Ritesh Dhak
12PGP090
Abstract:
This is a conceptual paper to study the phenomenon of ‘Job Enrichment’ in details. The various studies carried out on this topic. It’s relation with phenomenon of ‘motivation’ and ‘Job satisfaction’. It also deals with the effective job enrichment programs and implementing them.
Introduction:
Job enrichment is a type of job redesign intended to reverse the effects of tasks that are repetitive requiring little autonomy. The underlying principle is to expand the scope of the job with a greater variety of tasks, vertical in nature, that require self-sufficiency. It is an idea that was developed by the American psychologist Frederick Herzberg in the 1950s.
The first who tried to introduce the concept of job enrichment and modifications were the practitioners in the beginning of the 20th century in order to increase the performance of employees. What was in the fashion at that time were simplification and specialization of the tasks, which, in collaboration with scientists, confirmed to be useful to enhance the efficiency of the production (Taylor 1911, Gilbreth 1911, as cited in Morgeson & Campion 2002). Another wave of the approach, at that time called job enlargement, began with an initiative of IBM in the mid-1940s, which included both enlargement and enrichment of the jobs, intending to introduce more interest, variety and significance into the work (Miner 2002). But initial work on job enrichment practices is done by Frederick Herzberg in the 1950's and 60's, Frederick Herzberg performed studies to determine which factors in an employee's work environment caused satisfaction or dissatisfaction. He published his findings in the 1959 book ‘The Motivation to Work,’ he name his theory as Herzberg’s Motivation-hygiene Theory (Two Factor Theory), which was further refined in 1971 by Hackman & Lawler (1971) and further by 1975 by Hackman and Oldham using what they called the Job Characteristics