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Change approaches & management tools SeCtion tWo
Relationships between job dimensions, psychological states and work outcomes
Core job dimensions Critical psychological states Personal/work outcomes
• Skill variety Á • Task independence
• Task significance
Experienced Á ‘meaningfulness’
of work
• High internal motivation
• High performance
• High work satisfaction
• Low absenteeism and turnover
Autonomy
Feedback (performance)
Á Experienced responsibility Á for work outcomes
Knowledge of results of work undertaken
Mediated by individual differences: • Knowledge and skills
• Need for growth/development
• Context satisfaction
(Adapted from Hackman and Oldham, 1980)
Strengths and limitations
While the approach has much potential to motivate staff, it requires a supportive organisational context for the potential benefits to be realised. In particular, this context will include:
• Technical systems: standardised systems such as rigid practice guidelines limit employee discretion (autonomy);
• Human resources system: formal job descriptions may limit job flexibility and thus enrichment potential. Change may require significant negotiation with professional bodies and/or unions
• The control system: budgets and accounting practices may limit the variety (and thus the challenge) of jobs, and quality control systems may effectively curtail employee discretion, reducing motivation
• Supervisory systems: line managers effectively determine employee autonomy and feedback, and a controlling management approach makes enrichment very difficult.
In relation to social care change, Job Enrichment has the potential to provide an organisational environment in which staff are able to take more responsibility for the work of the service and to develop new approaches. This could be seen to clash with the need for senior management to be assured that regulation and good practice standards are being met across an organisation but this is not necessarily the case.
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