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JMD
25,6
572
Received 19 April 2005
Revised 12 July 2005
Accepted 7 September 2005
Journal of Management Development
Vol. 25 No. 6, 2006
pp. 572-587
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0262-1711
DOI 10.1108/02621710610670137
New model of job design:
motivating employees’
performance
Pooja Garg and Renu Rastogi
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttaranchal, India
Abstract
Purpose – The paper aims to identify the key issues of job design research and practice to motivate
employees’ performance.
Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual model of Hackman and Oldham’s job
characteristics has been adopted to motivate employees’ performance.
Findings – The paper finds that a dynamic managerial learning framework is required in order to
enhance employees’ performance to meet global challenges.
Practical implications – Traditional outcomes will certainly remain central to the agenda. But
some wider developments are to be incorporated within organizational systems so as to motivate
employees for better performance.
Originality/value – The paper may be of value to researchers and practitioners in the management
development field for offering enhanced jobs to employees leading to improved performance.
Keywords Job design, Motivation (psychology), Learning, Organizational performance
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
There is an established body of knowledge supporting the idea that certain jobs and
goal setting can enhance performance. This paper focuses on motivating performance
through job design. It is experienced that well designed jobs can have a positive impact
on both employee satisfaction and the quality of performance. In the present paper, it is
proposed that a well-defined job would enhance motivation, satisfaction and
performance of the employees. Thus, for both academicians and practitioners, job
design takes on special importance in today’s human resource management. It is
essential to design jobs so that stress can be reduced, motivation can be enhanced, and
satisfaction of employees and their performance can be improved so that organizations
can effectively compete in the global marketplace.
Initially, the field of organizational behavior paid attention only to job enrichment
(JE) approaches to job design. Now, job design has taken a broader perspective, with
various dimensions such as job enrichment (JE), job engineering (JEng), quality of work
life (QWL), sociotechnical designs, the social information processing approach (SIPA)
and the job characteristics approach to job design. The proposed model recognizes
certain job characteristics that contribute to certain psychological states, and that the
strength of the employee’s need for growth has an important moderating effect.
The aim of this paper is to identify the key issues of job design research and
practice, particularly in relation to higher-level jobs. To provide the context for the
account that follows, we first take a backward glance at job design. We then briefly New model of job
describe the approaches to job design with emphasis on the job characteristics design
approach to job design in detail, followed by a literature review of the job
characteristics approach. Later we present the proposed model of job design, and its
future implications or outcomes.
Job design and its approaches are usually considered to have begun with scientific
management in the year 1900. Pioneering scientific managers such as Taylor (1947), 573
Gilbreth (1911), and Gilbreth and Gilbreth (1917) systematically examined jobs with
various techniques. They suggested that task design might be the most prominent
element in scientific management.
With respect to the design of individual jobs, the first major theory was that of
Herzberg and his colleagues (Herzberg et al., 1959). Their two-factor theory
distinguished between two types of factors, namely motivators, which are intrinsic
to the work itself (e.g. achievement, recognition, and responsibility), and hygiene
factors, which are extrinsic to the work (e.g. work conditions, pay, and supervision).
The proposition was that the hygiene factors are absolutely necessary to maintain the
human resources of an organization. According to Hertzberg’s theory, only a
challenging job has the opportunity for achievement, recognition, advancement and
growth that will motivate personnel.
Hackman and Oldham’s (1976) job characteristics model (JCM), superseded the
two-factor theory. This identifies five core job characteristics, namely:
(1) skill variety;
(2) task identity;
(3) task significance;
(4) autonomy; and
(5) feedback.

The core job characteristics are followed by three critical psychological states, namely:
(1) experienced meaningfulness;
(2) experienced responsibility; and
(3) knowledge of results.

In turn, the critical psychological states are accountable for increased work satisfaction,
internal work motivation, performance and reduced absence and employee turnover. The
model assumes that autonomy and feedback are more important than the work
characteristics, and that individuals with higher growth need strength (i.e. desire for
challenges and personal development) will respond more positively to enriched jobs than
others. To this end, an extension to job design has been proposed that would help
organizations and employees to survive in the turbulent marketplace.
There was substantial interest from researchers and practitioners in job design
during the 1900s. Hackman et al. (1975), conducted a study and claimed that people on
enriched jobs are definitely more motivated and satisfied by their jobs. Another study
conducted by Griffin (1989) on 1,000 tellers from 38 banks of a large holding company
found from the job design intervention that employees perceive meaningful changes
and tend to recognize those changes over time. In addition to this, a meta-analysis of
JMD the job characteristics model (Fried and Ferris, 1987) found general support for the
25,6 model and for its effects on motivation and satisfaction and performance outcome.
Adler (1991) found that systems in which employees reported higher perceptions of
skill variety, task significance, autonomy, and feedback reported higher levels of
satisfaction and internal work motivation. Champoux (1991) theorized the
relationships that growth need strength moderates between the core job
574 characteristics and the critical psychological states and affective responses.
Moreover, Dodd and Ganster (1996) examined the interactive relationship between
feedback, autonomy and variety by manipulating the characteristics in lab. In their
study, Arce (2002) found that the reward from outside activities is affected by the
performance on inside activity. The study provides a rationale for the existence of
synergies between different activities. Loher et al. 1985) found the relation between job
characteristics and job satisfaction and also found that the relation was stronger for
employees high in growth need strength (GNS). Renn and Vandenberg (1995) studied
the strongest support for the job characteristic model that allowed the core job
dimensions to have direct and indirect effects on personal and work outcomes. Another
study conducted by Morrison et al. (2005) found that job designs that provide for high
levels of employee control also provide increased opportunities for the development
and exercise of skill. Also, mediational influence of perceived skill utilization on job
control job satisfaction has been observed. Love and Edwards (2005) concluded that
perceived work demands, job control and social support through job design leads to
high productivity. Sokoya (2000) found in his study that the level of job satisfaction is
determined by a combination of jobs, work and personal characteristics. Rotating
managers to different jobs adds the benefit of task variety, resulting in increased
performance of employees. Bassey (2002) observed in his study that skills, task
identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback, job security and compensation are
important factors for the motivation of employees. Thus, the research done in this field
has created virtuous circles for more research and practice.

Approaches to job design

The approaches to job design have been postulated in such a manner that they
indirectly affect an employee’s level of motivation. The approaches to job design have
worked in different perspectives for various organizational developments. These
approaches are: job engineering (J.Eng.); job enrichment (JE); quality of work life
(QWL); social information processing approach (SIPA) and job characteristics.

Job enrichment (JE)

The technique entails enriching the job, which refers to the inclusion of greater variety of
work content, requiring a higher level of knowledge and skill, giving workers autonomy
and responsibility in terms of planning, directing, and controlling their own performance,
and providing the opportunity for personal growth and meaningful work experience.

Job engineering (JEng)

The scientific management approach evolved into what is now generally called job
engineering. It is closely associated with cybernation and sophisticated computer
applications, computer assisted design (CAD), and human-machine interactions. In
fact, it has been the dominant aspect of job design analysis.
Quality of work life (QWL) and socio-technical design New model of job
The overriding purpose of quality of work life is to change the climate at work so that design
the human-technological-organizational interface leads to a better quality of work life.

Social information processing approach (SIPA)

The social information processing approach to job design suggests that individual
needs, task perceptions, and reactions are socially constructed realities. The process 575
includes choice, revocability, publicness, explicitness, social norms and expectations,
and external priming, which combine with social information (from others and the
organizational environment) and influence the jobholders’ perceptions, attitudes and
behaviors.

The job characteristics approach to job design

To meet the limitations of Herzberg’s approach to job enrichment (which he prefers to
call orthodox job enrichment (OJE), Hackman and Oldham (1976) developed the most
widely recognized model of job characteristics, as shown in Figure 1.
Basically, this model recognized certain job characteristics that contribute to certain
psychological states and that the strength of employees’ need for growth has an
important moderating effect. The core job characteristics are summarized below:
.
Skill variety. This refers to the extent to which the job requires the employee to
draw from a number of different skills and abilities as well as upon a range of
knowledge.
.
Task variety. This refers to whether the job has an identifiable beginning and end
or how complete a module of work the employee performs.
.
Task significance. This involves the importance of the task. It involves both
internal significance (i.e. how important the task is to the organization) and
external significance (i.e. how proud employees are to tell their relatives, friends,
and neighbours what they do and where they work).

Figure 1.
Approaches to job design
JMD .
Autonomy. This refers to job independence. How much freedom and control
25,6 employees have to perform their job, for example, schedule their work, make
decisions or determine the means to accomplish the objectives.
.
Feedback. This refers to objective information about progress and performance that
can come from the job itself, from supervisors or from any other information system.

576 Critical psychological states can be summarized as follows:

.
Meaningfulness. This cognitive state involves the degree to which employees
perceive their work as making a valued contribution, as being important and
worthwhile.
.
Responsibility. The degree to which the employee feels personally accountable for
the results of the work they do.
.
Knowledge of results. The degree to which the employee knows and understands,
on a continuous basis, how effectively they perform their job (Figure 2).

Diagnosing and measuring job scope

There are several ways in which the Hackman-Oldham model can be used to diagnose
the degree of job scope that job possesses. More systematically, Hackman and Oldham
developed a questionnaire, The Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) (Hackman and Oldham,
1975) to analyze jobs. The questions on this survey yield a quantitative score that can
be used to calculate an overall measure of job enrichment, or what is increasingly
called “job scope”. For this, the motivational potential score (MPS) is calculated. The
formula for this is:

Figure 2.
Hackman-Oldham job
characteristics model
 MPS ¼
ðskill variety þ task variety þ task significanceÞ
:
New model of job
autonomy £ feedback design
Besides this, the JDS also measures some supplementary job dimensions (feedback
from others, dealing with others), experienced psychological states (meaningfulness of
work, responsibility for work, knowledge of results), affective responses to the job
(general satisfaction, internal work motivation, growth satisfaction), context 577
satisfactions (pay satisfaction, security satisfaction, social satisfaction, supervisory
satisfaction), individual growth need strength (GNS), and MPS. The MPS scores can
range from 1 to 343. The average score is about 125.

Towards a proposed model of job design

An elaborated model of job design has been proposed considering the designing of job
at individual and group level. The proposal has been made on the following grounds.

Antecedents and expanded job characteristics

Various factors influence and constrain the choice of job design. Such factors can be
internal to the organization, such as style of management, technology, organizational
design, workplace spirituality or high performance improvement. Factors can also be
external, such as environmental uncertainty, available technology and labor market.
Thus, considering the external and internal factors, it is important in many ways to
manipulate job characteristics. This can be done, for example, by removing
demarcation barriers by running management development programmes (MDPs),
promoting cultural changes or conducting behavior modification programmes. For
this, technology and job design need to come together to deliver excellent services.
Thus, in a well-defined circumstance, it is reasonable to assume that individuals might
mould their job characteristics to fit their individual abilities and personalities.
Moreover, environmental uncertainties such as downsizing and layoffs make it vital
in many ways to manipulate the available human resources by considering them as the
social capital of the organization. For this, managers must initiate and develop
relationships among individuals, organizations and communities. Managers must
initiate and develop social capital with three aspects:
(1) the structural dimension, which concerns the overall pattern of relationships
found in organizations;
(2) the relational dimension, which concerns the nature of the connections between
individuals in an organization; and
(3) the cognitive dimension, which concerns the extent to which employees within a
social network share a common perspective or understanding (Nahapiet and
Ghosal, 1998).

The creation of social capital assists in solving problems of coordination, reduces

transaction costs, and facilitates the flow of information between and among
employees. It also facilitates collective procession of work-related activities, growth in
teamwork, collective representations, and collective emotional experience, that is,
tuning one’s own emotional state to that of another person or work group, reflecting
joint activities, common goals, norms, and values. Consistent with this notion, social
capital directs high internal motivation leading to high performance and making
JMD employees more successful in achieving goals in comparison to organizations that have
25,6 less capital.
As we already know that technology has become the lifeblood of every organization,
it is vital to make the optimum use of available technology. Technologies like
e-commerce and e-business have become buzzwords in every organization and have
affected life in the workplace. With the introduction of e-commerce, transactions and
578 dealings are being undertaken on the internet, enhancing the job profile of employees.
Similarly, e-business has a full breadth of activities, including the development of
strategies for running internet-based companies, improving communication between
employees and customers, and coordinating design and production electronically. The
resulting increased level of motivation leads to high performance in employees. Thus,
with such forms of technological advances, employees can meet two types of cognitive
demands that often emerge in manufacturing settings:
(1) attention demands; and
(2) problem-solving demands.

Attention demands occur as a result of increased vigilance requirements (Van Colt,

1985), and problem-solving demands occur because of the need for fault prevention and
active diagnosis of errors (Dean and Snell, 1991). Moreover, traditional job
characteristics such as job autonomy, task variety and feedback are likely to be key
factors. Feedback is one of the salient features within modern settings, especially given
the prevalence of electronic performance monitoring (EPM). This provides accurate,
fair and timely feedback that can help employees cope with work demands. Others
have suggested serious downsides, such as reduced privacy and increased workload
(Carayon, 1993), but employees can perceive EPM positively if there is high trust and a
supportive culture.
Another element of job design concerns the emotional demands of work. There can
clearly be positive benefits of emotional displays for organizations. Positive emotional
displays control the exchanges with customers or clients, and hence lead to customer
retention. For this, autonomy would enable the individual to enable to control their
exposure to emotional demands.
A further development necessary in job design is growth in teamwork or
considering group-level work characteristics in a more systematic manner. Thus, this
means focusing on aspects that are the function of groups, such as the design of
cohesion among members, team composition, and interdependency and shared
knowledge structures. This will result in collective representations, which are the
components of a system of knowledge, opinion and behavioral norms originating from
social experience. This will also lead to collective emotional experience, that is, tuning
one’s own emotional state to that of another person or work group, reflecting joint
activities, common goals, values and norms.
Our discussion now moves towards the internal factors of the organization that play
a vital role in motivating the performance of employees. These factors are:
.
human resource management;
.
ergonomics;
.
organizational culture;
.
leadership style;
 .
human performance improvement (HPI); and New model of job
.
workplace spirituality. design
As we already know that HR or personnel management is an essential part of every
manager’s responsibility, thus managers must consider employees as the most valued
asset of an organization. To promote novel thoughts and ideas, a proper blend of HR
strategy and job design is required. There should be appropriate manpower planning. 579
Employees must be selected according to the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are
apt for to the job to be performed. Apart from this, employees must be given proper
training so as to enhance their levels of knowledge, which will motivate them to
perform better as they will be in a better position to meet global challenges. Alterations
must also be made to organizational policies to consider employee benefits so that
employees benefit from contributing to achieve organizational goals. Employees must
be evaluated annually on the basis of their performance, and employees who perform
well must be delegated with increased responsibility and recognition, leading to an
increased level of motivation. Finally, interactional levels must be increased, with the
creation of informal groups so as to meet social demands and motivate employees in
the collective representation of organizations.
With increased innovation, downsizing and lay-offs are taking place, and to make
the optimum use of labour, flexibility must be induced in the job profile of
employees. Flexible schedules, compressed work schedules, job sharing, and
telecommuting must be allowed within organizations so to make optimum use of
time and labour, resulting in increased productivity and overall performance. Apart
from bringing flexibility to working hours, employees must be encouraged to
produce novel and thoughtful ideas so as to solve various organizational problems
and make their jobs more interesting, involving, and personally challenging, and
hence leading to an increase in intrinsic motivation. This motivation in turns
transforms potential into creative ideas, which fosters fair and constructive
judgment of ideas and sharing of information. As well as fostering creativity within
organizations, variable performance-linked pay (VPLP) must be introduced within
organizations, including piece-rate plans, wage incentives, sharing, bonuses and
gain-sharing. With the introduction of such programs in organizations,
performances are improved and the motivational level of employees is also
increased. Also, such programs recognize contributions, and low performers find
ways to increase their pay, and are hence motivated to perform better.
Another aspect that has been discussed is ergonomics, which plays a vital role in
designing jobs and influencing the motivational levels of employees. To sustain the
workforce, it has become important to ensure a hazard-free and safe environment, and
it has been embraced by managers that a safe working environment can result in
greater efficiency and productivity. Jobs must be designed in such a manner that
musculoskeletal disorders do not happen. Tools and equipment must be designed with
the worker in mind and for the job being performed. Mini-breaks or coffee breaks must
be given to employees so that body parts are not over-exerted. Production quotas,
excessive supervision, machine-paced work and other pressures must be avoided so as
to reduce musculoskeletal injuries. For this, work rotation must be encouraged so as to
reduce exposure to ergonomic hazards: performing a variety of tasks can result in high
performance. Apart, from this, the most significant aspect of designing jobs
JMD ergonomically is that there should be complete involvement of workers and unions
25,6 regarding how work should be organized and structured.
On the whole, we can say that when jobs are designed ergonomically, there is
overall interaction of technology, work, and human beings. That is, the involvement
of anatomy, physiology and psychology is complete, as the designing of jobs done
on these basic human sciences results in the most productive use of human
580 capabilities, and the maintenance of human health and well-being. The contribution
of anatomy lies in improving the physical fit between employees and jobs: that is,
excessive forces are avoided. The human physiology sets standards for an
acceptable physical work rate, workload, and nutrition requirements. Finally,
psychology is concerned with aiding the cognitive fit between employees and the
jobs they perform, which results in appropriate decision-making and action. With
this fit there is sustenance of an organization’s workforce, lower absenteeism,
increased productivity, reduced operating costs and enhanced performance.
Knowledge management (KM) is another novel discipline that has emerged as
one of the major dimensions in improving the performance of employees. In the
present scenario of turbulent competition, with the management of human
resources, it has become vital in many aspects to manage the available knowledge
for meeting the organizational goals and demands. Knowledge in the perspective of
job design is human-based: that is, it is brainpower, experience, skills and
competence. KM involves the creation of knowledge and leveraging knowledge in
the decision-making process. KM involves human and social interaction, where the
available knowledge is mentally processed, interpreted, and applied at the
workplace. For this, an employee has to be motivated to unleash their knowledge,
abilities and skills for the achievement of organizational goals. Apart from this, for
the purpose of managing knowledge and motivating employees for high
performance, employees need to be psychologically empowered down the
hierarchy so as to perform their job on their own. Free and informal interactions
must be encouraged between managers and employees to share the available
knowledge. With this sharing of knowledge, employees are highly motivated to
perform better in rational decision-making. Today, the emergence of HRM-TQM has
created joint consultative committees (JCCs) where management and employees
form a task committee to share the available information to generate ideas and
innovative business plans (Anand, 2001). Thus, the system should be created in a
fashion that enables the dissemination, sharing and creation of knowledge,
encouraging the participative management of employees, leading to increased levels
of motivation in employees.
Another aspect that has been discussed in reference to job design is HPI (Swanson,
1999). This is the systemic and systematic approach to identify barriers that prevent
people from achieving top performance, solving performance problems, and improving
opportunities in the workplace. This process involves five fundamental steps:
(1) Performance analysis. This aims at the understanding and validation of
perceived performance problems. A detailed assessment of performance is
carried out and appropriate interventions are made so as to increase the
performance of employees.
(2) Root-cause analysis. This underlines the causes of performance problems such
as lack of complete information; lack of environmental support; lack of
 incentives or rewards, skills, knowledge, and attitudes, motivation and New model of job
expectations; and individual capacity. Identification of any root cause leads to design
the construction of an appropriate strategy, thereby enhancing the performance
of the employees as well as that of the organization.
(3) Intervention selection and design. At this level, the nature of the problem and its
root cause are assessed, and the selection of an intervention or a combination of
interventions is required. At this stage, instructional interventions are designed 581
to promote knowledge and skill acquisition, small group activities and
workshops are organized, and training is imparted through various media
(distance learning, computer-based and video-based). In addition, on-the-job
training (OJT) is facilitated for knowledge and skill mastery in the environment,
hence motivating employees towards better performances to meet performance
gaps. Moreover, non-instructional interventions are also designed which
include personnel selection, incentive systems, cultural change initiatives,
knowledge management, and intellectual capital management. With these
interventions, employees are under complete assessments which motivate
employees to improve their performance for the achievement of organizational
goals.
(4) Implementation. This adequate resources, change management strategy and
business processes and procedures to increase organizational effectiveness.
(5) Evaluation. This involves interpretation of organizational outcomes. This
involves evaluation of the various interventions made for improving
performance in the workplace, to decide whether to terminate or continue an
intervention and to study the impact of decision-making and business planning
and how far the business plans have or have not been supportive of
organizational learning. Hence, with these interventions, we can keep pace with
the changes occurring in the organizational landscape.
Finally, we come to the most important aspect of our design and that is leadership style
and organizational culture. Leaders play a vital role in motivating the performance of
employees. Leaders are the only source of trust in employees that managers are
trustworthy, benevolent and prefer fairness in work processes. Leaders motivate
people to follow a participative design of work in which they are responsible for
controlling and coordinating their work, hence making them responsible for their
performance. But this is feasible only when there is openness and trust between leaders
and employees (Tanner, 1998).
In the context of leadership style, another stream of research has emerged that has
focused on transformational leadership and transactional leadership styles. Although
both forms of leadership are apt for any organization, transformational leadership style
is more suitable as the leader of a particular group pays more attention to the concerns
and needs of individual employees, and creates awareness among employees to look at
old problems in new ways. They motivate and inspire employees towards the
achievement of organizational goals by providing vision and a sense of mission among
employees and also induce intellectual stimulation, which opens vistas for employees
in terms of career development and new ways to make enhance their performance.
Finally there is organizational culture, which involves the socialization process,
psychological empowerment, and workplace spirituality. Motivating employees
JMD towards high performance is very much influenced by the prevalence of the culture in
25,6 the organization. Socialization must be induced within organizations: this can be
achieved through social interaction between employees and employers, where the
information gathered is easily shared and disseminated. Also, employees have the
chance of emotional release, creating a culture of trust and openness.
Last comes workplace spirituality (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000), which recognizes
582 that employees have both a mind and a spirit and seek to find meaning and purpose in
their work, and a desire to connect with other human beings and be part of a
community, hence making their jobs more meaningful and motivating employees to
perform at a high level with a view to personal and social development.
Thus, the proposed model of job design, created with a view towards motivating
employees to higher performance, will definitely help in achieving organizational goals
with full zest and will definitely lead to proactive outcomes or performance.

Outcomes
The use of available resources and available technology along with various training
programs will definitely lead to increased productivity and increased levels of motivation
at individual level, group level, and social level. Also, considering the labour market on the
basis of variable-pay programs and flexible schedules will definitely lead to heightened
motivation and productivity, which in return leads to the creation of social capital,
assisting in meeting the structural, relational, and cognitive demands of the organization.
Designing jobs under consideration of internal organizational factors, it can be seen
that following appropriate management strategies will help in the creation of
opportunities for career development, skill acquisition and creativity for employees.
Performance evaluations will help employees to know their levels of motivation and make
efforts to improve them. Moreover, designing jobs ergonomically will help in the creation
of safe working conditions, avoiding musculoskeletal injuries and awkward postures. In
other words, the involvement of anatomy, physiology, and psychology in designing jobs
ergonomically will lead to high performance and reduced levels of stress in employees.
Knowledge management will also lead to proactive outcomes or performance. Once
knowledge dissemination, utilization and acquisition are required in a linear fashion,
learning organizations can be created where novel ideas and thoughts are developed,
interpreted, and implemented and knowledge is transformed throughout the system with
the objective of achieving organizational goals efficiently and creating autonomy in
performing jobs, hence motivating employees towards high performance. Finally,
following a transformational leadership style in motivating employees will definitely lead
to collective representations and collective emotional experiences, hence leading to the
creation of a collectivistic culture within organizations as well as the creation of a high
performing environment (HPE; see Figure 3). In other words, appropriate job design will
lead to proactive performance and finally to learning and developing nations.

Future implications of the model

Traditional outcomes such as job satisfaction, motivation and performance will
certainly remain central to the agenda. But, some wider developments are yet to be
incorporated besides these general agendas. Job autonomy would be associated with
greater organizational commitment, which in turn was linked to safer working. Thus,
safety has been one of the most ignored aspects of job designs which in future can
 New model of job
design

583

Figure 3.
The proposed model of job
design

become one of the salient features of job design, hence, leading to a better quality of
work life (QWL).
In today’s world, to survive in the turbulent marketplace, creativity, innovation,
skill and knowledge acquisition have become major aspects in improving the
performance of employees and creating virtuous circles for organizations to reach the
pinnacle, as they lead to improved decision-making and goal setting.
Finally, in terms of practical recommendations, empowerment is an effective strategy
for promoting expertise. It creates an effective and safe environment within which
JMD individuals can acquire skills. Importantly, empowerment provides an opportunity for
25,6 employees to apply new skills, which is likely to reinforce the values of personal
development. It can be regarded as an effective means of improving skills and can be
regarded as an effective strategy for managing knowledge in two respects:
(1) the provision of information systems and support from technical experts
represents a systematic practice for disseminating knowledge through an
584 organization; and
(2) enhanced decision-making responsibility has the potential to tap into
employees’ existing knowledge and skills, drawing on their personal
experiences and ideas to improve the effectiveness of work systems.

In other words, empowerment can be viewed as a means of eliciting or unlocking the

knowledge possessed by an organization.
When it comes to job design in the Indian context, employers can give a quick
response to their job by enabling employees to use their tact and local language to solve
problems. Besides this, knowledge creation and employee learning and development
among employees will be promoted with the perspective consistent with the German
action theory, of which the basic tenet is that work is action-oriented. It has also been
proposed in the model that designed roles promote mastery, which in turn helps people
learn to cope with the stresses of the job, also leading to higher intensive motivation,
which in turn leads to increased growth needs strength, providing environmental
certainty and centralized decision-making. Thus, implication of the model is that the job
characteristics model can be practically applied with the desirable performance and
satisfaction results. Some well-known companies such as 3M, AT&T, Xerox and
Motorola are also among those who have actually implemented job design changes in
accordance with the job characteristics model.

Conclusion
There are various approaches that allow management to design jobs for employee
motivation, increased productivity and future growth. In order for the job design to be
effective, management needs to look at what aspects of the jobs are important and better
fit the organizational goals. Thus, one of the major purposes of job design is to be able to
discuss what is needed from the job and the employees. It is of current interest in
establishing a link between human resource management (HRM) or high involvement
practices and organizational performance with an increase in intrinsic motivation.
The implication of the model finally leads to the positive affective state of “flow”
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), which is experienced by an individual in certain situations. It
is the total attention and psychic energy devoted to the task in hand, and feelings of
exhilaration, comfort and energy. An individual experiences this state when there is a
match between an individual’s perceived skills and tasks. Thus, effective job design
has become one of the salient aspects of human resource management and
organizational behaviour so as to survive in the global workplace (see Figure 4).
Figure 4.
Outcome of the proposed
model of job design
 Thus, we can conclude that changes in the business environment profoundly affect New model of job
organizations and the people working within them. The proposal has been made in the design
belief that we will be able to build a systematic, symbiotic, task-induced, and high
performance environment.

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Boston, MA, pp. 58-60.
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