2. What is Organizing?
Organizing is deciding how best to group organizational elements.
What is Job design?
Job design is the determination of an individual's work related
responsibilities .
What is Job specialization?
Job specialization is the degree to which the overall task of the
organization is broken down and divided into smaller component
parts.
3. Benefits of Job specialization:
Workers performing small, simple tasks will become very
proficient at each task.
Transfer time between tasks decreases. If employees
perform several different tasks, some time is lost as they
stop doing the first task and start doing the next.
The more narrowly defined a job is, the easier it is to
develop specialized equipment to assist with that job.
When an employee who performs a highly specialized job
is absent or resigns, the manager is able to train someone
new at relatively low cost.
4. Limitations of Job specialization:
Job specialization can have negative consequences. Such as –
Workers who perform highly specialized jobs may
become bored and dissatisfied.
The job may be so specialized that it offers no challenge
or stimulation.
Boredom and monotony set in, absenteeism rises and the
quality of the work may suffer.
The anticipated benefits of specialization do not always
occur.
Managers must be sensitive to situations in which extreme
specialization should be avoided.
5. Alternatives to Job specialization:
There are five alternatives –
1. Job rotation
2. Job enlargement
3. Job enrichment
4. The Job Characteristics approach
5. Work team
1. Job rotation:
Job rotation involves systematically moving employees from one
job to another.
6. 2. Job enlargement:
Job enlargement was developed to increase the total number of
tasks workers perform. As a result, all workers perform a wide
variety of tasks, which presumably reduces the level of job
dissatisfaction.
3. Job enrichment:
Job enrichment attempts to increase both the number of tasks a
worker does and the control the worker has over the job. To
implement job enrichment, managers remove some controls from
the job and delegate more authority to employees. These changes
increase subordinate’s sense of responsibility. Another part of job
enrichment is to continually assign new and challenging tasks,
thereby increasing employee’s opportunity for growth and
advancement.
7. 4. Job Characteristics Approach:
The job characteristics approach takes into account the work
system and employee preferences. It suggests that jobs should be
diagnosed and improved along five core dimensions:
Skill variety: The number of things a person does in a job.
Task identity: The extent to which the worker does a complete
or identifiable portion of the total job.
Task significance: The perceived importance of the task.
Autonomy: The degree of control the worker has over how the
work is performed.
Feedback: The extent to which the worker knows how well the
job is being performed.
8. The Job Characteristics approach:
Core Job
dimension
• Skill variety
• Task identity
• Task significance
Autonomy
Feedback
Experiences
responsibilities
for outcomes
Critical
Psychological
State
Experienced
meaningfulness of
the work
Knowledge of the
actual result of the
work activities
Personal and
work outcomes
High internal
work motivation
High quality work
performance
High satisfaction
with the work
Low absenteeism
and turn over
9. 5. Work Teams:
Another alternative to job specialization is work teams.
Under this arrangement, a group is given responsibility for
designing the work system to be used in performing an
interrelated set of tasks. In this system, the work flows from
one worker to the next and each worker has a specified job to
perform. In a work team, the group itself decides how jobs
will be allocated.
10. What is Chain of command?
Chain of command is a clear and distinct line of authority
among the positions in an organization.
The chain of command actually has two components.
1. Unity of command: It suggests that each person within
an organization must have a clear reporting relationship
to one and only one boss.
2. Scalar principle: It suggests that there must be a clear
and unbroken line of authority that extends from the
lowest to the highest position in the organization.
11. What is Delegation?
Delegation is the process by which managers assign a portion of
their total workload to others.
Reasons for Delegation
The primary reason for delegation is to enable the manager to
get more work done.
Subordinate’s help ease the manager's burden by doing major
portions of the organization's work.
In some instances, a subordinate may have more expertise in
addressing a particular problem than the manager does.
Delegation also helps develop subordinates. By participating in
decision making and problem solving, subordinates learn about
overall operations and improve their managerial skills.
12. Problems in Delegation:
Unfortunately, problems often arise in the delegation process. For
example –
A manager may be reluctant to delegate. Some managers are so
disorganized that they are unable to plan work in advance and so can’t
delegate appropriately.
Some managers may worry that subordinates will do too well and pose
a threat to their own advancement.
Managers may not trust the subordinate to do the job well.
Similarly
Some subordinates are reluctant to accept delegation. They may be
afraid that failure will result in a reprimand.
They may also perceive that there are no rewards for accepting
additional responsibility.
Or they may simply prefer to avoid risk and therefore want their boss
to take all responsibility.
13. What is Decentralization?
It is the process of systematically delegating power and
authority throughout the organization to middle and lower
level managers.
What is Centralization?
It is the process of systematically retaining power and
authority in the hands of higher-level managers.