Question

Tina Robinson, Inc. (TRI) ​ TRI management has decided to reinvent the culture of the organization. Previously, the company tried to make jobs more appealing by adding more responsibilities to each job description. However, this did not work. Next, the company decided to add flextime. It believed that this would make employees more dedicated. ​ TRI then introduced even more work options for employees. For example, management decided to group all full-time employees into teams to allow employees with different backgrounds to learn from each other. Many different kinds of teams were allowed, as long as the group members did not interact via the Internet or any other electronic means. The managers reasoned that team members must work face to face to learn from and truly engage with each other. ​ Once these teams were formed, TRI management noticed that the quality of employees' work was much improved. The managers also observed that people felt much more comfortable with and tolerant of each other. Refer to Tina Robinson, Inc. Previously, what technique did TRI management try in order to make jobs more appealing?
(a)-Job application
(b)-Job rotation
(c)-Job sharing
(d)-Job enlargement
(e)-Job enrichment

Answer 1

Answer:

Job enlargement

Explanation:

Job enlargement means increasing the scope of a job through extending the range of its job duties and responsibilities generally within the same level and periphery. Job enlargement involves combining various activities at the same level in the organization and adding them to the existing job. It is also called the horizontal expansion of job activities. This contradicts the principles of specialization and the division of labor whereby work is divided into small units, each of which is performed repetitively by an individual worker and the responsibilities are always clear. Some motivational theories suggest that the boredom and alienation caused by the division of labor can actually cause efficiency to fall. Thus, job enlargement seeks to motivate workers through reversing the process of specialization. A typical approach might be to replace assembly lines with modular work; instead of an employee repeating the same step on each product, they perform several tasks on a single item. In order for employees to be provided with Job Enlargement they will need to be retrained in new fields to understand how each field works.

The objective of job enlargement is to motivate an employee by increasing his efforts and exposure towards achieving the organizational objectives as set for the job. By doing this, an employee can get a wider range of his or her objectives without his or her job in a repetitious manner. Job enlargement requires the management of the organization to provide their support in providing appropriate training to the employees to make them able to adapt to the enlarged job scope.

Some advantages of job enlargement are a variety of skills, improves earning capacity, and wide range of activities.

• Variety of skills – Job enlargement helps the organization to improve and increase the skills of the employee due to organization as well as the individual benefit.
• Improves earning capacity – with all the new activities a person learns from job enlargement, they are able to try to get a better salary when they apply for a new job.
• Wide range of activities – Employees are able to learn more activities which can help a company save money by reducing the number of employees they have.