Fundamentals of Level Three Leadership

108. Job Design

Concept

An important element of organizational architecture is job design. What kind of work do you give your employees to do? Yes, it varies widely. And, what are the typical parameters? What parameters do you imagine make a difference in job design?⁵⁰

Hackman and Lawler⁵¹ gave us what has become the classic model of job design. The elements of their model were:

1. Variety. Jobs with more variety were more interesting and engaging to people than those that were narrow and repetitive.

2. Task Identity. The wholeness of the task so that workers could see the whole of what they were doing.

3. Task Significance. The perceived importance of the job. Trivial jobs were less engaging.

4. Autonomy. The more choice workers had the more ...