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 * This is a sandbox being edited for a class assignment - material originally copied from "Job Enrichment" page: Job enrichment**

Organisational performance is a composite of three factors, including a person’s ability to perform the role; their motivation or desire to do the job; and the work environment, including resources at their disposal. Managers have faced difficulty in creating jobs that stimulate motivation in employees, which has resulted in low levels of employee effort, low quality work, low retention rates and workplace avoidance.

Job enrichment is a job-design strategy that seeks to improve task efficiency and human satisfaction by designing jobs that incorporate more challenging tasks and additional responsibility, as well as increased opportunities for personal achievement, growth, advancement and feedback. The concept of job enrichment stems from a well-known theory of motivation called the ‘Two Factor Theory’, which asserts that the factors leading to job satisfaction are separate and distinct from those that cause dissatisfaction. By redesigning jobs to allow greater participation and involvement, the job itself may induce internal motivation and job satisfaction, which encourages individuals to seek out challenges, extend their abilities and learn. The process of job enrichment involves redesigning work to allow individuals to have a greater understanding of the entire work process, by incorporating activities that were previously in the planning and evaluation stages of the original job. This may include assigning an individual some of the tasks that were previously performed at a supervisory level.

Origin
Job Enrichment was originally introduced into the job satisfaction literature in 1968 following research conducted by American psychologist, Frederick Herzberg, in a paper titled ‘The Motivation to Work'. Herzberg’s original research involved interviewing several hundred US engineering and accounting professionals in Pittsburgh during the 1960s about job experiences in which they felt extreme job satisfaction or extreme dissatisfaction and then analysed the subsequent impact of these attitudes on outcomes of job performance, social relationships and attitudes about the organisation. The study revealed that employees reported job satisfaction in relation to intrinsic factors arising from the work itself, whilst job dissatisfaction stemmed from factors external to the work.

The Motivator-Hygiene Theory
Herzberg later classified the two distinct sets of factors that influenced job satisfaction and dissatisfaction, as: (1) 'motivation factors' and (2) 'hygiene factors', which formed the premise of his Motivator-Hygiene Theory (also known as the Two Factor Theory). Herzberg defined growth or ‘motivators’ as elements intrinsic to the job itself and strong predictors of job satisfaction, including achievement, recognition, responsibility and the opportunity for growth or advancement. In contrast, hygiene factors constituted elements extrinsic to the job and were strong determinants of job dissatisfaction, including company policy, interpersonal relationships, supervision, working conditions, status, security and salary. Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene Theory also separated the factors leading to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction as distinct phenomena – the mere absence of motivators that induced satisfaction did not result in dissatisfaction, but rather lead to 'no satisfaction'. This is in contrast to the prevailing belief at the time, which viewed job satisfaction and dissatisfaction as opposite ends of the same continuum. Herzberg contended that negative hygiene factors, which induced dissatisfaction in the workplace, distracted employees from experiencing motivators. As such, managers need to first improve the work context to eliminate or reduce hygiene factors, and then redesign jobs to include greater responsibility and autonomy, which creates the opportunity for employees to experience motivators. The principle outcome of Herzberg's analysis is premised on the condition that hygiene factors lead to job dissatisfaction because of the need to avoid unpleasantness, whilst job satisfaction is linked to motivators because of a need for growth or self-actualisation. Herzberg contends that there are two dimensions of job attitudes, which is reflected in a multi-faceted need structure which stipulates that there is "one need system for the avoidance of unpleasantness and a parallel need system for personal growth".

Other Early Research
Robert Ford built on Herzberg’s original definition in 1973, by defining job enrichment in terms of three factors: 1) creating a meaningful module of work 2) shifting responsibility to the employee, rather than the supervisor and 3) giving feedback directly to the employee.

In 1975, Hackman and Oldman developed one of the most widely used job enrichment models, called the ‘Job Characteristics Model’. The Job Characteristics Model delved further into the theory of job enrichment and stipulated that there are five core job characteristics: 1) skill variety 2) task identity 3) task significance 4) autonomy and 5) job feedback. Hackman and Oldman purported that to the extent that these five characteristics were present within a job, there were three psychological states produced, including experienced meaningfulness of the work; responsibility for the outcomes; and knowledge of results relating to work activities. To the extent that these psychological states were present, there would be a high degree of internal work motivation. Hackman and Oldman later modified their original model in 1980, stating that the model would only prove effective if three additional elements were present.  First, the employee must have the knowledge and skills to do the task; second, there must be an inbuilt desire for interesting and challenging jobs; and finally, the employee must be satisfied with external aspects of the job including working conditions, pay and supervision.

Related Psychological Concepts
In psychology, motivation is defined as the forces within or external to an individual that "arouse enthusiasm and persistence to pursue a certain course of action". Employees can be intrinsically motivated through the experience of  “enjoyment, interest, satisfaction of curiosity, self-expression, or personal challenge” while performing the job. Many of the psychological theories central to the theory of what motivates people are considered static theories of motivation. These theories focus on what motivates individuals at a single point in time, but do not necessarily predict behaviour or motivation, like dynamic process theories of motivation. Some of the main static theories of motivation are discussed below.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
“What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.”

Published in a 1943 edition of the Psychological Review journal, Abraham Maslow’s paper entitled “A Theory of Human Motivation” introduced the psychological concept of a hierarchy of needs. According to Maslow’s model, there are three ‘lower-order’ or ‘deficiency’ needs (biological/physiological, safety, and social needs) and two ‘higher-order’ or ‘growth’ needs (self-esteem, self-actualisation needs).

Central to Maslow’s theorem is the prerequisite that lower-order needs have to be satisfied first. Each level in Maslow’s hierarchy “requires satisfaction before the next highest order can motivate behaviour”. In other words, a lower-order need will always assume priority over a higher-order need, until it is sufficiently satisfied. Maslow termed this upward progression through the levels of needs as a “prepotency” phenomenon.

Motivation is perceived as the ‘by-product of satisfying the needs of individuals within the organisation. Effective motivation and performance management strategies demand recognition of the most salient needs of a given group of employees. Maslow contends that organisations tend to be more successful in nurturing lower-order needs (i.e. remuneration meets the physiological needs of hunger and thirst) as opposed to meeting higher-order needs – such as the acute desire for ‘self-actualisation’. Higher-order needs – including self-actualization needs – are congruent with the job content factors identified by Herzberg and Hackman & Oldham.

McClelland's Achievement Motivation Theory
Moving away from Maslow’s model that focused primarily upon innate needs, psychologist David McClelland (1961) introduced a new theorem proposing the dominance of acquired needs. McClelland identified three (core) acquired needs by drawing upon his own research regarding the underlying needs of managerial employees.

1.	A desire for ‘affiliation’: the need for nurturing and intimate interpersonal relationships

2.	A desire for ‘achievement’: the need to succeed, excel and/or conquer

3.	A desire for ‘power’: the need to control, influence and instruct

Essential to McClelland’s theorem is the notion that individual desires evolve over time as the result of life experience. This psychologist also contends that these acquired desires/needs can be fulfilled through the strategic implementation of human resource management (HRM). Of particular pertinence to the concept of Job Enrichment, McClelland’s model also claims that the salience of each desire/need will vary depending upon the employee’s unique position within the organisational hierarchy. As such, the organisation’s human resource practices should be specifically tailored to suit the individual needs of all employees.

Firstly, it is claimed that ‘ordinary’ or ‘line’ employees are chiefly motivated by the affiliation desire. For this employee group, McClelland advises that the emphasis should be upon teamwork and group-based incentive programs. Secondly, it is alleged that junior and middle managers are principally motivated by the need for achievement. These employees, who possess an acute desire for achievement, should be motivated through the provision of promotion opportunities that are contingent on individual performance. Thirdly, it is claimed that senior managers and executives are predominantly motivated by a desire for power. McClelland prescribes that power-driven employees should be motivated by recognising the impact of their leadership, influence and authority.

Needs and Goal Orientation
Other research has focused on goal orientation, which is characterised by the amount of effort expended on a task and is influenced by three primary goals in task performance situations: 1) an individual's focus on learning and increasing their competence levels, 2) a performance approach whereby individuals exhibit motivation to meet or surpass normative standards and 3) performance avoidance characterised by a need to avoid unfavourable judgment or evaluation.

Further, individuals who have high learning orientations are more likely to seek out challenging tasks; maintain a constant level of effort, despite receiving negative feedback; and view mistakes as an opportunity for improvement. This is in contrast to individuals who possess a high performance orientation, which is characterised by a focus on performance indicators over task activities; withdrawal from challenging tasks; and minimal effort.

Elements of Job Enrichment
Several studies have shown that creating enriched jobs by providing employees with a variety of tasks that increase their level of responsibility, sense of autonomy and opportunity to perform and accomplish tasks helps develop the employee's sense of “self management and self sufficiency” and increases their job satisfaction.

Core Job Elements
Previous research has identified five core job elements that best serve to elicit motivation of employees, as indicated by three psychological states: experienced meaningfulness of the work; experienced responsibility for outcomes of the work; and knowledge of the actual results of the work activities. The five elements include skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. Skill variety, task identity, and task significance contribute to how employees perceive the meaningfulness of their jobs, while autonomy contributes to personal responsibility, and feedback contributes to the knowledge of results. The five elements are considered as fundamental elements, since they provide the key to conducting an objective assessment on the tasks performed by employees and to identify any necessary task modification or changes that greatly impact on an employee's motivation.

Skill Variety
This dimension is moderated by the number of diverse activities involved and the range of skills required in performing the job. A job that involves routine or repetitive assembly-line work is low in skill variety, whereas a job that entails solving new problems and challenges on a continual basis is high in skill variety. Through skill variety, employees are given the opportunity to adopt and utilize different skills, talents, and abilities in order to avoid them from boredom, stress, fatigue, dullness and repetitiveness that can hinder employees’ morale and productivity at the workplace. Another way of giving the opportunity for the employees to learn a variety of tasks can be done through job rotation within the organization. It has been evident that giving a variety of job-related skills to the employees can increase the employees’ sense of meaningfulness at their work; help encourage employees to perform better; and promote employee retention.

Task Identity
This dimension is moderated by the extent to which the employee is enabled to perform a total job from its beginning right through to its completion. For example, a dressmaker who creates an entire dress has more task identity than a worker who attaches buttons to garments in an assembly-line. In other words, this focuses on the task accomplishment and the level of efforts given to the tasks in which those who invest more efforts in the overall task accomplishment process will likely find their jobs more interesting and meaningful than those who just partially contribute their efforts.

Task Significance
This dimension is moderated by the degree to which the job is perceived by the employee as being of significant importance to the consumer base, organisation, and/or wider society. A perception of conducting an important task is a valuable source of intrinsic motivation. In other words, this focuses on how the employees or organizations value the importance of the tasks in which those who are aware of having a highly important task will likely be more motivated and committed to perform and complete their task. Therefore, it is crucial for an organization to clearly communicate the various tasks or the organizational demands towards its employees and to encourage them to collectively participate in the various organizational programs, activities, and processes in order to enhance the employees’ level of awareness and motivation at the work.

Autonomy
This dimension is moderated by the extent to which the employee is provided the freedom, discretion, and self-determination in the process of planning and enacting work-related tasks. Employees who are given the autonomy or sense of freedom and control in the way they perform their tasks and choose or decide what to be performed or prioritised will likely be more motivated and have greater sense of ownership to their organization.

Feedback
This dimension is moderated by the degree to which the employee is provided with information about their performance of the job. Employees who receive ongoing and comprehensive feedback are able to better recognise the outcomes of their efforts. Providing feedback through a proper mechanism is important to enable the employees measure their own progress and correct their performance deficit. Feedback should be specific, clearly articulated, timely, and frequently given. Feedback should be given objectively and leave no rooms for personal and organizational biases. Given such a proper feedback will likely drive the inner motivation of the employees to perform better and contribute more significantly to the organization.

Job Depth
Job depth, which includes planning, controlling and coordination, and outlines the employee's various tasks and activities within the organisation , best serves to facilitate the design of an employee's work plan more comprehensively. This is critical in helping employees better understand their responsibilities and identify the proper techniques to perform their work and to evaluate the overall work process.

Motivators
A comprehensive analysis provided by Herzberg in his two-factor theory links job enrichment to job content (motivators) and job context (hygiene). Herzberg contends that there are significant differences in terms of the factors that influence job satisfaction and those that lead to job dissatisfaction. Job satisfaction is driven by motivator factors that include positive feelings and attitudes of the employees to the work itself, measured from the employee's level of achievement, advancement, and recognition. Whilst job dissatisfaction is driven by hygiene factors (extrinsic to the work) that include the environmental factors influencing the job, including company policy and administration, working conditions, salary, interpersonal relationships and the quality of supervision. In other words, improving the job content (motivator factors) will lead to more positive feelings towards the job, whilst improving the job context (hygiene factors) will lead to the reduction of negative feelings towards the job. Although both motivator and hygiene factors contribute to employees experiencing job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction, research has indicated that motivator factors have a greater influence on job satisfaction and dissatisfaction is influenced mainly by hygiene factors. Therefore, in enriching a job, it is important for organisations to primarily strengthen the psychological aspects that can affect the motivation of employees within their jobs.

On-the-Job Training
Training is one of the organisation's strategic tools that serves to facilitate the improvement of employees’ capabilities and proficiency. Research has proven that training is one of the factors that influences job performance positively, as it enhances an employee's knowledge, talent and skills in accomplishing organisational objectives , and corrects performance deficits. Therefore, it is important for organisations to equip their employees with ongoing training as a continuous process to encourage transfer of knowledge and experience that will develop and sustain the employee's attributes of creativity, resourcefulness, innovation, and imagination. To achieve this, it is important to design a training program with comprehensible and pragmatic goals.

One of the most common organisational forms of training is on the job training. It is defined as a process of transferring knowledge, skills, and talents systematically by having a person with the qualified expertise to demonstrate how to perform tasks. This normally involves direct instruction from senior managers that is specifically related to the subordinate’s job and takes place during the normal working day, while employees are involved in the day-to-day activities of their actual jobs.

Managerial Application
To ensure the successful application of job enrichment within a role, the following section details a conceptual model for job enrichment design. The first step in the process involves developing a set of diagnostic tools, which aid in the evaluation of jobs and employees’ preconceptions about their roles prior to instituting any changes. This step also identifies aspects of the job that are crucial for ensuring successful changes in job design. The second step involves a set of 'implementing concepts ', which identify which action steps are most likely to have an impact, based on the findings of the diagnostic stage.

1) Diagnosis
Hackman, Oldham, Janson, & Purdy consider diagnosis of the target job and an employee's reaction to the job as the key to the success of job enrichment practices. The diagnostic process requires that employees, their supervisors and outside observers, have an objective and clear understanding of the target job; the employee's current attitude towards the job and work settings; and the employee's desire to change and develop.

Diagnostic tools gauge the following three factors :


 * Objective characteristics of the job

This step assesses the motivating potential of the job and scores the role based on the five core dimensions that constitute the Job Characteristics Model - skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy & feedback. These dimensions are evaluated by supervisors, outside observers and employees. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the job from a multifaceted approach is fundamental in ensuring work redesign is effective.

A measure of how employees feel about the work setting, including factors such as pay, supervision, and their relationships with co-workers.
 * ''Employees' level of motivation, satisfaction and performance on the job


 * ''Employees' level of growth need strength

'' Employees who have innate growth needs are more likely to respond positively to job enrichment strategies. As a result, managers can ascertain which employees are more flexible towards change and which employees may require more training or assistance in adjusting and adapting to the enriched job.

If the diagnostic results demonstrate an irrelevant relationship between job content and the problems at hand, job enrichment should not be used as a solution.

Steps for Job Diagnosis
The steps involved in job diagnosis depend on the work situation, but the following list of questions is commonly used in practice:

Step 1: Are satisfaction and motivation central to the problem at hand?

This first step requires employees to take a Job Diagnostic Survey to determine whether there are issues arising from lack of motivation within the workplace. This step identifies whether work performance is adversely affected by motivation or is due to other factors, such as poorly designed production systems.

Step 2: Does the job have low motivating potential?

The target job is scored for its motivating potential, which is then compared to the motivating potential of other jobs. This step documents whether the job itself is the likely cause of low motivation (as identified in step 1). If the job is deemed to have high motivating potential, there may be other factors contributing to motivational difficulties, including pay and the nature of supervision.

Step 3: Which aspects of the job are causing the lack of motivation?

This step involves analysing the job in terms of the five core dimensions to ascertain which particular aspects are contributing to the job's strengths and weaknesses. At this stage, a profile is formed which outlines areas that require improvement.

Step 4: Measure employee's 'readiness for change'

Once improvements to aspects of the job are identified, the Job Diagnostic Survey results are again used to determine an employee's level of growth needs. This step enables the identification of how changes can be implemented. Employees that have high levels of growth needs usually adapt more easily to job enrichment initiatives.

2) Implementing Concepts: Five Approaches to Enhance Motivational Potential
There are five approaches, known as 'implementing concepts', that help organisations improve the motivational potential of a job by improving the quality of the perceived work experience, as well as the employee's productivity.
 * Vertical Job Loading. Vertical loading is concerned with designing jobs that incorporate a higher level of knowledge and skill requirements; greater autonomy; and responsibility in planning, directing, and controlling the work performed. Vertical loading enables employees to set schedules, determine work methods, make their own decisions, and seek solutions to problems on their own. It also increases employee’s autonomy by progressing from a position of highly restricted authority to nearly total authority of their job. By increasing autonomy, an individual experiences a feeling of greater responsibility for their work, which subsequently results in higher internal work motivation.


 * Natural Grouping. Natural grouping means combining existing, segmented tasks into a new and larger unit of work. It proposes that each employee completes a given piece of work instead of having a series of employees perform separate parts of a whole job. Natural grouping enhances skill variety and task identity, as well as task significance. The sense of ownership instilled by natural grouping strategies also enhances feelings of rewarding and meaningful work.


 * Formation of Natural Teams. Grouping employees into logical or inherently meaningful categories would increase task significance and task identity. Categories may include divisions, teams, and departments. Formation of these groupings contrasts with assigning work in a random manner. The criteria for team formation includes geographic segmentation; business type; organizational; alphabetic; and customer group.


 * Opening Feedback Channels. Jobs should be designed to provide as much feedback as possible to employees. The purpose of opening feedback channels is to provide employees with direct, immediate, and regular feedback regarding their job performance and help individuals learn whether their performance is improving, declining or remaining constant. The ability to provide feedback increases by removing barriers that isolate employees from relevant work-related information.


 * Establishing Client Relationships. Job feedback, skill variety and autonomy increase by allowing employees to build direct relationships with the clients at work. In doing so, employees are able to receive feedback or criticism based directly on their outputs; improve their interpersonal skills through client relationships; and improve their autonomy as individuals are given more responsibility in managing client relationships.

Other Implementation Concepts: A Contingency Approach
Monczka & Reif suggest a contingency approach to implement job enrichment strategies.

Step 1

The method for enriching jobs shouldn't focus solely on job content, but must ensure the psychosocial environment, technology and management aspects are considered to ensure increased job satisfaction and performance. The interrelationships between these four elements should also be considered.


 * Job characteristics

Job characteristics consist of 10 dimensions: Variety, Autonomy, Interaction, Knowledge & Skills, Responsibility, Feedback, Task Identity, Pay, Working Conditions and Cycle Time.


 * Psychosocial Environment

This is related to employees' perceived personality, attitudes toward work, values, believes and perceived status.


 * Tehcnology

Technology refers to conversion costs, equipment, systems and technical skills.


 * Management

The management aspect encompasses management philosophy; an organisation's attitude towards change; leadership style; and relationship management both within and outside the organization.

Step 2

After measuring these elements and implementing a job enrichment program, the changes in job satisfaction and productivity of employees will provide feedback that allows the organisation to have continuous knowledge about changes in key elements. The organisation will also have a better understanding of what they want in the job enrichment program and how they would define as a successful job enrichment outcome.

Managerial Implications
Many researchers have found that there is a positive correlation between job enrichment and employees/organisational performance. For the purpose of motivating employees to enhance productivity and job performance, many organisations have implemented job enrichment activities and practices. However, job enrichment is a complex and continuous management function, so organisations must carefully analyse the factors that may affect its success as well as the benefits and outcomes that can be expected from enriched jobs, both in terms of individual employees and the organisation.

Employee Performance
A study by Lunenburg has shown that employees with enriched jobs usually experience lower absenteeism and turnover, along with higher job satisfaction and motivation. For example, the automobile company, Volvo, has demonstrated how job enrichment has improved job satisfaction and productivity. As job enrichment and job satisfaction are interrelated, a good job enrichment program and practice can increase an employee’s level of job satisfaction. However, job enrichment programs that are not implemented well may actually have an adverse impact on the degree of employees’ job satisfaction. According to research conducted by Pan and Werblow, job enrichment practices enhance employees’ feelings of pride and sense of importance and responsibility, and therefore strengthen employees’ level of job satisfaction. In turn, organisations also attain good outcomes. Job enrichment has been found to improve employee's intrinsic motivation. Job enrichment provides employees with the opportunity for psychological growth; the effective utilization of personnel attempt to motivate employees by manipulating the motivator factors. It answers individual’s deep-seated need for growth and achievement by providing interesting and challenging work, and increasing responsibility. Moreover, researchers have found that job enrichment helps motivate individuals to set more difficult, creative, and long-term goals. Parker(2014) found that enriched jobs enhance commitment and increase positive effects, which results in broader thinking and individuals setting challenging goals. Herzberg found that job enrichment and motivator factors, in contrast to hygiene factors, have a longer-term effect on motivating employees. Although the job may have to be enriched again in the future, this will not happen as frequently as the need for hygiene factors. Furthermore, it is important for organisations to design jobs that contain an optimal level of task difficulty to elicit employees' work motivation. However, the difficulty or optimal level of job design varies for different individuals. Some employees can manage demanding jobs effectively and are reinforced by successful achievement, while others employees are not able to perform and become discouraged and dissatisfied. Since different employees possess different abilities in accomplishing work tasks, it is difficult for organisations to determine whether an enriched job is enriching enough for an individual employee. Lunenburg also contends that employees with low growth needs will not respond as well to job enrichment practices as those who have high growth needs.
 * Job Satisfaction
 * Employee Motivation
 * Individual Differences

Organisational Performance
The positive effects of job enrichment has great potential to improve organisational performance, however, organisations must be fully aware of the details pertaining to a particular job. For instance, if an enriched job is much more complex than the current job held by the employee, assigning very complex tasks may become unrealistic and it may lead to inefficiencies due to training and compensation costs becoming too high. However, elements like task delegation may result in a high need for coordination between employees, which will improve efficiency in dealing with tasks at a central level. Job enrichment can create strong negative feelings between those who feel threatened by seeing one’s job erode under the pull of vertical job loading. Organisations must prepare and coach employees to prepare them to accept the fact that job enrichment will require changes in their own jobs as well as those of their subordinates. Furthermore, organisations must be aware of the magnitude of changes in the organisational structure resulting from the design of enriched jobs, and begin to plan accordingly. Another challenge that many organisations face when implementing job enrichment programs are union-management relationships. The existence of unions could make the implementation process more difficult as negotiated job classifications and work rules might limit the changes that can be made to job content. Organisations that have good relationships with their unions will experience less union opposition when implementing the job enrichment program. Job enrichment strategies have been found to have significant impact on organisational change. In today’s changing business environment, organisations are required to make certain changes in order to survive and compete with other organisations. When implementing change, most organisations focus only on strategy and structure, and neglect the most important part which includes engaging employees in the process and assuring them of the benefits resulting from the changes at hand. In bringing effective change management into an organisation, empowerment techniques such as job enrichment, would satisfy employees and motivate them to explore their potential. Singh concluded that organisational change, if managed effectively, will create opportunities at the end of the change process.
 * Organisational Efficiency & Effectiveness
 * Organisational Challenges
 * Change Management

Recommendations
In order to improve employee and organisational performance, the following recommendations are recommended for a job enrichment program. It is suggested that a continual monitoring program should be established once a job enrichment program is initiated, therefore, periodic feedback regarding how changes in job design are influencing job satisfaction and productivity can be monitored. If the answers received are positive, job enrichment programs would be strengthened and serve to increase acceptance and support throughout the organisation. In addition, Pan & Werblow suggest that organisations should always enact, publicize and communicate its well-designed job enrichment programs to employees, to improve the social environment of the workplace. They found that a friendly work environment with positive social interactions increase and enhance the level of employees’ job satisfaction, and thereby, improve organisational performance.