Chapter Six – Job Design

Understand a definition of job design Explain the early importance of engineering

and efficiency to job design Define and explain “Taylorism” Comprehend the application of “Taylorism” to

criminal justice Know the relationship between job

satisfaction, job stress, job burnout and job design

Define and explain job design theory Comprehend job redesign programs and

their application to criminal justice organizations

Explain the relationship between job design and the community

Define the “new criminal justice” and its relationship to job design

The “deliberate, purposeful planning of the job including all of its structural and social aspects and their effect on the employee” (Hellriegel, Slocum, and Woodman, 1995).

Efficiency was initially the most important concern.

Other job design objectives, including “psychological job requirements” are more widely used now.oAdequate elbow roomoChances to learn on the job and to keep on

learningoAn optimal level of varietyoA sense that one’s own work is meaningfuloA desirable future

For most of the 20th Century the objectives of job design were:o Technological improvements, ando Efficiency of labor.

Early researchers focused on workers in industrial processes and attempted to find optimal methods for getting manual labor done.

The underlying assumption was that employees are motivated solely by wages or leisure.

Fredrick Winslow Taylor was an early pioneer in job design studies.

Taylor moved beyond the quantitative concepts in Scientific Management and focused on increasing efficiency through work fragmentation.

Taylor attempted to divide complicated work processes that were dependent on people into smaller parts in order to increase the overall efficiency of the process.

Taylor’s influence in criminal justice is considerable.o Police officers’ jobs are often fragmented and assigned

to non-commissioned employees.o Increased accountability and bureaucratization may

reduce the professional status of police officers.o The use of standard classification and electronic

monitoring systems has removed discretion from probation and parole officers.

o Correctional officer jobs have become highly circumscribed.

Recent attention on job design grew out of surveys indicating sharp declines in job satisfaction.

There appears to be a disconnect between employee expectations and the reality of criminal justice employment.

Job satisfaction decreases and cynicism increases after the initial years of employment but often returns later in life.

Despite attention on client content issues, job satisfaction appears to be more affected byo Boredom,o Excessive demands,o Role conflict,o Role ambiguity, ando A lack of participation in decision making.

“Administrative issues” appear to cause more job stress and burnout than other work related issues.

Applications of Tayor’s job design approach quickly revealed that the desire for money and leisure do not fully explain worker productivity.

The Human Relations School replaced Taylor and focused on social attachments.o Originated in Maslow’s (1943) Hierarchy of

Needso Applied by McGregor (1978)

Modern job design theory can be traced to Hertzberg’s (1966) Motivation-Hygiene Theory.o Workers are motivated only after hygiene needs are

met and sources of intrinsic satisfaction are built into jobs.

o Job design is about motivating employees to meet their higher order needs.

Later job design theory was influenced by Hackman and Oldham (1987)o Increasing certain core job dimensions affects personal

and work outcomes.

Three approaches to job redesigno Mass production industries have attempted to reduce or

eliminate assembly lines.o Continuous process industries have attempted to enrich jobs

through autonomous work groups.o Service industries have attempted to enrich jobs by

combining work from different parts of the job hierarchy.

Other innovationso Flextimeo Job sharingo Telecommuting

Although little research has been done, the evidence suggest job redesign may be effective in the human service industry.

Human service workers often are able to enrich their own jobs by self selecting additional tasks.

Vertical loading - increasing the responsibilities of front-line staff

Assigning limited ‘supervisory’ duties and problem solving responsibilities to front line staff appears to increase job satisfaction.

Team policing programs mirror the autonomous work groups found in the private sector.

Community- and Problem-Oriented Policing programs seem to increase worker satisfaction because they provide officers with increased autonomy and a sense of meaningful contribution.

Allowing innovation appears to increase productivity among community corrections workers.

The community’s input into criminal justice job design should not be ignored.

The Americans with Disabilities Act has a profound affect on the criminal justice system.o Physical access to the court systemo Fair treatment of disabled criminal justice employeeso Health care benefits

Job redesign should also be cognizant of demographic changes.o A more multicultural workforceo The Millennial Generation

“New Criminal Justice” – responding to crime is no longer possible in an organizational vacuum (Klofas, Hipple and McGarrell, 2010)

Crime control is more collaborative and involves community efforts to be effective.

Criminal justice agencies will have to open themselves more too Different elements of the community, ando The scholarly and research communities

This will require the employment of a more flexible and highly educated workforce.

Job training will expand to include analytical strategies for evaluating programs.

Criminal justice agencies will become more structurally flexible.o Use of ad hoc teams to address specific crime problemso Elimination of highly structured and bureaucratic

organizations

Job design is the deliberate and purposeful planning of the job including all of its structural and social aspects and their effect on the employee.

Early attempts at job design involved the application of scientific principles and focused on worker efficiency.

“Taylorism” is attributed to Frederick Taylor who believed in the division of labor, time motion studies and pay as the primary motivator of employees.

Utilizing Taylor’s principles, criminal justice work is designed to maximize the control of employees and enhance efficiency.

Job design is critical to reducing burnout, relieving work stress, and elevating job satisfaction among employees.

Job design theory has moved past Taylorism to include an examination of job enlargement and job enrichment.

How jobs are structured affects organizational performance.

Job redesign is an attempt to alter jobs such that employees have more of a say in how hobs are accomplished.

Job design efforts are no longer limited to organizational settings and must include community concerns.

The “new criminal justice” focuses on the systematic collection of information and collaboration with other agencies and community groups.

The “new criminal justice will force administrators to consider changes in a number of ways they do business, in particular;o Recruitmento Training, ando On-going development activities for employees.

The City of Bigton has experienced a significant increase in its population. Most of the new residents are Muslim and choose to live in Bigton because of its proximity to a new Mosque and Islamic Community Center.

Discuss how this qualitative change in the city’s population might or might not affect the manner in which the police perform their duties.