Impact Of Job Enrichment On Employee Performance

This research study was carried out to be acquainted with the impact of job enrichment on employee performance in Pakistani context. We are conducting this survey because nearly all companies working in Pakistan telecom industry are multinational; they are following the same procedures and policies with minute change accordingly. The Quantitative method of research was adopted and received 85% responses out of 150 sample size. It was investigations into job characteristics model of Hackman and Oldham (1976), whether enriched job containing four most important elements job autonomy, task significance, task identity and skill variety can improve employee perception and motivate them to perform zealously. Outcomes of the research work demonstrate that numerous form of enrichment, exclusively job autonomy, task significance, task identity, and skill variety have the capability to move up the employee commitment to his/her job and organization, which ultimately results in improved performance and productivity enhancement in individual capacity. This research was carried out with limitations those were general mind set of employees and hyper inflation along with increasing unemployment rate in Pakistan.

Purpose: This paper intends to spot out the significance and impact of four components of Job Enrichment on employee performance in telecom industry of Pakistan.

Design/Methodology:

Research activity entirely construct based on Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics model, research was conducted in Pakistani context to investigate into the impact of job enrichment on productivity of a worker for that vary purpose questionnaires were used to accumulate the data from diverse MNCs of telecom sector in twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad with the direct contact with employees of different departments. The sample size of the study is 150 employees categorized into two, Male and female. The questionnaires were taken to the employees in person and were briefed by the researchers; the questionnaires were filled at the spot.

Findings:

Results show that enriched jobs have an important relationship with performance and it is the elements which can increase or decline the efficiency level of a worker. Profound percentage of respondents claims that if they were given job autonomy they can perform well.

Originality/Value: This research paper is expected to be worthy enough for researchers and practitioners those wants to have an insight into the impacts of enriched jobs on employee motivation and performance in Pakistani organization.

Introduction

Pakistan came into being about 64 years ago but still its more than 60% population has very stumpy daily income. The basic reason of economic instability is the poor performance of different private and public institutions. It is because the only aspect emphasized upon is quality assurance while totally neglecting the importance of productivity. Productivity can be enhanced by harnessing various methods of job enrichment with the organizational human resource policies. The most important aspect to realize is that quality without productivity is of no use. One evidence of neglecting productivity is that the first ever productivity association was launched in Pakistan just 2 years ago.

Organizations today are increasingly looking at human resources as a unique asset that can provide sustained competitive advantage. The changes in the business environment with increasing globalization, changing demographics of the workforce, increased focus on profitability through growth, technological changes, intellectual capital and the never-ending changes that organizations are undergoing have led to increased importance of managing human resources. In this scenario, a human resource (HR) department that is highly administrative and lacks strategic integration fails to provide the competitive advantage needed for survival, thus losing its relevance. Huselid and Becker (1997) found that there were noticeable financial returns for the organizations whose human resource management systems have achieved operational excellence through job enrichment and which are aligned with business strategic goals.

As many human resources professionals have discovered, the traditional approach to job design can adversely affect their organization’s productivity as well as the motivation and job satisfaction of employees. To overcome these problems, various alternative approaches to job design have been suggested, ranging from Japanese-style management and quality circles to more general applications of organization development and job enrichment. Typically, these approaches seek to improve an organization’s coordination, productivity, and overall product quality and to respond to employees’ needs for learning, challenge, variety, increased responsibility, and achievement.

This research has been carried out in order to study Impact of Job Enrichment on Employee Performance in Pakistan Telecom Industry. The key objective of this work is to identify the impact of job enrichment polices on the productivity particularly in relation to higher-level jobs. To provide the context for this work, we have started by a literature review of the different approaches of organizational behavior. In the following sections, we have tried to link various indicators of enrichment to overall performance through quantitative analysis of the research data to present our findings.

Significance of the Research

Employers and company mangers are always looking for opportunity and alternative which can increase employee satisfaction because performance of workers is dependent on the level of satisfaction on job and in the organization. Meanwhile company’s objectives and mission is also reliant of employee performance. Performance with productivity decline with the passage of time, designing jobs and roles appropriately is very imperative in elevating the motivation of employees, which is addressed by job enrichment.

The paper recommends that management of any organization must consider employee’s perspective in designing job description of each position and emphasis should be on enriching the job related concepts in the given society.

Literature Review

Job Enrichment is a approach to Job Design, in ever chaining global environment functions and priorities of workforce are dynamically changing in this connection employee’s perception of work has also be changed. Now in developed countries people are interested in doing enriched jobs which can satisfy their inner feelings of growth and career development. Daft, 1994 has described Job design as “the application of motivational theories to the structure of work for improving productivity and satisfaction”

Job Enrichment is the vertical expansion of task that increases the amount of employee control or responsibility. Job enrichment is an attempt to motivate employees by providing them, the opportunity to use variety of their abilities and autonomy to work while using their KSA’s (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities). It was a design proposed by an American psychologist Frederick Hertzberg in the 1950s. JE is dissimilar to job enlargement which merely increases the number of tasks without considering employee’s perspectives. Researchers and literary persons illustrate that JE as ‘vertical loading’ of a job. An enriched job should preferably enclose varieties of tasks, complete unit of works, meaningful tasks, freedom to exercise the knowledge as individual posses, feedback from all of the relevant and interlinked personnel and entities. Research has proved that the ultimate result of JE is improved employee performance and contentment.

In many organizations, job enrichment approach is an important subject as the Job design is a fundamental issue in an organization management and culture. According to Frederick Hertzberg (1968), “The important factor in good job design is job enrichment of enhancing individual jobs to make the responsibilities more rewarding as well as inspiring for the people who do them”.

Researchers as well as practitioners asserted that, certain jobs and goal setting can expand performance and a well designed job can increased the level of optimism for the employee’s satisfaction and the quality of their performance (Pooja and Renu 2006). In the industrial field, the most researched areas are the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance (Judge, Thoresen, Bono, & Patton, 2001). As, Landy (1989), described this relationship as the “Holy Grail” of Industrial psychology and such research has been studied since 1939, with the Hawthorne studies (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939). In this way, job enrichment is a fundamental part of attracting, motivating, and retaining talented people. In addition, in a study of self-managing work teams, Spreitzer et al. (1999) found that the job design was related to both employee job satisfaction and satisfaction with the organization for those employees who considered the design of their work to be motivating.

Job satisfaction is generally perceived to be directly linked to productivity as well as to personal wellbeing as the Harvard Professional Group (1998), sees job satisfaction as the important key that leads the employees towards recognition, income, promotion, and the achievement of other goals. So, in essence, job satisfaction is a product of the events and conditions that people experience on their jobs. According to Brief (1998), “if an employee work is interesting, his pay is fair, his promotional opportunities are good, his supervisor is supportive, and his coworkers are friendly, then a situational approach leads one to predict he is satisfied with his job”.

In this sense, the Managers who are serious about the job satisfaction of workers can also take other steps to create a motivating work environment. One such step is job enrichment. Thus, Job enrichment is upgrading the responsibility, scope, and challenge in the work itself and usually includes recognition, and opportunities for growth, learning, and achievement (Daft, 1997).

The central focus of job enrichment is giving people more control over their work by way of enriching jobs, so the people can complete activities with increased freedom, independence, and responsibility (Ricky W. Griffin 2007). Through increasing employee involvement programs, researchers might assume that employees are working in more enriched jobs thus leading to higher levels of employee outcomes such as satisfaction and commitment (Cohen & Ledford, 1994; Pearson, 1992).

Research in the area of job enrichment has investigated the relationships between perceived job characteristics and a selection of job outcomes, for instance: satisfaction, performance, organizational commitment, motivation, turnover, job involvement, role stress, and unfriendliness (Aldag, R. J. Barr, S. H., & Brief, A. P, (1981). However, the process of changing jobs emphasize on five factors and those factors are authority to independent action, amount of variety, chance to do a large component of the job, amount of feedback, and independence to use skills and abilities. According to Hackman and Lawler (1971), the first four of these factors are the fundamental dimensions of motivating jobs.

On the other hand, multinational companies are at the present a days opting for flexible working hours and meaningful tasks with recognition to facilitate the worker on current job. In the same way, Bassey (2002) examined in his study that skills, task character, task importance, self-sufficiency, criticism, job safety and reward are the essence of the employees. However, quickly growing global competition has changed the approaches of organizations at all levels and now the most important assets of a company are human brains and more fundamental, their commitment to their jobs and the organization.

In this way, job design is one way to create interest by focusing on different extent. However, Job improvement leads to upgraded work performance in terms of the degree of effort expended the quality of work produced (Hackman and Lawler 1971). Though employees today also want their efforts to be compensated reasonably but accompanying some enriched characteristics which contribute to their personal development.

Though, pay was the sole dependent tool which was affected by differences of job enhancement between supervisors and subordinates (Marc C. Marchese & Robert P. Delprino, 1998). However, the employee’s social environment can also affect his/her views of the job characteristics and thus information obtained from others can also influence the subordinate’s perceptions of job enrichment. According to Salancik,G. R.,& Pfeffer, J.(1978), Job enrichment is about twice as effective as RJPs at reducing turnover and is employed with existing workers rather than with applicants (Glenn M. McEvoy and Wayne F. Cascio. 1985).

In this way, the management and the supervisor are the important tools who could prove an essential source for the enrichments of jobs (Richard C. Grote). However, every supervisor and subordinate perceives job enrichment differently as according to their own experience and learning (Marc C. Marchese & Robert P.Delprino, 1998). Nevertheless, Job enrichment requires an innovative change in managerial style which requires rapidly increasing modules, control and inclusion of new feedback ideas.

Many researchers argued that the workers should be given the right to participate in decision making process and if it is not possible then the representative of worker would be involved in the decision making and negotiation process. But on the other hand researches and studies indicates that participation does not necessarily lead to high motivation and productivity until and unless it resulted high performance and goals set by the participants themselves (Bryan, J. F., and E. A. Locke, Latham, G. P. &G. A. Yukl, Likert, Rensis, Locke, E. A., Odiorne, G S).

In line with job design theory, Hertzberg’s theory was the major contribution at the early stages which claims that “Only a challenging job has the opportunity for achievement, recognition, advancement and growth that will motivate personnel”. (Herzberg et al., 1959), The Hackman and Oldham’s (1976) sated, job characteristics model (JCM) add more value and practical approach to the job design with changing circumstances, and the model assume that autonomy and feedbacks are more important than the work characteristics, and individuals with higher growth need strength thus they will respond more positively to enriched jobs than others.

On the other side, Herzberg’s work has been highly criticized on theoretical grounds, and several studies have shown that job enrichment does not necessarily produce job satisfaction and increased productivity. However, it has great capability to change the employee commitment level and performance and requires a systematic view to involve all the concerned parties in the process, to accomplish the task. Nonetheless, Job enrichment does not guarantees job satisfaction and growing production (Frederick Herzberg, Bernard Mausner, and Barbara BlochSnyderman1959) however; the time required for a full job enrichment project will normally be between six months and a year (Dr. John A. Myers).

Job design theorizing and research in psychology and the organizational sciences have focused exclusively on job enrichment, enhancement and magnification (Ford, 1969; Herzberg, 1966) or attributions of motivating jobs (Griffin, 1982b; Hackman & Lawler, 1971; Hackman & Oldham, 1980). Supporters of job enrichment proposed that the goal-setting technique should apply to all levels in addition to aspects of employees in order to achieve maximum effect on employee stimulus (Herzberg, Frederick). Thus, assuring job satisfaction, over the long term, requires careful planning and effort both by management and by the workers. Thus, the Managers are encouraged to consider the important theories such as Herzberg’s (1957) and Maslow’s (1943) and then create a good blend of factors that contribute to a challenging, supportive, and rewarding work environment.

Proposed Model

Skill Variety

Task Identity

Task Significance

Job Autonomy

Performance

JOB CHARACTERISTICS MODEL

Hypothesis

H1: Task Identity has positive impact on employee Performance

H2: Task significance has positive impact on employee performance

H3: Job Autonomy has a positive impact on employee performance

H4: Skill variety has a positive impact on employee performance

Measures and Validity

Questionnaire was developed and used in the data collection phase and several measures were taken from Sims, Szilagyi, and Keller (1976) who used 30 measures which were broken into different categories of job variety, autonomy, and task identity. Co efficient alphas of the subscales for variety, autonomy, and identity range from 0.76 to 0.84. These measures were also used by Aryee, Chay and Chew in 1996, Dodd and Ganster (1996), Ganzch (1998), Mathieu and Hofmann and Farr (1993), Williams, Gayin and Williams (1996). The task significant, job variety and task identity measures were taken from MJDQ (Multi method job design questionnaire) by Campion (1988). The Co efficient alphas of the subscales for task significant range from 0.75 to 0.89

The validity of job autonomy correlated negatively with specialization, job variety was correlated with standardization, (Matthew et al 1993). Dodd and Gansters 1996 found that objective job measures correlated positively with employee perceptions of job obtained with the job characteristics inventory.

Results

Questionnaires were used to get feedback from middle and top managers of different companies Mobilink, Telenor, Ufone and Zong, and the response rate was 85% out of 100% which is above average. (See Table 1)

Surveys Usable surveys Response rate (%)

150 128 100%

Table I. Response rate for all surveys

Management level Usable surveys Response rate (%)

Middle management 120 113

Top management 30 15

Total 150 128

Table II. Response rate by Management

JCM Model Usable surveys Response rate intensity (%)

Skill Variety 128 23%

Task Significance 128 18%

Task Identify 128 26%

Job Autonomy 128 33%

Total

Table III. Total Response rate

Level of Measurement Usable surveys Response rate (%)

Strongly agree 21 16

Agree 46 35

Neutral 18 14

Strongly disagree 12 9

Disagree 31 24

Total 128 100

Table IV. The job is significant and important compared with the others jobs in the organization.

Level of Measurement Usable surveys Response rate (%)

Strongly agree 18 14

Agree 42 32

Neutral 12 9

Strongly disagree 25 19

Disagree 31 24

Total 128 100

Table V. the result of my job activities can be easily seen in the final product and service

Level of Measurement Usable surveys Response rate (%)

Strongly agree 21 14

Agree 23 32

Neutral 19 9

Strongly disagree 37 19

Disagree 28 24

Total 128 100

Table VI. My job required doing many different things at work that use variety of skills.

Level of Measurement Usable surveys Response rate (%)

Strongly agree 52 40

Agree 30 23

Neutral 15 11

Strongly disagree 4 3

Disagree 27 21

Total 128 100

Table VII, my job allow me to decide on how to go about doing the work

Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Regression

ANOVA (b)

Model

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Regression

2.458

1.895

.171(a)

Residual

150.499

116

1.297

Total

152.958

117

a. Predictors: (Constant) The job is significant and important as compared to the other jobs in the organization.

b. Dependent Variable: My supervisor rewards me for good performance.

ANOVA (b)

Model

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Regression

7.700

11.085

.001(a)

Residual

80.580

116

.695

Total

88.280

117

a. Predictors: (Constant), I feel that I am happier in my work than most of the other people.

b. Dependent Variable: The work activities themselves provide direct and clear information as to the effectiveness (quality and quantity) of your job performance.

ANOVA (b)

Model

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Regression

.916

.850

.359(a)

Residual

125.025

116

1.078

Total

125.941

117

a. Predictors: (Constant), I perform similar tasks in a typical work day?

b. Dependent Variable: The supervisors and coworkers on this job almost never give me any feedback about how well I am doing in my work.

ANOVA (b)

Model

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Regression

5.616

7.881

.006(a)

Residual

82.664

116

.713

Total

88.280

117

a. Predictors: (Constant) The job provides acknowledgment and recognition form others.

b. Dependent Variable: The work activities themselves provide direct and clear information as to the effectiveness (quality and quantity) of your job performance.

ANOVA (b)

Model

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Regression

17.370

14.860

.000(a)

Residual

135.588

116

1.169

Total

152.958

117

a. Predictors: (Constant) The control I have over the pace of my work.

b. Dependent Variable: My supervisor rewards me for good performance.

ANOVA (b)

Model

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Regression

1.787

1.670

.199(a)

Residual

124.154

116

1.070

Total

125.941

117

a. Predictors: (Constant), I often see projects or jobs through to completion.

b. Dependent Variable: The supervisors and coworkers on this job almost never give me any feedback about how well I am doing in my work.

Correlations

Task Sig

JOB. PERF

Task Significance

Pearson Correlation

-.007

Sig. (2-tailed)

.943

118

Job Performance

Pearson Correlation

-.007

Sig. (2-tailed)

.943

118

Correlations

SKILL VARITY

JOB PERF

SKILL Variety

Pearson Correlation

.152

Sig. (2-tailed)

.100

118

JOB PERF

Pearson Correlation

.152

Sig. (2-tailed)

.100

118

Correlations

JOBAUTONOMY

JOB PERF

JOB AUTONOMY

Pearson Correlation

.132

Sig. (2-tailed)

.154

118

JOB PERF

Pearson Correlation

.132

Sig. (2-tailed)

.154

118

Correlations

JOB IDENTITY

JOB PERF

JOB IDENTITY

Pearson Correlation

.271(**)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.003

118

JOB PERF

Pearson Correlation

.271(**)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.003

118

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

According to the analysis job identity has more effect on job performance because the result its closer to zero.

Regression

Model Summary

Model

R Square

Adjusted R Square

Std. Error of the Estimate

.326(a)

.106

.075

.49898

a. Predictors: (Constant), Job Identity, Task Significance, Skill Variety, Job Autonomy.

ANOVA (b)

Model

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Regression

3.351

.838

3.364

.012(a)

Residual

28.135

113

.249

Total

31.485

117

a. Predictors: (Constant), Job Identity, Task Significance, Skill Variety, Job Autonomy.

b. Dependent Variable: Job Performance

Coefficients (a)

Model

Un-standardized Coefficients

Standardized Coefficients

Sig.

Std. Error

Beta

(Constant)

11.167

.322

34.664

.000

Task Significance

-.188

.096

-.239

-1.949

.054

Skill Variety

.099

.094

.121

1.056

.293

Job Autonomy

.088

.103

.108

.857

.393

Job Identity

.250

.094

.266

2.662

.009

a. Dependent Variable: Job Performance

Coefficients (a)

Model

Un-standardized Coefficients

Standardized Coefficients

Sig.

Std. Error

Beta

(Constant)

11.167

.322

34.664

.000

Task Significance

-.188

.096

-.239

-1.949

.054

Skill Variety

.099

.094

.121

1.056

.293

Job Autonomy

.088

.103

.108

.857

.393

Job Identity

.250

.094

.266

2.662

.009

a. Dependent Variable: Job Performance

SPSS the regression shows. 326(a) so according to this 32 % of our independent variable has impact on our dependent variable.

Findings and Discussion

It is generally perceived that employees and employers both do not consider job enrichment in designing and implementing in Pakistani organizations, in a country like Pakistan where the unemployment arte is increasing day by day and inflation rate 15% the most important motivating factor is monetary rewards instead of growth in career and, to some extend it is factual, but the work environment is changing very rapidly, and it has effected the trends in Pakistani organizational cultures. We observed that people are keen to learn and grow, they are asking for freedom in work related decisions, trying to polish their skills with trainings and development courses and exposure.

Our research outcomes show that job enrichment has sufficient role in employee satisfaction and motivation in telecom industry of Pakistani. Practically organizations have to adapt to cultural patterns of the host country similarly, the multinationals operating in Pakistan have modified their organizational norms and processes as well. In a collectivist society like Pakistan people do prefer jobs with significance and autonomy, highest of the responses depict that people prefer to have autonomy in their work which is the self-determination in accomplishing tasks. Job autonomy refers to the degree any worker has liberty to schedule their work, make decisions or determines the means to accomplish the objectives. In our research outcomes Job autonomy is highly preferred with 33% on the part of workforce.

though the ratio is low but it is increasing with the passage of time

Skill variety task significance task identity performance satisfaction intrinsic and extrinsic reward

Conclusion

Job-analysis procedures provide information on job features such as variety, autonomy, challenge, feedback, and responsibility. The assumption is that intrinsically rewarding jobs will make employees more satisfied and productive. Job-analysis measures need to take into account the effective grouping of tasks as well as employee motivation and development. There are many approaches that help management to design jobs for their employee to increase productivity and future growth. To make a job design effective, the institution needs to look at what aspects of the jobs are imperative and synchronize with its goals. Therefore, one of the major purposes of job design is to address what is needed from the job and the employees collectively.

They must address the technical requirements of coordinating people, techniques, tools, and methods used to accomplish a set of tasks as well as the social requirements of responding to employee needs, expectations, and feelings about the work setting. An effective job design meets both the requirements of the tasks and the social and psychological needs of the workers. Psychological aspects must be consider while designing a job because employees either belongs to under developed country or works in a developed state they prefer to have autonomy in their job, they like to have identified and significant tasks they also wants their organization to proved them opportunities to acquire skills which facilitate them to develop their career.

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