‘Hackman and Oldham claim that if employees feel their jobs are interesting, challenging and important, they will be motivated, and that high motivation will lead to improved work performance, job satisfaction and reduced absenteeism and labour turnover.’ This assignment has been prepared in order to gain a better insight into the statement given by Hackman and Oldham. We will discuss the present scenario of human resource management in business organisations and how providing challenging and interesting work to the employees can have an effect on their performance, job commitment, organisational commitment, motivation, etc.
Human resource management is an approach that aims at managing the workforce of a company by using various concepts, such as performance management, compensation management, training and development, employee motivation, staff retention, etc. The basic idea behind the concept of human resource management is to improve the work conditions for the employees and optimise their performances as a result of it. The present day business scenario is complex and highly competitive. With the spread of globalization, business organisations are competing on a global scale where operations and technology can be very easily developed. In such a situation, business organisations are largely relying upon their human resources to achieve market competencies and their organisational goals and objectives. Therefore, companies are investing millions of dollars every year in the management of their human resources and to improve the work conditions for them so that they can perform better and can contribute their best towards the fulfilment of organisational goals and objectives (Inc.com, 2016).
Hackman and Oldham were two behavioural experts who proposed that the job or the tasks provided to the employees themselves were a very important factor that could help the management in keeping the employees motivated and optimise their performances and work conditions. They also proposed the Job Characteristics Theory, also known as JCT, which was based on similar concepts. Let us now discuss some important concepts, such as job enrichment and how such concepts can have an effect on the performance of the employees (Tutor2u.net, 2016).
In the past few years, human resource managers have realized that they can improve the work conditions for the employees by making the job more interesting for them. As a result, human resource managers came up with the concept of job enrichment, which aims at providing challenging and exciting tasks to the employees. Let us now talk about the benefits of providing challenging and exciting tasks to the employees and how it can have an effect on their performance:
Learning new skills à a number of behaviour experts have suggested that employees are always interested in acquiring new skills and techniques that would help them in building their career in the future. If the management is able to provide the employees with tasks and jobs that are challenging, interesting and can help them in acquisition of new skills and techniques, they can easily motivate them to perform better in their jobs and contribute more towards the achievement of organisational objectives. The employees perceive a lot of benefits from the fact that they will get to learn something new and as a result, they tend to perform better when they are given challenging tasks (Bizcommunity.com, 2016).
Reduced boredom à Boredom occurs when the employees are given the same tasks and job to perform again and again. It makes their routine and work monotonous and they feel bored by repeating the same things over and over again. Boredom has been found to have a lot of negative impacts on the performance of business organisations. It has been observed that an organisation where the employees are bored of their work, there is no scope of creativity and the performance levels fall drastically. If the human resource management of a company is able to provide the employees with challenging work that tests the skills or performances of the employees, the employees would not feel bored. Once they are used to regular changes in the tasks they have to perform, their job would become more interesting for them and they would perform better as compared to the situation when they are given monotonous work (Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2016).
Receive recognition à Maslow was one of the pioneers in the subject of human behaviour who suggested the need hierarchy theory. Maslow, in his theory, claimed that the humans are motivated to work harder when they have certain needs which they want to get fulfilled. Maslow organised these needs into five levels and recognition was one of them. Receiving recognition at the workplace is something which is desired by all the employees. All the employees want to be a part of an organisation where they matter. If they are given tasks that can challenge their skills and knowledge, they would perform their best as it would be an opportunity for them to gain recognition (Study.com, 2016).
Employee motivation à when the senior management of the company trusts the employees with tasks that are important and challenging, the employees perceive it in a very good way. They feel that the management trusts them with important responsibilities. As a result, they become motivated to perform well and they try their best to fulfil the responsibilities that are assigned to them (YourArticleLibrary.com: The Next Generation Library, 2015).
Sense of accomplishments à the management has to work really hard when it has to improve the work conditions for the workforce so that they can optimise the performance of the employees. When the company makes efforts to improve the work conditions for the employees, the employees to feel a sense of responsibility towards the organisation and they perform better to play their role. When they perform better they achieve much more than what they could have achieved when the job or tasks provided to them were boring. When they achieve goals and objectives regularly, they develop a sense of accomplishment which motivates them and fulfil their needs.
Benefits for the employers à the concept of providing challenging jobs and tasks is not just beneficial for the employees but is also very beneficial for the employers. The employers get a good chance of testing the skills and capabilities of the employees. It helps the employers in identifying the star performers and the employees who do not perform well. Consequently, it also becomes easier for the employees to design training and development programs for the employees so that they can acquire the skills that they lack. The employers can also easily appraise the star performers and can consider them when for promotions when higher posts in the organisation become vacant due to unexpected reasons.
Reduced absenteeism à one of the most important advantage of job enrichment is that it helps the organisations in bringing down absenteeism. Absenteeism is defined as the situation where the employees take too many unnecessary leaves from their work. It has been observed that absenteeism is higher in those organisations that are unable to provide interesting or exciting work to their employees. When the work gets monotonous or boring for the employees, they tend to take more unwanted leaves in order to take a break from their boring routine. On the other hand, if the organisations are able to provide the employees with interesting and challenging work, it would keep them busy and they would show less absenteeism due to the responsibilities that the management will assign to them. Thus, job enrichment can be very helpful in bringing down absenteeism at the workplace.
Reduced labour turnover rates à labour turnover rate is defined as the rate at which the employees leave an organisation due to various reasons. High turnover rates are always a huge matter of concern for the human resource managements of business organisations as it results in wastage of a lot of resources that were invested in the employees that leave the organisation. Companies which are able to provide challenging jobs to the employees experience lower turnover rates as the employees tend to stick to the companies that can offer the workforce with better future prospects and a chance to grow in their career paths. Thus, providing challenging and exciting work can also help the business organisations in bringing down the labour turnover rates.
After studying the benefits of providing challenging and exciting tasks to the employees, we can easily conclude that it can help in improving the job conditions for the employees. It not only improves the job conditions for the workforce but also motivates them to perform better and contribute their best towards the achievement of organisational goals and objectives. The employees become more productive, committed towards their jobs and the organisations and they even become motivated. Thus, it can be easily concluded that the claim made by Hackman and Oldham stands to be true for the human resources of the present day world.
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