Autonomy and Control at the Workplace

Contexts for Job Redesign

John E. Kelly, Chris W. Clegg, John E. Kelly, Chris W. Clegg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138289093
• eBook ISBN: 9781351972925
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book, first published in 1982, aims to re-examine the phenomenon of job redesign in a series of different but related contexts by including accounts, often using case study material, from people trained in a range of social science disciplines utilising different frames of reference. Thus job redesign is considered in relation to social policy, payment systems, collecting bargaining arrangements and trade unions, new technology, the process of change, organisational structures and functions, information and control systems, and the whole issue of emancipation at work. This title will be of interest to students of business studies and human resource management.

Chapter 1

PERSPECTIVES ON JOB REDESIGN

Toby D. Wall

INTRODUCTION

The concept of job redesign has become a topic of considerable contemporary interest and controversy in Western societies. It has led to initiatives at a political level, has been the focus of enquiry among social scientists, and in a relatively few but widely publicised instances, has been translated into direct action.

This chapter considers the nature and development of this interest, and is addressed to the question of why it has emerged. The discussion is divided into four parts. In order to draw some boundaries around the subject matter, the scene is set by a brief outline of what is meant by the term job redesign, and this is followed by an account of current interest in the concept where the emphasis is on recent political initiatives. These initiatives are in part attributable to an emergent body of knowledge concerning job redesign. The next and major section of the chapter consequently examines some of the evidence on the effects of alternative ways of organising work. The concluding section considers factors affecting the diffusion of job redesign.

It will be appreciated that any account at this level of generality is to some extent a caricature. Nevertheless, like any caricature, whilst prey to the criticism of exaggeration and over-simplification, its purpose is to highlight the distinctive features of the subject.

THE TERM JOB REDESIGN

The term job redesign is used here to describe a family of concepts which are also sometimes referred to under the titles of work reorganisation or work restructuring. Thus it subsumes such notions as job rotation, job extension, job enlargement (both ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’), job enrichment and autonomous work groups, each of which is considered separately later.

The essential feature of job redesign, and equally of the more specialised notions it encompasses, is that it is a relative concept. It represents a reaction against traditional ways of organising jobs, which are seen as having resulted in a trend towards increasing work simplification. Developments in industrial societies in the shape of the division of labour, technological advance and the evolution of systems for work measurement and specification, are argued to have coalesced in such a way that they have inexorably led to fragmented and repetitive jobs involving the exercise of little initiative, control or intellectual skills on the part of their incumbents. This is held to be the case not only in manufacturing industry, where the most obvious example is the assembly line, but also to have spread to most other areas of work. Whether one accepts the work simplification thesis (which is considered in greater detail in part three), and there are those who argue that with advancing technology and a movement of labour from manufacturing towards service industries, it is now being reversed, it does provide the evolutionary perspective against which the concept of job redesign is to be understood. In essence job redesign refers to the deliberate attempt to reverse this trend, to organise the work of individuals or groups in such a way as to provide greater complexity with respect to one or more of the following characteristics: variety, autonomy, and completeness of task (carrying out a whole and identifiable piece of work).

The value basis which underlies job redesign is readily apparent in the literature. Thus with respect to work simplification, Braverman (197*0 refers to “the degradation of work in the twentieth century”. Marx (1867) comparing the factory worker with the craftsman, describes the former as alienated because of the skill loss, and also as a result of his lack of ownership of his work. Similarly, Hackman (1977) states that job redesign “in the long term, can result in organisations that rehumanize rather than dehumanize the people who work in them” (p.102). Sometimes less explicit in the writings of proponents of job redesign, however, is the belief that it provides a means of meeting both the individual’s and the organisation’s goals of improved well-being and work performance. This unitarist notion is evident in the idea of joint optimisation which is central to the socio-technical approach. It is also clearly specified by Hackman (1977), who describes job redesign as “the alteration of specific jobs (or interdependent systems of jobs) with the intent of increasing both the quality of the employees’ work experience and their on-the-job productivity” (p.98). Argyris (1964) expresses an equivalent view.

Thus the concept of job redesign can best be understood in terms of its historical context and its value basis. It is a reaction against the perceived trend towards work simplification, which has also come to incorporate a belief in the possibility of joint optimisation.

CURRENT INTEREST IN JOB REDESIGN

One perspective on the current interest in job redesign is provided by the fact that it has recently been recognised as an issue for debate at national and international level. Thus it has been included as a central element in the potentially larger theme denoted by the term ‘the quality of working life’. As Butteriss states (1975)? this term refers to “the idea that a person should be treated as an entity in his own right, and should be given autonomy over his work. The main conceptual breakthrough is the belief that jobs and work organisations can be arranged and designed to give the individual autonomy so that his psychological needs and capabilities are met” (p.1).

Explicit international promotion of job redesign came to the fore in the mid-nineteen seventies. In 1974, for example, the Council of the European Economic Community passed a resolution which recommended, “eliminating certain soul-destroying forms of work”, included the statement that the assembly was “convinced that social progress will in future depend on the interest workers take in jobs”, and therefore suggested that “parliamentary and governmental authorities, as well as workers’ and employers’ organisations in member states, actively promote the humanisation of working conditions” (pp. 1–2). In the appendix to the resolution it was further proposed that there was a need “to investigate measures of job redesign to eliminate meaningless, repetitive and fragmented work”, “to institute special systems -job enlargement, job rotations (sic), self-controlling groups - for assembly-line and similar production line workers, subject to the aim of future elimination of assembly-line work”, and “to increase individual responsibility and create an atmosphere favourable to team spirit and solidarity” (pp.2–3). Similarly, as Butteriss(1975) reports, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development adopted a supportive policy as illustrated by the following statement, “We recommend affirmative action to secure improvement in the quality of working life with emphasis on the goal of personal fulfilment over and above the technical and economic requirements of production. We recognise that such development depends on considerable changes in attitude on the part of both employers and unions, and that more positive action by Government is needed to facilitate this” (p.29).

The emergence of bodies concerned to promote research and disseminate information on job redesign, such as the International Council for the Quality of Working Life (registered in 1975), and the PIACT project of the International Labour Organisation (Programme for the Improvement of Working Conditions and Environment, 1976) further illustrate initiatives being taken internationally.

Support for the development and practice of job redesign is also evident at a national level. It is now the case that the governments of most Western countries have set up agencies concerned with the quality of working life. In the United Kingdom, the Department of Employment commissioned a report entitled, ‘On the Quality of Working Life’ (Wilson, 1973). In 1974, on the recommendation of a tripartite steering group of representatives from government, the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry, the same government department instituted the Work Research Unit. The overall objective of this Unit is described as being to stimulate changes in the way in which work is organised in industry and commerce. The accomplishment of this was to be by the dissemination of information, devising training programmes, assisting organisations with initiating changes, and by financing specific research projects. Similarly, in 1979 the Social Science Research Council earmarked £250,000 to promote research into ‘Work Organisation’ (SSRC Newsletter, No. 40).

In West Germany a “Humanisation of Work Programme” was initiated in 1974 under the joint sponsorship of the trade unions and the Ministries of Labour and of Technology. In contrast with the few hundred thousand pounds of support which has been allocated by the British to these developments, some £66 million was provided in 1975 by the West German government to finance experimental projects over an initial five year period. This figure has now been raised to take account of inflation. These projects cover a wide range of factors including lighting, air pollution and noise, as well as being concerned with the psychological work environment and job redesign. They are unified, however, by their emphasis on the improvement of working life for shop-floor employees. As Jenkins (1978) reports this “is far larger and more ambitious than any other such programme” (p.1).

The above comment may be accurate with respect to financial support, but is less so in other terms. In Scandinavian countries since the early 1960’s, there has existed government backing for the development of job redesign which is seen as part of a more general programme to promote the ‘democratisation of the work place’. In Norway, for example, the Work Research Institute, originally set up in 1960, received government backing in 1965 which time it came under the guidance of a secretariat representing university, government, trades union council and employers’ federation interests. Much of the work undertaken has been in association with researchers from the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. In Sweden and Denmark similar developments took place in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, and are receiving continued support from all interested parties.

Initiatives on job redesign are also evident in Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Holland and the United States. In effect what is being witnessed is the integration of job redesign into the social policies of a wide range of countries.

Lafittes’ (1962) description of social policy is particularly pertinent in this context. He depicts the concept in the following terms:

Through collective action, particularly by imposing the state’s directing power on the forces of the market, we seek to steer society along paths it would not naturally follow, towards accepted goals unattainable without public organisation - the great communal Super-ego, as it were, striving to marshall the drives of the great social Id. Through social policy we assert the primacy of non-economic values, our belief that the way of life matters more than the ways of getting a living …. Social policy could be seen as our determination to return to the old norm in a world transformed by industrialism (p.58).

For better or for worse, job redesign as a central ingredient in the striving towards improvements in the quality of working life, is currently a focus for social policy.

Whilst there may exist a continued growth in the volume of public, quasi-public and private interventions in social life, it is nevertheless more than coincidence that job redesign, rather than other ideas emerging from the social sciences, has been adopted. The reason for this lies in the values underlying job redesign which appear to many to match well on to those ideas gaining credence in a range of other contexts (see Davis, 1976; Den Hertog, 1976). In education for example, there has developed a move towards less authoritarian approaches in teaching with more emphasis on individualism and self expression. In society at large there has arisen criticism of bureaucracy and of the quality of the relationship between man and his work (e.g. Herrick and Maccoby, 1975). Job redesign is seen as a way of meeting this criticism. Klein (1976) makes the point in the following way when she argues that job redesign “should lead to a greater interpenetration between industry and the rest of society, lessening the split between values expressed in the working arrangements of society and the values expressed in other institutions” (p.70). The emergence of worker participation as a legitimate issue for debate and legislation is based on similar values, ones which emphasise the mature citizen’s right to an influence over those decisions that affect him. Indeed the link between job redesign and industrial democracy has been carefully forged by a number of writers (e.g. Emery and Thorsrud, 1969 ; Bolweg, 1976) who see such innovation as a possible or necessary first step towards reaching the values of democracy within work organisations. Add to that the belief that job redesign can also be of benefit to productivity, then its attraction is evident. It is a way of marrying the old with the new. It should be recorded, however, that there are those who do not perceive job redesign in this way, arguing that it is too trivial to be worthy of consideration (see part 4 below). Nevertheless the surface characteristics of job redesign are such as to encourage adherence to the idea within political and academic circles.

Despite political promotion of job redesign, and similar support by a large body of social scientists active in teaching and intervening in work organisations, the interest of those closer to the work face is undoubtedly less strong and less unified. Whilst some organisations have taken substantial and well publicised initiatives in this area (for example Volvo, Saab, Philips, ICI, and FIAT), it could not be said to be a burning issue in the world of work as a whole. Precise evidence concerning the proportion of work organisations aware of developments in job redesign, considering change of this type, or undertaking innovations, is not available, but it is clearly only the few (see for example, surveys by Reif, Ferrazzi and Evans, 1974; and Taylor, 1979). And where job redesign has been tried, it has often neither spread nor indeed survived in the longer term. Indeed, paradoxically the very existence of social policy in this area implies there must be a high degree of apathy, resistance or lack of conviction within organisations otherwise there would be no need for action to ‘steer society along the paths it would not naturally follow’. The causes for such lack of interest are considered later. First, however, we explore the existing evidence relating to the efficacy of job redesign.

EVIDENCE ON THE HUMAN AND ORGANISATIONAL CONSEQUENCES OF JOB DESIGN AND REDESIGN

The emergence of job redesign as a subject for social policy is not only a response to its value basis but also to a body of evidence. This contribution to the debate is considered by depicting the main characteristics of: (i) the ‘conventional’ approach to the design of jobs; (ii) research on the effects of simplified work to which the ‘conventional’ approach leads; (iii) proposals for redesigning jobs; and (iv) research on the effectiveness of alternative proposals for job redesign.

‘Conventional’ Job Design

The major influences on ‘conventional’ job design practices may be traced back to the writings of such theorists as Adam Smith (1776) and Charles Babbage (1835). A core concept in their arguments was the division of labour, which they saw as providing the means for greater material output per man hour worked. In the view of Babbage - “when each process, by which any article is produced, is the sole occupation of one individual, his whole attention being devoted to a very limited and simple operation, improvements in the form of his tools, or in the mode of using them, are much more likely to occur in his mind, than if he were distracted by a greater variety of circumstances”. He argued that such a division of labour would result in more ‘economy of production’ through reducing training times, reducing materials wasted in learning, avoiding the work time inevitably lost in more complex jobs in moving from one task to another and in changing tools, and increased levels of activity through the “skill acquired by frequent repetition of the same processes”. This was further underlined by the principle that manufacturers, by such division of labour, could purchase the exact levels of skill or effort required, rather than adopting the more economically wasteful approach of requiring these to be present in all individuals and having the majority of skills unused at any one moment in time. In essence it was a doctrine of deskilling jobs by reducing their complexity - a fragmentation of work into its component tasks.

The writings and practical demonstrations offered by Taylor (1911) and Gilbreth (1911), elaborated upon this theme and provided the tactics to enable the general strategy to be implemented. An important aspect of Taylor’s approach is that it made the design of jobs towards more effective methods based on the division of labour, a function of management and not, as implied by Babbage, as a natural evolution from the job incumbents’ specialisation. As Taylor stated, “management must take over and perform much of the work which is now left to the men; almost every act of the workman should be preceded by one or more preparatory acts of the management which enable him to do his work better and quicker than he otherwise could”. These “preparatory acts” concerned making work more efficient, to which end the following procedure was recommended. A number of individuals who were particularly able at the work in question were to be located, and the physical movements they used to be closely watched and carefully timed. From these the most rapid, as well as the slowest and redundant movements, were to be identified. Finally, a new method of working was to be developed which capitalised on the rapid movements and eliminated the unnecessary ones. The equipment and technical layout associated with the jobs were to be similarly treated. Having decided on the ‘best method’, it was to be put rigidly into practice by training individuals in its use.

With a number of routine manual jobs, Taylor’s approach was put into effect with spectacular results in terms of increased output. On a more complex level, the principles of the division of labour and closely controlled fragmentation of jobs, were shown to be a practical proposition of enormous economic benefit by the establishment in 1914, of a car assembly-line by Henry Ford at Highland Park in Michigan.

Many contemporary commentators see these influences as critical factors underlying a disjunction in the evolution of jobs (e.g. Davis and Taylor, 1972). The earlier order of skilled and composite work in which individuals practised all the skills involved in making a complete product, was halted. Subsequently, through the principle of the division of labour and Taylor’s’ scientific management’, as expressed in the work of managers, production engineers, work study practitioners and others involved in designing the content of jobs, it is argued jobs have become increasingly simplified. As Klein (1976) describes,

the choices made in the design and organisation of work have tended to be in the direction of rationalisation, specialisation and the subdivision of tasks, and the minimising and standardising of skills …. first in manufacture and later in administration, the knowledge and methods of the natural sciences have been put to the task of discovering methods of working and organising which would give economical and predictable results (p. 14).

That work simplification has spread from manufacturing to most other areas of work is an argument offered by many commentators (e.g. Braverman, 1974; Cherns a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. PERSPECTIVES ON JOB REDESIGN
• 2. ECONOMIC AND STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF JOB REDESIGN
• 3. JOB REDESIGN AND TRADE UNION RESPONSES : PAST PROBLEMS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
• 4. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AND JOB REDESIGN
• 5. THE PROCESS OF CHANGE: PRACTICAL PARADIGMS FOR REDESIGNING JOBS
• 6. MODELLING THE PRACTICE OF JOB DESIGN
• 7. INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND THE ORGANISATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF JOB REDESIGN
• 8. JOB REDESIGN AND SOCIAL POLICIES
• REFERENCES
• AUTHOR INDEX
• SUBJECT INDEX