Job design

Job design, or redesign, is a process of determining job roles and what a job involves. It also looks at how a job relates to other relevant jobs and the organisation’s structure. It includes deciding on:

• the duties and responsibilities of the job holder
• the way the job is done
• what support and resources the job holder needs. 

It can be done stringently or flexibly, depending on the nature of the work that needs to be done.

The main purpose of job design is to optimise work processes, create value and improve productivity. It does this by clarifying roles, systems and procedures; reducing repetitive elements from jobs; and optimising the workers’ responsibility.

It’s also closely linked to core employee attitudes and work behaviours. This includes motivation, commitment, discretionary effort and job satisfaction. These are enhanced through techniques such as job enlargement, job enrichment and job rotation.

Job design is an important element of people strategy as it influences:

• How well organised work is.
• How fulfilling and motivating employees find their work.
• What opportunities employees have to develop and progress.
• Whether workloads are sustainable and healthy.

As a result, job design is a key component of job quality or ‘good work’ that benefits both employees and the organisation's long-term growth and sustainability.

The objectives of job design will vary according to business demands and the organisation’s approach. But, the following will feature to some extent:

• Business purpose. Jobs should support the organisation’s purpose and what it needs to do to succeed.
• Health and safety. Jobs must not risk the wellbeing or safety of the job holder, their colleagues, customers or others.
• People capability. Consider existing capabilities both internally and in the wider labour market.
• Quality. Jobs should minimise the risk of errors and include self-checking by employees to ensure high quality.
• Speed. Jobs should ensure that time to complete tasks is appropriate to the job.
• Productivity. Jobs must ensure the primary focus of the job holder is on things that matter and add value to the business.
• Sustainability. Jobs should enable organisations to respond flexibly to economic, social and political change. There should also be room to develop the job in response to changing individual and organisational capabilities.
• Quality of working life. Jobs should have enough flexibility, breadth and challenge to ensure individuals are engaged and motivated, not under excessive or prolonged stress, and have opportunities to develop. 

Job design has developed considerably over time, evolving to be much more person-centred. 

Taylorism

Job design started in the industrial revolution. Taylor’s ‘scientific management’ principles emerged in the early 1900s. They were used to measure and sequence human inputs alongside machinery to improve efficiency. Two important concepts emerged:

• Method study examines the efficiency of how and why jobs are done or sequenced. It’s still used today, for example, in designing ‘lean’ manufacturing processes.
  
  
• Work measurement aims to establish the time needed to complete tasks. This is important for resource planning and cost control. It’s now used less widely as measures of effectiveness have shifted to the outputs of work.

Taylorism was a mechanistic approach to job design that focused on short-term productivity and efficiency, limiting worker autonomy and making little effort to enhance people’s working lives. Nonetheless, it’s an important stage in the history of job design that can still be influential today.

Self-determination and job characteristics

As theories of motivation became more popular, job design took employee need for job satisfaction into account. One of the most influential theories is self-determination theory, developed by Deci and Ryan in the 1970s and 1980s. See our evidence review on work motivation for more information. This describes three fundamental human needs that work should fulfil:

• Autonomy: the latitude workers have to make decisions about their work. This involves a loosening of managerial control to give employees more influence over what tasks they perform, how and when.
• Competence: people have a need to build their competence and develop mastery over tasks and activities. As a result, the range and level of skills needed to do a job is an important aspect of job design.
• Relatedness: people need to feel a sense of belonging and connectedness with others. They need interaction and shared meaningful experiences with colleagues.

Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics theory has also been extremely influential. It covers much of the same ground but also adds other factors to consider. These include:

• Task significance: whether someone sees their job as important or meaningful.
• Feedback on performance: enables employees to understand the result of their work, motivating them and helping them to improve.

A more recent addition is the theory of job crafting, developed by Wrzesniewski and Dutton, which builds on the above theories. It argues that workers themselves can take the initiative to tailor their jobs to suit their preferences. Irrespective of how a job is set up, employees can shape the tasks they do, their work relationships and how they find meaning in their work.

High-performance work practices

Job design is central to theories of high-performance work practices (HPWP) and high-performance work systems (HPWS). These broadly align with self-determination theory, and are based on the ‘AMO’ model:

• Ability: employees’ knowledge, skills and abilities are increased.
• Motivation: employees are motivated to put these to use.
• Opportunity: employees are empowered to put them to use.

Our research report Over-skilled and underused: investigating the untapped potential of UK skills, points to much untapped talent. In our survey, more than one third of UK employees had the skills to cope with more demanding duties than their current job needed.

The views of workers themselves suggest that being under-skilled for one’s job is also a problem. Thus, effective recruitment and selection practices, and ongoing training and development are also important in supporting high performance.

Flexible working

Another aspect of job design concerns when, where and how much people work. These decisions can be driven by employers, for example through the use of temporary and zero-hours contracts, or by employees themselves, through flexible working arrangements.

Job design should rely on careful job analysis – gathering information about the required outputs, the work needed to achieve the job, and the skills, resources and autonomy that will enable it. It should be informed by external and organisational factors as well as human, motivational and growth factors.

External factors include:

• Demand from customers. For example, the expectation for 24/7 services.
• The labour market. In particular, how likely it is that people will have all the capabilities needed for the job. If not, it may be necessary to create more than one job.
• Technological developments which enable tasks to be performed in different ways.

Organisational factors include:

• Workflow, or the sequence and relationship between tasks to achieve the desired outcomes and how the job fits with other jobs in the organisation.
• The nature and range of tasks to be performed in the job. These need to be considered alongside whether employees have the necessary capabilities and resources.

Human factors include:

• Ergonomics. Shaping the job to best fit the physical capabilities of humans. This may also cover any reasonable adjustments required– see more in our disability and employment factsheet.
• Appropriate workloads. Overwork is a common feature of contemporary work, and a major source of stress.
• Work-life balance, including flexible working.

Motivation and growth factors include:

• Creating and maintaining jobs that are inherently satisfying and motivating, providing meaningful, interesting and stretching work with autonomy.
• Creating and maintaining jobs that are enriching, presenting opportunities for professional growth and progression.

The job analysis should form the basis of a job description and person specification or job profile.

It’s important to measure job quality so employers can understand the strengths and weaknesses of the jobs in their organisations and how they can improve them. Employee surveys are a common way to gather such data.

Our Good Work Index captures data on what we define as the seven dimensions of good work. One of these dimensions is job design and the nature of work. The survey includes questions on:

• The intensity of people’s jobs.
• How complex their work is and how well it matches their skills.
• How much autonomy they have.
• How meaningful they find their work. 
• What development opportunities they have.

Employers can use the questions from our Good Work Index survey and benchmark their results against our data.

Books and reports

Grant, A.M., Fried, Y, and Juillerat, T. (2011). Work matters: job design in classic and contemporary perspectives. In Zedeck, E. APA handbook of industrial and organizational psychology: Vol 1: Building and developing the organization. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.

Spreitzer, G. (2008) ‘Taking stock: a review of more than twenty years of research on empowerment at work’ in Barling, J. and Cooper, C. (eds). The SAGE handbook of organizational behaviour: Volume one: micro approaches. London: Sage Publications.

Tamkin, P., Cowling, M and Hunt, W. (2008) People and the bottom line. IES report 448. Brighton: Institute for Employment Studies.

Journal articles

Gagné, M. and Deci, E. L. (2005) Self-determination theory and work motivation. Journal of Organizational Behavior. Vol 26, No 4. pp331-362.

Hackman, J. R. (1980) Work redesign and motivation. Professional Psychology. Vol 11, No 3, pp445-455.

Knight, C. and Parker, S.K. (2019) How work redesign interventions affect performance: an evidence-based model from a systematic review. Human Relations (online), 1 October. Reviewed in Bitesize research.

Simons, R. (2005) Designing high-performance jobs. Harvard Business Review. Vol 83, No 7, July/August. pp55-62.

Tims, M., Bakker, A.B. and Derks, D. (2015) Job crafting and job performance: a longitudinal study. European Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology. December, Vol 24, No 6. pp914-928.

Wrzesniewski, A. and Dutton, J. E. (2001) Crafting a job: revisioning employees as active crafters of their work. Academy of Management Review. Vol 26, No 2. pp179-201.

CIPD members can use our online journals to find articles from over 300 journal titles relevant to HR.

Members and People Management subscribers can see articles on the People Management website.