Role of Job Designs in Managing Human Resources Essay

Role of Job Designs in Managing Human Resources - Essay Example From the technological perspective, the workplace is defined through the production processes, which take place in a discrete area of production. Essentially, the hierarchy of managers, supervisors, and workers defines the workplace organizationally. The orientations of workers and managers to the particular area define the social limits of a workplace. Such a definition need not be limited to manufacturing. The workplace can also be a department in a bank or university or a school within an education system. What is important is that the work area is discrete, has some technological or production unity which marks it off from other workplaces, and it is recognized as such by workers and managers. Therefore, it is evident that the field of Human Resource Management has evolved into a strategic, technical, and measurement-oriented area in the past few years. Predictably, this field will continue to grow in sophistication and complexity as a reflection of the world in the 21st century, presenting solutions to difficult dilemmas that could affect the workplace massively. An organization's core values are manifested by its culture; that is, in the basic ways that business is handled, such as how decisions are made and how rewards are distributed. Employees learn these ways of doing business through observing co-workers and leaders. If no expectations are established and effectively communicated, employees will "make it up" as they go along when faced with ethical dilemmas. Thus, management strategies are essential in human resource management, organizational behaviour, or organizational design because it could specify its own model or framework of the key elements. In determining the appropriate job designs for a specific company, all models and theories could be deemed as one consolidated set of behavioural elements. In building the working framework, four elements had been identified to underlie most work behaviour models: 1.) Capability - The skills, knowledge and abilities necessary to execute an action associated with the objectives of the organization. 2.) Opportunity - When individuals are provided or encounter situations in which actions can be executed with the desired effect. 3.) Motivation - The drive to execute those actions, created by a perception that they are linked to desired outcomes and rewards. 4.) Understanding - Knowledge of how an individual's actions affect the system and overall goal achievement. The first three components are derived from a long research tradition suggesting that individual performance is a multiplicative function of ability and motivation (Cummings and Schwab 1973), critiques of the simple model (Campbell and Pritchard 1976) that suggest that the environment determines the expression of ability and motivation (Dachler and Mobley 1973), and recent work suggesting that situational constraints and opportunity (e.g., advances in technology and changes in the political, social, and economic environment) are key to a theory of work performance (Campbell 1999, Howard 1995, Ilgen and Pulakos 1999). The fourth component was incorporated to help describe organizational management and HRM practices. These and other human issues have the potential to "move the needle," that