Omega Technical Services Company
Job satisfaction at Omega Technical Services
Omega, is a medium sized UK company established in the 1980s providing advanced
IT solutions to the engineering industry, employing a large number of staff in Sites across the country. The organization underwent considerable change in the mid-1990s in order to improve its competitive position, with a much greater emphasis on external pressures.
Even though Omega is a highly standardised organisation seeking consistency in all its practices we have evidence of variations in the implementation of human resource practices and of employee views of the ways managers exercise their discretion which led to increasing labour turnover and absenteeism.
ANALYSES
The first thing to take into consideration would be the perception in Omega of employee discretion. Procedures and routines which are set by the head office are meant to be followed to establish standardised jobs across the company as a whole. However, as Fox has argued ‘no role can be totally diffuse or totally specific', even in tightly controlled jobs some residual element of discretion always remains’ (1974:19-20).
There is an evidence of discretion variations present in omega. Taking for example, the amount of influence the employees have to carry out their job is less. “I would like to be more involved in decision making (63%)”, “I have little control over things that affect me at work (68%)”, “I feel frustrated by things over which i have no control at work (80%)”.
However, the extent to which employees find their job challenging is comparatively higher because it reflects the nature of a job which is demanding making it less susceptible to local interpretation. “My work offers no challenge (16%)”, “Omega demands high standard of workmanship (64%)”.
This situation can be related to Herzberg Job enrichment theory which was further refined by Hackman and Oldham using the job characteristics model. Considering the assumptions of the model, If Omega employees
Omega, is a medium sized UK company established in the 1980s providing advanced
IT solutions to the engineering industry, employing a large number of staff in Sites across the country. The organization underwent considerable change in the mid-1990s in order to improve its competitive position, with a much greater emphasis on external pressures.
Even though Omega is a highly standardised organisation seeking consistency in all its practices we have evidence of variations in the implementation of human resource practices and of employee views of the ways managers exercise their discretion which led to increasing labour turnover and absenteeism.
ANALYSES
The first thing to take into consideration would be the perception in Omega of employee discretion. Procedures and routines which are set by the head office are meant to be followed to establish standardised jobs across the company as a whole. However, as Fox has argued ‘no role can be totally diffuse or totally specific', even in tightly controlled jobs some residual element of discretion always remains’ (1974:19-20).
There is an evidence of discretion variations present in omega. Taking for example, the amount of influence the employees have to carry out their job is less. “I would like to be more involved in decision making (63%)”, “I have little control over things that affect me at work (68%)”, “I feel frustrated by things over which i have no control at work (80%)”.
However, the extent to which employees find their job challenging is comparatively higher because it reflects the nature of a job which is demanding making it less susceptible to local interpretation. “My work offers no challenge (16%)”, “Omega demands high standard of workmanship (64%)”.
This situation can be related to Herzberg Job enrichment theory which was further refined by Hackman and Oldham using the job characteristics model. Considering the assumptions of the model, If Omega employees