1. Job Redesign
Imagine you are a receptionist, taking phone calls and do filing everyday. Imagine you work in job and
proceed same tasks everyday. Employees will get bored eventually and not motivated in their job
because they were not learning and proceed same task everyday. Job redesign is an element that jobs
can be reshaped into order to make them more motivating. It is among popular in some of the companies.
Generally, job redesign consists of six components. They are job rotation, job enlargement, job
enrichment, flextime, job sharing and telecommuting.
Job Redesign, which affects companies and workers more positively than negatively, composes of Job
Rotation, Job Enlargement, Job Enrichment, Flextime, Job Sharing, and Telecommuting. rganizing these
components well, companies can get multiple benefits, such as increasing employees’ motivation and
satisfaction, reducing absenteeism and turnover costs, and expanding productivities. The textbook
Organization Behavior says that Job Rotation, is that “The periodic shifting of an employee from one task
to another”(215). Consequently, employees can escape from boredom and also increases motivation. Job
Enlargement defines that “Increasing the number and variety of tasks that an individual performances
result in jobs with more diversity”(217). For example, housekeepers in some small hotels manage various
tasks, like cleaning bathroom, making beds, and preparing meals. These works helps to increase their
responsibility and duties. Job Enrichment is that “…increasing the degree to which the worker controls the
planning, execution, and evaluation of his or her work”(217). Flextime is flexible work hours. Employees
can schedule their work hours, in which they are more productive. In addition, it has some degree of
freedom that they can freely come to work and leave. Job sharing is that “An agreement that allows two or
more individuals to spilt [their work hours]”(219). It allows workers to have good balances between works
and family responsibilities. As a result, employees can satisfy their work and life. Furthermore, their
satisfactions increase companies’ productivity. Telecommuting allows employees to work at home at least
two days a week through a computer (219). It gives employees flexibility and also it affects toward
companies in a good way, like decreasing office-space costs.
If companies tactfully organized these components, companies and employees can get mutual benefits.
Types of calls are often divided into outbound and inbound. Inbound calls are calls that are made by the
consumer to obtain information, report a malfunction, or ask for help. These calls are substantially
different from outbound calls, where agents place calls to potential customers mostly with intentions of
selling or service to the individual.
The call center industry historically deals with extremely high turnover, with some outbound and
telemarketing centers experiencing rates greater than 100% annually. More typically, a service or other
inbound center may experience rates ranging from 10% to 50% or more annually. According to a recent
poll of 1,000 call center managers, the average turnover is 19 percent. The highest were credit card
centers at 46.9 percent. There are more than three million customer service representatives working in
North America. This means approximately 600,000 new CSRs must be recruited and trained each year.
At an estimated cost of $5,000 each to replace each CSR, agent turnover can soon become a costly
business. Some managers now turn to job redesign to address this issue.
A call center direstor in New York suggests a kind of job rotation they are using in his company. Career
2. path program allows employees to rotate for three months in other departments. They work half a day on
the phones, the other half in the Correspondence Dept, or in the Research Dept, Work Force
Management, or Quality Assurance. This breaks up their day, teaches them new skills, and provides
managers with a pool of trained staff whenever they are needed it.
Harrah Hotel implemented a kind of job enlargement program. Agents who used to answer calls for
individual hotels now assist callers on behalf of multiple hotels. It helps the hotel cut cost since they do
not have to have the same amount of call agents to work for them.
At length, job redesign has mutual beneficial on employees and the organization. However, there are
three natures that determine job redesign is suitable for organizations or not.
Generally, there are two types of structures in organizations – a centralized or de-centralized system. An
organization with centralized system would not flavor telecommunicating. Having employees work at
home will create beliefs of home-oriented rather than company-oriented because they would want
employees bond and keep in touch with the organization. On a other hand, a de-centralized system would
flavor telecommunicating because the organization does not restrict on the employees. Organization
including call center, web site designing and digital designing company would flavors this type of job
redesign because it can cut cost on the employees.
In our daily life, there are natural job redesign components applied in the industry. For example, when a
professor teaching different level of classes, graduate and undergraduate, rather teaching one level of
courses, it is a natural component of job enlargement.
At last, it also depends on the quality of the employees. Employees have different need. We can not treat
them all alike. In an organization, manager needs to take the time necessary to understand what’s
important to each employee. Also, as the book stated, “design jobs to align with individual needs, and
therefore, maximize the motivation potential in jobs”
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MLA Citation:
"Job Redesign." 123HelpMe.com. 26 Feb 2014
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