who does rebuilding of engines, body assembly, and electrical repair and at the same time maintains close relationship with the customers, he will be highly motivated to do the job and is likely to produce better results (Unuvar, 2006). When more skills are involved in a job, employees are motivated to work and the job becomes meaningful to them. A company can enhance skill variety in jobs through job enrichment, job rotation and job enlargement. Task identity is another job characteristic factor used to measure job satisfaction, employee motivation and job performance, and can used to reduce boredom in a job. Task identity is the extent to which a task is to be fully completed including the all other identifiable piece of work involved in performing the job from the beginning until the competition of the task (Erin, 2007). For instance, a corporation I worked for two years ago made changes in her customer care service so that whenever a client with a problem made a call to the company, the customer care advocate was the only person who could receive the call and handle the problem of the client from maintenance up to repair. Due to this kind of arrangement, most of customers' problems were resolved by one employee before the customer disconnected the call. Initially, very few customer problems were resolved within a short time due to long procedure. The customer service representative was first required to do paperwork, forward it to the operational personnel, who would then forward to several other people to have the problem solved. When the system was changed, the customer service advocate find the job interesting because she was able to realize task identity in the work. Job characteristic model also identifies task significance the means to reduce boredom in the job. Task significance identifies the importance of job to the lives of other people, both within and outside the organization (Unuvar, 2006). An employee will be motivated to perform tasks they believe are beneficial to themselves and people around them. A god example for task significance is when an employee apart from doing his or her daily duties is given the responsibility to be a team leader for other staff members in a department. Such an employee will find the job interesting since he or she will have to use some time to reorganize group activities. Autonomy is the extent to which a job gives enough freedom, independence and the right to an employee to plan how to work and the procedure to apply to doing that particular job. Specialized jobs should be designed with greater autonomy so as employees can develop the feeling of personal responsibility to perform their tasks (Bjorn, 2004). Sometimes the process of modifying a job to have increased autonomy may eventually result to job enrichment. When employees are allowed to work with freedom and authority to make decisions, they will be accountable to what they do, and this makes them perform tasks will lots of responsibility and love which reduces boredom. Specified jobs can also be improved to reduce the level of employee boredom by creating room for feedback. Feedback describes the degree to which an employee while performing a particular task is provided with relevant and clear information about how effective his or her performs the task. Providing employees with feedback motivates them to work hard and are able to understand the requirements of their jobs (Bjorn, 2004). Feedback gives an employee an assurance that the task has been accomplished, for instance a salesperson's feedback occurs when a sale is successfully completed. A job that yield results and feedback is interesting to perform since an employee will always aim at achieving better results always. In conclusion, as much as job satisfaction generally helps to increase the productivity levels in an organization, it is also associated with high levels of employee boredom, which normally leads to reduction in employee motivation hence affecting their performance in the long-run. However, specialized jobs can be modified using the job characteristics model in order to reduce boredom. This can be done through skill variety, task identity, task significance , autonomy and. provision of feedback to employees about their performance. References Bjorn, B 2004 "Specialization in Social Work Practice: Effects on Interventions in the Personal Social Services", Journal of Social Work. 4 (1), pp.25-46. Erin, L 2007 "Not by Productivity Alone: How Visibility and Specialization Contribute to Academic Earnings", American Sociological Review. 72 (4), pp.533-561. Maslach, C 1987 "Burnout Research in Social Services A Critique", Journal of Social Service Research. 10, (1), pp.95-105. Unuvar, T. G 2006 "An integrative model of job characteristics, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior", (Doctoral dissertation, Middle East Technical University). Read More