8.5 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Increasing Job Satisfaction

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Rewarding And Engaging People at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Most of us want interesting, challenging jobs where we feel that we can make a real difference to other people's lives.  One of the key factors in good job design is job enrichment.  With job enrichment, you expand the task set that someone performs.  This increases the depth of the job and allows people to have more control over their work.

Job Enrichment Strategies

·        Rotate Jobs o   Give people the opportunity to use a variety of skills, and perform different kinds of work

·        Combine Tasks o   provide a more challenging and complex work assignment o   can significantly increase "task identity" o   work seem more meaningful and important

·        Identify Project-Focused Work Units o   Break your typical functional lines and form project-focused units

·        Create Autonomous Work Teams o   Set a goal for a team, and make team members free to determine work assignments, schedules, rest breaks, evaluation parameters, and the like o   may even give them influence over choosing their own team members o   people will gain leadership and management skills

·        Implement Participative Management o   Allow team members to participate in decision making and get involved in strategic planning o   an excellent way to communicate to members of your team that their input is important

·        Redistribute Power and Authority o   grant more authority to workers for making job related decisions o   team members' autonomy, accountability, and task identity will increase.

·        Increase Employee-Directed Feedback o   Make sure that people know how well, or poorly, they're performing their jobs o   The more control you can give them for evaluating and monitoring their own performance, the more enriched their jobs will be o   consider giving each team responsibility for their own quality control o   Workers will receive immediate feedback, and they'll learn to solve problems, take initiative, and make decisions

Job enrichment provides many opportunities for people's development.  You'll give them lots of opportunity to participate in how their work gets done, and they'll most-likely enjoy an increased sense of personal responsibility for their tasks.