Keep Your Employees

Design Work to Focus on Employee Engagement

The engaged and innovative workforce of the organization is an essential partner in each innovation process as they are the sources of ideas, responsible for the implementation or can reduce innovation attempts unsuccessful when dissatisfied. Therefore “Job design” is identified as a crucial factor in work engagement and Innovative Work Behavior (Spiegelaere et al., 2015). In recent research suggests that the design of people’s jobs is one of the most significant factors influencing engagement levels & jobs which offer such experiences as variety, challenge, and end-to-end responsibility to facilitate high levels of engagement (Shantz et al., 2013). Work contexts create environments in which individuals can personally engage with their work (Kahn, 1990) & he further states that when people were doing work that was challenging and varied, they were more likely to be engaged.

Figure 03: The mediating effect of engagement on the job design to performance relationship

Source: Shantz, A., Alfes, K., Truss, C. and Soane, E. (2013)

Hackman and Oldham (1980) states the presence of five key characteristics named job: task variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback within jobs facilitate the development of internal motivation for effective performance via employee engagement.

Job Design is the process of structuring work and designing work for the specific job in Toyota as two dimensions of job design include job scope and job depth. Job scope refers to the number and variety of tasks performed by the jobholder in the Toyota Motor Company which most jobs have high job scope. In a job with less scope, the jobholder has to perform a few tasks & it can be the reason for the dissatisfaction of the particular job. Job depth refers to the freedom of the job holders to plan and organize their own work. Toyota’s management gives freedom to its employees up to his control or limit and works at your own pace and communicates according to your need (UK essays, 2018).

Design Workspaces To Enable Engagement

Many organizations are interested in creating spiritual workplaces that engage the hearts and minds of their employees to promote and create high levels of employee engagement (Saks, 2011). Working environment which people work affects both job performance and job satisfaction of employees, such workspace decisions seek to create an investment in employees’ quality of life, the argument being made that measurable productivity increases will result researchers are increasingly finding links between employee health and aspects of the physical environment at work such as indoor air quality, ergonomic furniture, and lighting (Vischer, 2007). Today more than 70 percent of employees work in an open space environment (Phillips et.al, 2016) with this open office concern that will come up with privacy and interrupt frequently.

·       Remote and Flexible Working

Flexible working policies are normally designed to give employees a degree of choice over how much, when and where they work and to help them achieve a more satisfying work-life balance (Kelliher and Anderson, 2009). Further, Kelliher and Anderson (2009) emphasize that employee experiences of working from home for part of the week and working reduced hours show employee’s work intensification.

Video 3: Flexible Worker #Work Smarter

Source: Cisco UKI

The company I work for was relocated a few years ago to an area where limited public transportation & infrastructure. After the relocation of office premises, almost all the employees have to face many problems physically, mentally & financially while arranging their transport every day. Employees are started to get demotivated & the productivity of the employees was declining. Considering the situation, the top management announced the options of flexible working hours & work from home facility with providing collaborating tools. After that, the productivity of the employees started to increase & it let them manage their work-life balance. As well as the positive mindset of employees leads to generate innovative & smart ideas for the company. They become more engaged employees than they were at the previous location.

List of References

·       Hackman, J.R., and Oldham, G.R. (1980), Work Redesign, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley

·       Kahn, W. A. (1990. Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), p. 692–724

·       Kelliher, C. and Anderson, D. (2009). Doing more with less? Flexible working practices and the intensification of work. Human Relations, 63(1), pp.83-106

·       Saks, A. (2011). Workplace spirituality and employee engagement. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 8(4), pp.317-340.

·       Shantz, A., Alfes, K., Truss, C. and Soane, E. (2013). The role of employee engagement in the relationship between job design and task performance, citizenship and deviant behaviours. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(13), pp.2608-2627

• ·       Spiegelaere, S., Gyes, G., Witte, H. and Hootegem, G. (2015). Job design, work engagement and innovative work behavior: A multi-level study on Karasek’s learning hypothesis. management revu, 26(2), pp.123-137.

·       Vischer, J. (2007). The effects of the physical environment on job performance: towards a theoretical model of workspace stress. Stress and Health, 23(3), pp.175-184.

·       <https://www.ukessays.com/essays/management/background-of-toyota-motor-company-limited-management-essay.php?fbclid=IwAR15vGVXAkh2UDInvniMW0XMU9W6s0c5SRyXVM9BuieK-9dETC4A6qHzZBw>