The importance of autonomy in job design

Autonomy is one of the main demands of new generations. They look for jobs which consider their desires and need for self-fulfillment.
Referring to this point, can be useful for the organization in term of achieving results.

Many changes hap­pened in the last cen­tu­ry in tech­nol­o­gy and work envi­ron­ment; how­ev­er, the way of job design is still con­sid­ered as one of the most impor­tant fac­tors for cre­at­ing motivation.

The dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion affects the process­es and the way and out­put of job design activ­i­ty. The way employ­ees expe­ri­ence the job and their agree­ment on the job con­tent, have become very important.

Today’s changes in the job design process

This change means that job design is no longer divid­ing of work in to the activ­i­ties by the man­ag­er. It became a two-way activ­i­ty. The work­er who affects the con­tent of the job intend­ed for him. It is done through the influ­ence of job design process and the reac­tion he/she shows to the result of the work, con­firm­ing this fact.*

This approach and real­i­ty is com­pat­i­ble with the self-Deter­mi­na­tion The­o­ry, which is close­ly relat­ed to the self-actu­al­iza­tion of Maslow’s pyra­mid of needs.

Accord­ing to self-Deter­mi­na­tion The­o­ry (SDT), humans are moti­vat­ed by sat­is­fy­ing the three needs of com­pe­tence, inde­pen­dence and con­nec­tion.

This moti­va­tion occurs intrin­si­cal­ly because of their inter­est in the nature of the work and its accom­pa­ny­ing chal­lenges, and not just because of extrin­sic encour­age­ment and rewards.

Hay Group’s advice on job design and preparation of Job Profile

New work­ing prac­tices that are designed in human resources man­age­ment, such as tele­work­ing, inten­sive work­ing hours, per­for­mance man­age­ment sys­tem and hor­i­zon­tal and flat struc­tures, and many oth­ers, have become wide­spread con­sid­er­ing these find­ings.

Thus, it is rec­om­mend­ed that orga­ni­za­tions pay enough atten­tion to this point in design­ing jobs. Job design should be done in such a way that pro­vides suf­fi­cient auton­o­my and inde­pen­dence for employ­ees.

Hay Group’s result-ori­ent­ed job pro­file, is far away from job descrip­tions con­tain­ing bor­ing details. New era employ­ees are able to under­stand and rec­og­nize by them selves; so that makes more empha­sis on expect­ed results from key accountabilities.

Writer: Morad Ahmadipour (CEO of RRC and HR Con­sul­tant in Iran)

*Grant et al., 2010

 

Relat­ed con­tent and notes:

Job duty descrip­tion or job Pro­file; Which one is more appropriate

Design Job Descrip­tion and Job Pro­file 2

Prin­ci­ples of job classification

Hay Group Job pro­file and Job Descrip­tion; Train­ing Workshop

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