HRM for MBA Students

Lecture 3Designing work: organising

jobs and people

Learning outcomes • An appreciation of the concept of the division of labour• Knowing what is meant by job design • Understanding the principles of scientific management• Knowing about developments in job design following

scientific management and especially the principles of the autonomous work group and the Toyota production system

• Understanding the principles of team formation• Appreciating the team roles required for effective

teamworking • Seeing why organisations seek flexibility in work

patterns• An appreciation of the organisation of work beyond the

team level: by function, by product, the use of the matrix structure, and divisionalisation

• Understanding the role of HRM in change management

A definition of job design

Deciding on the content and performance and competency requirements of jobs or

roles in order to provide a basis for selection, performance management and

reward and to maximise intrinsic job satisfaction.

Armstrong (2003, p.10)

Micro-organisation of work: the task, job and team

Division and synthesis

• Division of labour and job specialisation is necessary to achieve higher productivity and is essential for modern work

• But after the division of labour must come the synthesis of outputs for the modern organisation to function

Scientific management(Taylorism)

• A clear division of tasks and responsibilities between management and workers, such that management: – studies the work methods for each job– establishes the most efficient methods– dictates these to the workers

• The ‘scientific’ selection and training of workers:– matching suitable employees to the scientifically

designed jobs

• The ‘enthusiastic co-operation’ of management and workers, secured by the use of economic incentives

Criticisms of Scientific management

• Significantly higher productivity – but at the cost of workers’ well-being and of poor industrial relations

• Demonstrated an ignorance of non-financial aspects of individual motivation

• Demonstrated an ignorance of group psychology and motivation

Nonetheless . . .

Modern techniques of work design have been developed and applied in the second half of [the twentieth] century as antidotes

to Taylorism. The impact of these alternative techniques has not been as

powerful or pervasive as the influence of scientific management on management

practice.Buchanan (1994)

Maslow, and motivation theory

Maslow’s influence is clearly stamped across the work design theories and practices of the latter half

of the twentieth century.

Buchanan (1994)

General principles from motivation theory

• We should set goals • We should involve the employees concerned in

designing and agreeing the goals. • ‘Stretch’ goals’ can lead to significant increases

in employee performance.• We should link rewards to performance when

possible • We should increase employees’ sense of ‘self-

efficacy’ (confidence that they can perform the job or task well)

• We should let employees know the expected level of performance and give them accurate and timely feedback

• Giving positive rewards for good performance is more effective in motivating people than punishing them for poor performance

• Perceived fairness or equity is important to the motivation of employees

General principles from motivation theory (cont.)

SMART goals

• Specific

• Measurable

• Assignable

• Realistic

• Time-bound

Developments in work design after

Scientific management

Job enlargement and job enrichment

• Job enlargement – the recombination of tasks which have been

separated by Scientific management techniques to lengthen the work cycle

• Job enrichment or ‘vertical loading’ – consciously employed the theories of

Herzberg (1966) to build ‘motivators’ into the work by giving more control and responsibility to the worker

The ‘autonomous work group’

• Work should be organised in teams• Individual jobs should provide:

– variety– a meaningful task– an ‘optimum’ work cycle – the worker’s control over work standards– feedback of results– a perceived contribution to the end product

• The autonomous work group concept is not dependent on any specific technology, so it is applicable in virtually all work situations

The spread of the autonomous work group concept

• The autonomous work group concept became widely known in the 1960s and 1970s but was not generally adopted

• Increased competition (especially from Japan) in the 1980s led to reawakened interest in teamworking in the West

The modest-sized, task-oriented, semi-autonomous, mainly self-

managing team should be the basic organisational building-block.

Tom Peters (1987)

The Toyota production system (TPS)

• May be said to incorporate features of both the autonomous work group and Taylorism– just–in-time (JIT) production processes– teamworking– the jidoka quality principle (processes as

error-free as possible) – standardised work and kaizen (continuous

improvement)

Teamworking

A definition of a team

A group of people collaborating in their professional work, or in a particular

enterprise or task, who share common objectives and who need to work together

to achieve them.

Stages in team development

• Forming

• Storming

• Norming

• Performing

• [Adjourning]

Team roles (Belbin)

• Chairperson (or Coordinator)• Company worker (or Implementer) • Completer-finisher• Monitor-evaluator • Plant• Resource investigator• Shaper• Team-worker• [Specialist]

Belbin website: http://www.belbin.com/

The HRM implications of teamworking

• People must be helped to develop the skills and knowledge needed to work effectively as a team

• People must develop not just the technical skills to do the job, but interpersonal, presentational and communication skills to interface with other teams, with the rest of the organisation and with customers

• Managers also need training to adapt to a supporting rather than a directing role

Organisational design

Work organisation beyond the level of task, job and team

Organising an organisation

The structure of an organisation is not an immutable given, but rather a set of

complex variables about which managers can exercise considerable choice.

Lorsch

Organisation is organic and unique

to each individual business.Peter Drucker

Organising by function

• The management structure can be relatively simple and all major decisions dealt with by a small top management team

• The functional structure allows specialist expertise to be built up and can offer a good career path for specialists

• The simple structure makes it easy to obtain economies of scale as production rises

• A functional structure is often the best for small, single-product organisations which operate with relatively simple technology in markets where change and risk are predictable and manageable.

Organising by product

• Organising activities becomes more effective than a functional structure as a firm diversifies into multiple products

• This advantage increases as competitive or technological changes increase in rate

• In these circumstances the product structure is superior to the functional structure in– speed of decision-making by top management– knowledge of customers and markets– communication between specialists and managers– product development– developing future general managers

The matrix structure

• This structure combines aspects of both the functional and product organisation

• Specialists from different functions work together on the same task or project

• Specialists are accountable to both the project management and their own functional management

• Matrix structures can help to preserve flexibility as organisations grow

Problems with matrix structures • Dual reporting can lead to conflict and stress• There can be conflict between product and

functional managers over priorities of resources, time and costs

• Functional managers often fear that their authority will be undermined by matrix structures

• Functional specialists have concerns about loss of their specialist identity and the possible threat to their career progression

Advantages of the matrix structure

• A matrix structure can be advantageous if – an organisation is diversified – it operates in a market where technical

complexity requires the use of many specialists

– it faces high competitive pressures

• In those conditions a matrix structure will probably recognise and improve a situation that has emerged anyway

The divisionalised structure

• Represented by separate divisions or ‘strategic business units’ (SBUs) based on different product ranges or on the geographical locations of customers

Advantages of divisionalisation

• Each division can concentrate on its own particular market so major decisions are taken nearer to the point of action

• Corporate management is freed for more strategic matters

• Profit responsibility is delegated to divisions, allowing business activities to be evaluated separately

• Decentralization of decision-making and responsibility motivates middle-level general managers and provides them with earlier training in general management

Problems with divisionalisation• The best basis for creating divisions may not

always be clear in practice • There can be conflict between divisions over

investment and the share of central services• The greater the interdependence of the

various parts of the company, the harder it will be to make divisionalisation work effectively

• Even where the original divisional design was appropriate initially, fast growth of a division may alter its characteristics

The flexible firm

• The 2004 Workplace Employee Relations Survey found solid empirical evidence that many UK organisations operated a ‘flexible organisation’ with a core of key employees and a ‘peripheral’ workforce of other workers

Peripheral shell II: Agency temps, Casual

Peripheral shell I: Fixed-term contracts

Core employees

An organisation [ie structure] does not make decisions … Nor can structure

compensate for lack of appropriate skills, the will to manage effectively, or the

motivation to work together.

Former President of General Motors, A. P. Sloan (1967)

Flexibility

Flexibility

• Employers pursue flexibility in working patterns for three main reasons:– To minimise human resource costs in both the short

and the long run – To protect the core from short-term fluctuations in

market demand– In response to the demands of an increasingly diverse

workforce in terms of both (i) minimum legal compliance, and (ii) discretionary entitlement to attract and retain core employees.

Types of flexibility

• functional flexibility: employees can be re-deployed quickly to new tasks and activities (eg multi-skilled craftsmen and team-workers)

• numerical flexibility: to increase and decrease the numbers employed in response to market demand (eg temporary employment, part-time working, subcontracting, etc)

• financial flexibility: payment systems which support and reinforce flexibility (eg performance-related pay, pay-for-skills)

The forms and aims of flexibility

• Work–life balance

• Annual(ised) hours

• Fixed-term and part-time contracts

• Job-sharing

• Home-working

• Long service leave/sabbatical

Change management

Necessarily affects the design of work

Organisational change is increasing, yet the high levels of failure indicate that

effective management of these changes is still lacking.

The CIPD (2006)

Resistance to change

• Entirely natural for those affected by it• Managing the human resource is perhaps the

most crucial aspect of managing change in any organisation.

• Managers have to gain the commitment of their people both during and after the implementation of change

• Successful management of change requires effective leadership, good project management and good communication skills

Lewin’s three-stage model of change management

1 ‘Unfreezing’ the status quo

2 ‘Changing’ to the new desired situation

3 ‘Refreezing’ or establishing the new situation

Beer, Eisenstat and Spector (1990)

The six-stage process of ‘task alignment’:

1 Mobilise commitment to change through joint analysis and diagnosis of problems

2 Develop a shared vision of how to organise and manage the change

3 Foster consensus, competence and commitment to a new shared vision

4 Spread the word about the change5 Institutionalise the change through formal policies,

systems and structures6 Monitor and adjust strategies and policies as needed

The role of HR in change

• Advising project leaders on the skills available within the organisation and identifying any skills gaps

• Negotiating and engaging with employee representatives

• Understanding employee concerns and anticipating problems

• Advising on communications with employee groups

• Helping individuals to cope with change