Describe some of Frederick Taylor’s observations that led to his development of the scientific management philosophy.

Describe some of Frederick Taylor’s observations that led to his development of the scientific management philosophy.

Taylor saw work being done haphazardly. In addition, workers, not managers, generally were in charge of the work being done. Also, he noticed many inefficiencies in the production methods being used, and little planning was carried out prior to production. Finally, worker equipment was not standardized and little training or instruction was provided.

Based on these observations, Taylor offered a way to minimize waste by identifying the most efficient method to perform the job.

133. How do the job design techniques of job enlargement and job enrichment differ?

Job enlargement is the process of expanding the number and kind of tasks performed by the employee to add more variety in his work.

Job enrichment is the process where workers have more control over how they perform their tasks.

The key difference between the two is the nature of control, authority or responsibility the worker has under job enrichment. For example, in job enlargement, the employee may be responsible on an auto assembly line for the entire left rear wheel component. There are, obviously, a number of specific tasks that would be part of producing that component. The job would be enriched, if in addition to completing tasks to produce the left rear wheel component, the employee was also responsible for checking the quality of the assembly arriving at his work station. If the incoming assembly had quality defects, the enriched worker might be able to stop the entire assembly line.

134. Describe the process of job rotation as it applies to an employee in your college’s photocopying center.

A variety of jobs are performed at most college photocopy centers. Clearly exams and professor handouts are produced there, but there are also a number of binding activities, packing large orders, delivery of orders, and so on that are completed there. One example of a job rotation might be if on Monday, employee A would be responsible for receipt and logging of all job orders either sent through campus mail or delivered in person to the center. On Tuesday, employee A might be stationed at the copy machine doing the actual copying of work. That same employee might move to the spiral binding machine on Wednesday and the flat binding machine on Thursday. Friday would find employee A delivering completed jobs to individual offices throughout the campus. Each individual job is broken down to its simple parts for easy training. As the repetition of the tasks occurs, quality improves, as does efficiency. The rotation between the jobs addresses any monotony that might arise from completing the same tasks on a daily basis.

135. List and define the core job characteristics found in the Hackman and Oldham model.

Skill variety is the extent to which the job requires a person to utilize multiple high level skills.

Task identity is the degree to which a person is in charge of completing an identifiable piece of work from start to finish.

Task significance is whether a person’s job substantially affects other people’s work, health or well-being.

Autonomy is the degree to which a person had the freedom to decide how to perform his tasks.

Feedback is the degree to which people learn how effective they are being at work.

136. What is the formula to calculate the motivating potential score (MPS) of a job, and what is the purpose of the score?

MPS = Skill variety + Task Identity + Task significance x Autonomy x Feedback

3

The formula suggests that autonomy and feedback are the most important elements in deciding the motivating potential compared to skill variety, task identity and task significance. The purpose of the formula is to assess the motivating potential of a job.

137. What is the difference between felt empowerment and structural empowerment?

Structural empowerment refers to the aspects of the work environment that give employees discretion, autonomy and the ability to do their jobs effectively.

Felt empowerment is the condition where employees find the work to be meaningful, feeling confident that they can perform the job, feeling that they have discretion and autonomy at work and having the ability to influence how the company operates.

138. What does each of the letters in the acronym, SMART, mean?

S is Specific.

M is Measurable.

A is Aggressive.

R is Realistic.

T is Time-bound.