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*INSERT INTRO NA MALUPET ABOUT WORK DESIGN AND MEASUREMENT AND TELL NA IMPORTANTE
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Organizations seek for continuous improvement in all areas. Work design and measurement is
an important area in a company especially if the business is dependent on human efforts.
QUALITY OF WORKLIFE
Generally, people work to earn a living but aside from they may also be seeking self-realization,
status, physical and mental stimulation, and socialization. Worker productivity is vital in many business
organizations and quality of work life affects the subject. Quality of work life has several key aspects
namely;
WORKING CONDITIONS
These are important aspects of job design. Physical factors mentioned below have significant
impact on workers’ performance in terms of productivity, quality of output, and accidents.
Workers cannot be effectively motivated if they feel they are in physical danger. From an
employer standpoint, accidents are undesirable because it is expensive. From a worker
standpoint, accidents can mean physical suffering, mental anguish, potential loss of earnings,
and disruption of the work routine. Two basic causes of accidents are worker carelessness and
accident hazards. An effective program of safety and accident control requires the cooperation
of both management and the workers.
In the United States, the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, created
by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 made a great impact on operations
management decisions in all areas relating to worker safety.
JOB DESIGN
Job design is the act of specifying the contents and methods of jobs. It focuses on the following
questions:
1. Efficiency School
It emphasizes a systematic, logical approach to job design, received considerable emphasis
in the past.
2. Behavioral School
It emphasizes satisfaction of wants and needs.
SPECIALIZATION
It describes jobs with very narrow scope. It is a work that concentrates on some aspects of a
product or service. It’s main rationale is the ability to concentrate one’s efforts and thereby become
proficient at that type of work.
Advantages
For management: For employees:
1. Simplifies training. 1. Low education and skill requirements.
2. High productivity. 2. Minimum responsibilities.
3. Low wage costs. 3. Little mental effort needed.
Disadvantages
For management: For employees:
1. Difficult to motivate quality. 1. Monotonous work.
2. Worker dissatisfaction 2. Limited opportunities for advancement.
3. Little control over work.
4. Little opportunity for self-fulfillment.
To make jobs more interesting and meaningful, job design considers the following:
Job Enlargement
Giving a worker a larger portion of the total task, by horizontal loading.
Job Rotation
Workers periodically exchange jobs.
Job Enrichment
Increasing responsibility for planning and coordination of tasks, by vertical loading.
MOTIVATION
It influences quality and productivity as well as to the work environment. It aids management to
develop a motivational framework that encourages workers to respond in a positive manner to the goals
of the organization.
Another influencing factor is trust. When managers trust employees, there is a greater tendency
to give employees added responsibilities. On the other hand, when employees trust management, they
are more likely to respond positively.
TEAMS
Efforts of organizations to become more productive, competitive, and customer-oriented have
caused them to rethink how work is accomplished. Changes in the structure of some work environments
have been the increasing use of teams and the way workers are paid, particularly in lean productions.
Different forms of teams:
1. Short-term teams
These are formed to collaborate on a topic such as quality improvement, product or
service design, or solving a problem.
2. Long-term teams
Compared to short-term teams, long-term teams are increasingly being used.
Self-directed teams or self-managed teams are under this form. These teams are:
1. Designed to achieve a higher level of teamwork and employee involvement.
2. Empowered to make changes in the work processes under their control.
3. Fewer managers are necessary; very often one manager can handle several teams.
4. Can provide improved responsiveness to problems
5. They require less time to implement improvements.
Generally, the benefits of teams include higher quality, higher productivity, and greater worker
satisfaction. Moreover, higher level of employee satisfaction can lead to less turnover and absenteeism
resulting to lower costs to train new workers and less need to fill in for absent employees.
However, problems of teams are conflicts between team members, which can have a
detrimental impact on the effectiveness of a team.
Robert Bacal has a list of requirements for successful team building:
1. Clearly stated and commonly held vision and goals.
2. Talent and skills required to meet goals.
3. Cleat understanding of team members’ roles and functions.
4. Efficient and shared understanding of procedures and norms.
5. Effective and skilled interpersonal relations.
6. A system of reinforcement and celebration.
7. Clear understanding of the team’s relationship to the greater organization.
ERGONOMICS
Also called human factors is a scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of
interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory,
principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system
performance.
Ergonomists contribute to the design and evaluation of tasks, jobs, products, environments, and
systems in order to make them compatible with the needs, abilities, and limitations of people. They also
help to increase productivity by reducing worker discomfort and fatigue.
Three doamains according to International Ergonomics Association:
1. Physical (ex. repetitive movements, layout, health, and safety)
2. Cognitive (ex. mental workload, decision making, human-computer interaction, work stress)
3. Organizational (ex. communication, teamwork, work design, telework)
STANDARD ELEMENTAL TIMES
Time standards derived from a firm’s historical time data. The procedure for using standard
elemental times consists of the following steps.
1. Analyze the job to identify the standard elements.
2. Check the file for elements that have historical times, and record them. Use time study to
obtain others, if necessary.
3. Modify the file times if necessary.
4. Sum the elemental times to obtain the normal time, and factor in allowances to obtain the
standard time.
1. Formula Approach
Tn = Ti x nb
Where:
Tn= Time for nth unit
Ti= Time for first unit
b= ln (learning percentage) / ln 2
*ln stands for natural logarithm
2. Learning factor
Knowledge for output projections in learning situations can help managers make better
decisions about how many workers they will need than they could determine from decisions based on
initial output rates.