How do you Design Work to be More Engaging?
As we continue to discuss and debate the opportunities that technology poses in regards to automation and what this means for the future of work, the question arises as to whether we’re building adaptive jobs that are not only future-focused but can also engage employees and drive job satisfaction?
While ‘aligning work to future value’ was one of the 4 key trends outlined in the Global Talent Trends Report published last year by Mercer, which would indicate that HR as a function is well aware of the importance of building an adaptive workforce and redesigning jobs, only 43% of HR leaders are actually redesigning jobs to prepare for the future of work.
In our latest training course led by Lewis Garrad we examine “How to Design Jobs that People Love” and in this bitesized video taken from the course, Lewis discusses the 5 key elements required to design jobs that really engage your employees.
In the video, Lewis covers some key principles behind building engaging jobs, but first, let’s explore what is job design and why is it important?
What is job design?
Job design is about the way that tasks are combined to form complete jobs in the workplace. Effective job design is a complex process that must be viewed from several standpoints. Organisational goals, employee aspirations, performance standards and work environment are some of the major factors that need to be taken into consideration during the job design process.
Why should you build jobs that are more engaging?
Over the last century, researchers, managers and human resource functions have taken a lot of interest in what makes a highly productive, satisfied worker. They’ve found that the way a job is designed is particularly important. Employees want to do work that creates a sense of purpose, delivers value or challenges them.
In a survey carried out of 12,000 employees, 50% did not indicate a feeling of meaning and significance from their work. However, those that did, reported 1.7 times greater job satisfaction, were 1.4 times more engaged, and were more than 3 times as likely to remain with their current employer. Thus, crafting engaging jobs can have a real impact on employee turnover, reducing many of the pain points that HR and the business often experience when recruiting, selecting, onboarding and training replacements – not to mention the cost incurred.
What should you focus on when building jobs that are more engaging?
Designing an organisation and the jobs that sit within it is a complex process. It is believed that the highest ROI on talent investment will come from redesigning jobs to better deliver value and in order to do that, it is important to conduct deeper analysis.
Analysis focusing on where tasks overlap, which activities are future-critical, and which will become obsolete, is vital to aligning work to future value.
Research that looks at the attributes that make work more entertaining, engaging and motivating for the employees who are doing the job on a daily basis, has identified five key attributes
The first is task variety — This refers to the range of skills and activities necessary to complete the job. The more a person is required to use a wide variety of skills, the more satisfying the job is likely to be.
The second is task identity — This dimension measures the degree to which the job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work. Employees who are involved in an activity from start to finish are usually more satisfied.
The third is task significance — This looks at the impact and influence of a job. Jobs are more satisfying if people believe that they make a difference, and are adding real value to colleagues, the organisation, or the larger community.
The fourth is autonomy — This describes the amount of individual choice and discretion involved in a job. More autonomy leads to more satisfaction. For instance, a job is likely to be more satisfying if people are involved in making decisions, instead of simply being told what to do.
And the final one is feedback — This dimension measures the amount of information an employee receives about his or her performance, and the extent to which he or she can see the impact of the work. The more people are told about their performance, the more interested they will be in doing a good job. So, sharing production figures, customer satisfaction scores etc. can increase the feedback levels.
As Lewis explains, the first and probably one of the most important attributes is task variety.
“This attribute is pretty self-explanatory, it means that the person is able to do a variety of different things within their job. We can all imagine the idea of just doing the same thing over and over and over again and how monotonous and unrewarding that that can be.”
Indeed, that's exactly what researchers have found. They found that being able to mix it up a little bit and have the opportunity to do different types of tasks or use different kinds of skills, is very rewarding for an individual. It helps alleviate boredom and keeps them interested and focused on the work they’re doing.
The second attribute is task identity. This is sometimes very similar to the concept of role clarity. Is the person clear about what they've been asked to do and when the task is considered to be completed? While there is often some level of ambiguity present in many projects and tasks in an individual’s day to day role which can in some situations make it difficult to understand when the particular needs of the task have been satisfied.
What we find is that people who have role clarity understand where their boundaries are and know what ‘good’ looks like, what outcomes they're looking for, and tend to be more satisfied in their jobs. They stay longer, they're more focused, and ultimately, they’re more productive.
The third attribute is task significance. Does the work have a meaningful impact on people inside the organisation or outside the organisation? This is important because people want to see results from their work. They want to see that it has some sort of meaning or purpose outside of the specific tasks that are being completed on the job. People who have this sense of significance that they are doing something worth doing, are more motivated and engaged in the work that they do. Jobs are more satisfying if people believe that they make a difference, and are adding real value to colleagues, the organisation, or the larger community.
The fourth attribute is autonomy. Does the person have the freedom they need to be able to complete their work effectively, to be innovative and creative in the work that they do? Giving employees autonomy within their role is the opposite of micromanagement. Someone who feels micromanaged, feels controlled and frustrated, however someone who has autonomy feels free and in control of their work and able to do their best.
The fifth and final attribute is feedback. People need feedback to know whether or not they're completing the work that they'd been asked to do effectively and up to the level of quality that the organisation is expecting of them.
Feedback is a huge topic, and increasingly we're seeing many more channels of feedback coming from so many different places. Feedback can be in terms of the quality of work that the person is doing, or it can come from other people or can be from machines. But feedback is important so that people know whether or not they're living up to expectations and performing to the standards expected of them.
As the nature of work, the skills required and tasks that make up jobs continues to evolve, traditional organisational design and workforce planning that simply places workers into existing boxes is insufficient. In order to drive employee engagement, productivity and ultimately reduce employee turnover, a new approach to designing jobs is required. This involves analysing the types of tasks that will be automated, those that overlap and the activities that are critical in the future alongside ensuring that the job that involves the right balance of task identity, variety, significance, autonomy and that employees are receiving the right level of feedback to be successful.
Taking such an approach will ensure your employees remain engaged, in a job that they love.
Are you interested in learning more about Job Design?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Manpreet Randhawa is the Head of Digital Content for myHRfuture.com. In her previous role as the Change Management Lead for People Planning, Design & Analytics at Cisco Systems, she was responsible for defining and executing on the change management strategy to successfully implement and sustain the digital and cultural transformation across the enterprise. Manpreet is very passionate about change management and technology and how to use both to transform the employee experience and prepare companies for the Future of Work.