What is Job Enrichment? An Overview In 3 Easy Points

Introduction

Job Enrichment is a process for motivating employees. It is the addition of tasks to the employees for enhancing responsibility and control. Job enriching allows employees to have more authority in planning and organizing their work and how a particular task should be completed. This will make them feel important to the organization. When an organization sets a job enrichment example, it gives a sense of satisfaction to the employees that their work is being valued and its potential is well-utilized. Employees get to use a range of abilities and reduce boredom, dissatisfaction and employee turnover.

Job enrichment and job enlargement are widely used interchangeably, but they are not the same. Hence it becomes quite relevant to understand the difference between job enrichment and job enlargement. Job enlargement extends the range of job responsibilities by increasing job duties. It makes a worker perform more activities, enhancing their earning capacity and nourishing their skills. Job enlargement is often referred to as horizontal loading. On the contrary, job enrichment is vertical loading where the degree of control increases and several dimensions are added to the existing job. 

1. Job enrichment options
2. Implementing a Job Enrichment Program
3. Advantages and disadvantages of job enrichment

1) Job enrichment options

Job enrichment aids in giving more authority to the workers so that they can independently do their work without any stress and unhappiness. This will make them feel contented, and the work efficiency will also increase. A few options for an enriching job are as follows:

1. Job rotation- This gives employees new opportunities to explore, and they feel energetic about doing their work. This lets them learn different skills and acquire experiences.
2. Combining task- This makes the work more challenging and complex because it involves various factors that enable them to combining tasks.
3. Project Identification- Plan a focused work unit and break it down. Split the departments and work with clients to increase autonomy, feedback and identify the task.
4. Creating autonomous work teams- The team members will have a purpose and have full autonomy in doing to schedule the events and work accordingly.
5. Participate in decision-making- Team members should be allowed to participate in decision-making that involves strategic planning. This makes them feel that their views are considered important. This makes a difference, and they feel they are motivated.
6. Power and authority redistribution- If the supervisors grant more authority and responsibility to their team members, they will gain more autonomy in doing work and enhance their accountability. 
7. Employee directed feedback- Employees should be made to evaluate themselves so they can monitor and identify their errors and work on improvising the same. This will enrich their job performance. 

Thus by job enrichment, people feel a sense of personal responsibility. Since they will be gaining more opportunity, they will like to participate in the decision-making process for ensuring quality work gets done.

2) Implementing a Job Enrichment Program

A job enrichment program has the following three steps involved:

Step one- The first step in enriching the job is identifying the areas in which the employees are not satisfied in their current job areas. So, it is quite essential to understand what people want in their current job. This can be done by various methods like surveys and use that information for building enrichment options.

Step two- Take into consideration the job enrichment options which can be provided. There must be a balance between operational needs and job satisfaction. In case of massive changes, use a job enrichment task force and decide which job enrichment options will be the most beneficial. 

Step three- The final step will include designing a suitable program and communicate the same. Managers will aid in enriching the work experience with employee participation and recognition. Constant monitoring and evaluation of the work are essential. 

3) Advantages and disadvantages of job enrichment

Like every coin has two sides, so are the pros and cons of every concept. So let’s have a look at them.

Advantages of job enrichment

1. The basic aim of job enrichment is motivating the employees, higher satisfaction and improving the quality of work and decision making.
2. It will also lead to more authority and responsibility of the work with better employee experience and involvement, lower employee turnover and less absenteeism. This will help in reducing the burden on the superior.
3. Employees will be more loyal and have less stress and physiological issues.

Disadvantages of job enrichment

1. Superiors may feel that their power is taken away, and this can lead to ego problems.
2. If employees do not have adequate knowledge, then it may lead to incorrect decision-making and affect the work. 
3. Even though a lot of autonomy is granted to the employees, and there may be less stress, this may not be the case, and on the contrary, there may be high stress and psychological effects.
4. If the employees are internally dissatisfied with the organization, no job enrichment could solve the problem.

Conclusion 

Thus, the purpose of job enrichment makes employees feel motivated and satisfied. Work assignments where there is a good level of skill, autonomy, responsibility, feedback and when the employees are more content leads to less stress and enriched job in true sense.

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