Job and Team Design

Job design is an aspect of managing organizations that is so commonplace it often goes unnoticed. Most people realize the importance of job design when an organization or new plant is starting up, and some recognize the importance of job design when organizations are restructuring or changing processes. But fewer people realize that job design may be affected as organizations change markets or strategies, managers use their discretion in the assignment of tasks on a daily basis, people in the jobs or their managers change, the workforce or labor markets change, or there are performance, safety, or satisfaction problems. Fewer yet realize that job design change can be used as an intervention to enhance organizational goals (Campion and Medsker, 1992). It is clear that many different aspects of an organization influence job design, especially an organization’s structure, technology, processes, and environment. These influences are beyond the scope of this chapter, but they are dealt with in other references (e.g., Davis, 1982; Davis and Wacker, 1982). These influences impose constraints on how jobs are designed and will play a major role in any practical application. However, it is the assumption of this chapter that considerable discretion exists in the design of jobs in most situations, and the job (defined as a set of tasks performed by a worker)