Job Rotation, Job Enlargement and Job Enrichment

Job Rotation

Job Rotation is a management approach where employees are shifted between two or more assignments or jobs at regular intervals of time in order to expose them to all verticals of an organization. It is a pre-planned approach with an objective to test the employee skills and competencies in order to place him or her at the right place. In addition to it, it reduces the monotony of the job and gives them a wider experience and helps them gain more insights.

Job rotation is a well-planned practice to reduce the boredom of doing same type of job everyday and explore the hidden potential of an employee. The process serves the purpose of both the management and the employees. It helps management in discovering the talent of employees and determining what he or she is best at. On the other hand, it gives an individual a chance to explore his or her own interests and gain experience in different fields or operations.

Job Rotation Objectives

Reducing Monotony of the Job: The first and foremost objective of job rotation is to reduce the monotony and repetitiveness involved in a job. It allows employees to experience different type of jobs and motivates them to perform well at each stage of job replacement.

Succession Planning: The concept of succession planning is ‘Who will replace whom’. Its main function of job rotation is to develop a pool of employees who can be placed at a senior level when someone gets retired or leaves the organization. The idea is to create an immediate replacement of a high-worth employee from within the organization.

Creating Right-Employee Job Fit: The success of an organization depends on the on-job productivity of its employees. If they’re rightly placed, they will be able to give the maximum output. In case, they are not assigned the job that they are good at, it creates a real big problem for both employee as well as organization. Therefore, fitting a right person in right vacancy is one of the main objectives of job rotation.

Exposing Workers to All Verticals of the Company: Another main function of job rotation process is to exposing workers to all verticals or operations of the organization in order to make them aware how company operates and how tasks are performed. It gives them a chance to understand the working of the organization and different issues that crop up while working.

Testing Employee Skills and Competencies: Testing and analyzing employee skills and competencies and then assigning them the work that they excel at is one of the major functions of job rotation process. It is done by moving them to different jobs and assignments and determining their proficiency and aptitude. Placing them what they are best at increases their on-job productivity.

Developing a Wider Range of Work Experience: Employees, usually don’t want to change their area of operations. Once they start performing a specific task, they don’t want to shift from their comfort zone. Through job rotation, managers prepare them in advance to have a wider range of work experience and develop different skills and competencies. It is necessary for an overall development of an individual. Along with this, they understand the problems of various departments and try to adjust or adapt accordingly.

Job rotation is a well planned management approach that is beneficial both for employees and management.

Potential of job rotation

A well planned job rotation programme in an organization has immense potential of positive impact on job satisfaction, engagement of people and finally on retention of people. Few of the outcomes of job rotation with respect to the individual are:

• Job enrichment
• Overall development
• Intrinsic motivation to perform caused by newer challenges
• Career development
• Where as for an organization, the benefits could include some or all of the following:
• Leadership development
• Aligning competencies with organizational requirements
• Lower attrition rates
• Performance improvement driven by unique view points of new people

Job rotations at different levels of management

For job rotations at a slightly higher level, it is absolutely necessary that the business problems in various areas are identified. This calls for the active involvement of top management. Select most suitable people to be shifted from their current jobs to tackle the challenges at hand by considering individual attributes already described above. This will not only provide an insight for the future leaders in various aspects of the business but also will enhance their confidence levels as they solve these critical problems for the organization. 

Job rotation at junior and middle level executives may be pivoted around their strengths and attributes and the future roles expected of them. Focus must be on exposure in all related areas of his domain of expertise, so that as they grow to higher rungs of the management, they have an overall experience of their domain. 

Job rotations for workers must include aspects related to work environment, also along with other individual attributes already explained, so that it adds to his satisfaction derived from balanced distribution of work load, working conditions and learning opportunities. 

Done this way job rotation gets aligned with career development, leadership development and employee satisfaction which would finally result in higher levels of intrinsic motivation among the employees and hence may contribute in retaining talent.

Job enlargement

Job enlargement is a job design technique wherein there is an increase in the number of tasks associated with a certain job. In other words, it means increasing the scope of one’s duties and responsibilities. The increase in scope is quantitative in nature and not qualitative and at the same level.

Job enlargement is a horizontal restructuring method that aims at increase in the workforce flexibility and at the same time reducing monotony that may creep up over a period of time. It is also known as horizontal loading in that the responsibilities increase at the same level and not vertically.

Many believe that since the enlargement is horizontal in nature there is not a great need for training! Contrary to this, job enlargement requires appropriate training especially on time and people management. Task related training is not required much since the person is already aware of the same or doing it for some time.

Benefits of Job Enlargement

The following are the major benefits of Job enlargement

Reduced Monotony: Howsoever interesting the job may appear in the beginning, sooner or later people complain of boredom and monotony. Job enlargement if planned carefully can help reduce boredom and make it more satisfying and fulfilling for the employees.

Increased Work Flexibility: There is an addition to the number of tasks an individual performs. There is thus an increased scope of carrying out tasks that are versatile and yet very similar in certain aspects.

No Skills Training Required: Since the individual has already been performing the task in the past, there is no great requirement for imparting of new skills. However people and time management interventions may be required. The job thus gets more motivational for the one performing it.

Job enlargement (sometimes also referred to as “horizontal loading”) involves the addition of extra, similar, tasks to a job.

In job enlargement, the job itself remains essentially unchanged. However, by widening the range of tasks that need to be performed, hopefully the employee will experience less repetition and monotony that are common on production lines which rely upon the division of labour.

With job enlargement, the employee rarely needs to acquire new skills to carry out the additional task, and the motivational benefits of job enrichment are not usually experienced.

One important negative aspect is that job enlargement is sometimes viewed by employees as a requirement to carry out more work for the same amount of pay

Job Enrichment

Job enrichment means a vertical expansion of a job. It is different from job enlargement. Job enlargement means a horizontal expansion of a job.

Job enrichment makes the job more meaningful, enjoyable and satisfying. It gives the workers more autonomy for planning and controlling the job. It also gives the workers more responsibility. Job enrichment gives the workers opportunities for achievement, recognition, advancement and growth. So, the workers are motivated to work harder.

Therefore, Job enrichment makes the job a source of motivation.

Features of Job Enrichment

The characteristics or features of job enrichment are:-

Nature of Job: Job enrichment is a vertical expansion of the job. The workers are given jobs, which require higher-level knowledge, skills and responsibilities. Job enrichment improves the quality of the job.

Objective: The objective of Job enrichment is to make the job more lively and challenging. So, the job is a source of motivation for the workers.

Positive Results: Job enrichment gives positive results if the workers are highly skilled. This is because workers are given opportunities to show initiative and innovation while doing their job.

Direction and Control: Job enrichment encourages self-discipline. It does not believe in external direction and control.

Advantages of Job Enrichment

The importance or merits or advantages of job enrichment are:-

• Job enrichment is useful to both the workers and the organization.
• The worker gets achievement, recognition and self-actualization.
• The worker gets a sense of belonging to the organization.
• The worker finds the job meaningful.
• Job enrichment reduces absenteeism, labor-turnover and grievances.
• It motivates the workers to give best performance.

Limitations of Job Enrichment

The shortcomings or demerits or limitations of job enrichment are:-

• In many cases, job enrichment does not give the expected results.
• It makes many changes in the job. So many workers oppose it.
• It has limited use for highly skilled managers and professionals. This is because their jobs are already challenging.
• The consent of workers is not taken before implementing job enrichment.
• Managers force the workers to accept job enrichment, which is not good.

Job enrichment is a type of job redesign intended to reverse the effects of tasks that are repetitive requiring little autonomy. Some of these effects are boredom, lack of flexibility, and employee dissatisfaction (Leach & Wall, 2004). The underlying principle is to expand the scope of the job with a greater variety of tasks, vertical in nature, that require self-sufficiency. Since the goal is to give the individual exposure to tasks normally reserved for differently focused or higher positions, merely adding more of the same responsibilities related to an employee’s current position is not considered job enrichment.

Differences Between Job Enrichment and Job Enlargement

The difference between job enrichment and job enlargement is essentially of quantity and quality. Whereas job enlargement means increasing the scope of job quantitatively by adding up more tasks, job enrichment means improvement in the quality of job such that employees are more satisfied and fulfilled.

Through job enrichment an employee finds satisfaction and contentment in his job and through job enlargement employee feels more responsible and worthwhile in the organization.

Job enrichment entails the functions of planning and organizing and enlargement involves execution of the same. Both complement each other, in that job enrichment empowers and enlargement executes.

Job enrichment depends upon job enlargement for success and the reverse in not true.

Job enrichment means a vertical expansion in duties and responsibilities and span of control whereas in job enlargement the expansion is horizontal in nature.

Job enrichment has been found to have greater impact in terms of motivation when compared to job enlargement. Since enrichment gives employee greater insights in managerial functioning and a better work profile, it is looked upon as an indicator of growth and development. The same is not true in case of job enlargement which is seen as an employer tactic to increase the workload.

Enriching the job of some humble professions

• Sanitation worker
• Security Guard
• Lab Assistant
• School Teacher
• Receptionist

Within the services sector, there are many areas of work at various levels of society. Economic growth has brought in its wake a host of opportunities in the services sector, much of which is part of the unorganized sector. Workers like Sanitation worker, security guard, lab assistant, school teacher and receptionist and the like, all belong to the above-mentioned sector.

Sanitation worker

The success or failure of a sanitation worker depends on the extent to which management supports the sanitation program.

An effective sanitation program includes provisions for constant training and education of employees. Educational information can be disseminated through sanitation training manuals and short courses given by trade associations, professional organizations, or regulatory agencies.

The major functions of sanitation management are to delegate responsibilities and to train and supervise employees. Self-supervision and self-inspection are two tools that contribute to a more effective sanitation program.

Security Guard

Security guards are crime, threat and risk prevention officers assigned to protect specific people and property. The security guard’s concern is to protect persons and prevent damage or destruction to property. PREVENTION is the key word.

An effective way to enrich the job of a security guard is to define their job responsibilities and job roles in a more specific way.

The essential roles and responsibilities of security guards are classified into six. They are;

1. Prevention
2. Visibility
3. Vigilance
4. Observe and Report
5. Getting Help
6. Team Player

Lab Assistant

The main of objectives of the job of lab assistant are as follows:

• To familiarize students with general computer usage and in particular, software that hones their basic academic skills.
• Give children the confidence that they can master computer skills.
• To develop a nurturing and affirming relationship with an adult.

The ways to enrich the job of a lab assistant are:

• Monitor the utilization of the computer lab
• Encourage students as they progress and learn computer “etiquette” (not pounding the keyboard, mouse, etc).
• When the last group of children is finished, remind them to push in their chairs, pick up any trash, and properly shut off the computers.
• Desire to teach children to learn computer skills now, so that they will have an equal opportunity to compete in a computer-dependent workforce.

School Teacher

There are a few steps that educators can make in protecting their professional reputation, advancing student achievement, and making their day-to-day lives a little less challenging. The ways to enrich the job of school teacher involves the following:

Collaborate

Teachers can’t teach in isolation. They can’t keep up with everything by themselves, but they can be good at different elements of content, and they can ask each other to help them with what they aren’t experts at. Also collaboration doesn’t just mean curriculum development. It also means seeking out teachers who share their drive and their philosophies such that they can turn to them about any school-related issue.

Stand up for Your Profession

Be a vocal and positive representative for education. There is a small but loud percentage of our own out there who may be ready for a different profession. Some show an indifference to teaching all students, accepting wide margins of failures as par for the course. Some treat their colleagues poorly, and there are those whose anger or bitterness in life is felt by an entire school community.

Be a Student

The best teachers are also students. Sure, they might still be taking classes, but what I really mean is that they are also lifelong learners.

This is the best ways to increase their own content knowledge about the subjects they teach. Remember, those who do the teaching are the ones doing most of the learning. When they give students those opportunities, they learn much more than they would from a lecture.

Receptionist

The main ways to enrich the job of receptionist includes the following:

Start things off with an engaging greeting

When answering the phone, kick things off by thanking them for calling, mentioning the business name, and including an offer of assistance. A friendly question like “How may I help you?” shows your eagerness to help and invites callers to express any needs or ask any questions they may have.

Look for unexpressed needs

When a caller says something about him or her, always acknowledge it, and offer to help where you can. Any opportunity to help your caller is a chance to connect! For example, if a caller mentions that they’re going to be late to a meeting because of car trouble, become a superhero by offering to call a cab – even if they’ve made other arrangements, your thoughtfulness will not go unnoticed!

Reply with smile

Not every caller will invite the receptionist to chat, which makes them all the more special. When a caller engages them by asking “How are you?” or the like, respond enthusiastically, and thank the caller for taking an interest in you: “I’m fantastic! Thank you so much for asking! How are you?” An added bonus: Replying with a smile can boost your own mood as well!

Place callers on hold sparingly

When you need a moment to look up a phone number or reference a file, chat with your caller rather than asking them to hold. Trusty standbys like “How are you today?” and “How’s your day going?” are great ways to connect with callers. It may be brief, but your conversation could make a big impact!