Flexible Work Schedules
In today’s time-pressed world, many employees view time away from work as an important factor shaping their at-work motivation and on-job productivity. There are several methods for allowing flexible work schedules that meet the needs of employees seeking greater home/work flexibility. One of the more common is a compressed workweek. This system lets an employee work the same number of hours over the course of fewer days. Instead of working five eight-hour days, an employee might work four ten-hour days. Other examples of flexible work schedules include job sharing where two or more people share a certain work schedule.
Employee Involvement Programs
Employee involvement programs seek to motivate employees by increasing their responsibilities or getting them more involved in decision-making processes. There are several types of employee involvement programs; the more basic programs include job enlargement, job rotation, and teamwork. More ambitious programs include open-book management and worker empowerment.
Job Enlargement. Job enlargement is a direct way to increase job responsibility. It involves expanding a position and giving an employee a greater variety of tasks.
Job Rotation. A job rotation program periodically reassigns employees to new positions. In addition to increasing employees’ involvement in the firm and adjusting their responsibilities, job rotation can also improve employees’ skill sets, thereby increasing their job security. In addition, it can also relieve the boredom in the workplace associated with doing the same job over a long period of time.
Teamwork. This program attempts to increase motivation by putting individuals with different positions onto a team and setting them the task of achieving a specific goal. Teamwork serves to increase an employee’s responsibilities and involvement in the firm. The best types of teams are self-directed. This provides the team with the authority to make decisions regarding planning, accomplishing, and evaluating the task they are working on.
Open-Book Management. Open-book management is a challenging, but direct way of increasing employee involvement and responsibility. It involves allowing employees to see how their job performance affects key performance indicators important to the firm. In order to institute this program a firm needs to make key indicators available to employees and educate them on how to interpret key performance measures. Employees also need to be empowered to make decisions related to their positions and training and be given the opportunity to see how these decisions affect the rest of the firm. Open-book management also necessitates an adequate compensation program whereby compensation is tied to performance.
Worker Empowerment. Worker empowerment attempts to increase employee job responsibility as well as employee involvement. It does this by giving employees more authority and involving them in the decision-making process. Employees who are empowered can often make better and more informed decisions than can a manager who is not directly involved in the process. Participative management is similar to worker empowerment. Although it does not provide employees with direct decision-making power, it encourages managers to consult closely with workers before making decisions. Another type of participatory management is management by objective. This approach allows employees to set their own goals and provides them with the freedom to decide how they can best achieve these goals.
Measuring Job Satisfaction
How do managers know that after gaining an understanding of the theories of motivation and applying different approaches to increase job satisfaction that their efforts have been successful? In practice a manager must draw conclusions on a daily basis from social observations and interactions in the workplace. Sometimes, however, it is a good idea to conduct a more formal survey. This can be accomplished through either interviews, surveys, or focus groups that often involve only a specific group of employees. Two useful surveys are the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Job Descriptive Index. Both of these surveys address areas of employee satisfaction in regard to different aspects of an organization and provide managers with useful information. They cover work, working conditions, rewards, opportunities for advancement, and the quality of relationships with managers and coworkers.
In today’s time-pressed world, many employees view time away from work as an important factor shaping their at-work motivation and on-job productivity. There are several methods for allowing flexible work schedules that meet the needs of employees seeking greater home/work flexibility. One of the more common is a compressed workweek. This system lets an employee work the same number of hours over the course of fewer days. Instead of working five eight-hour days, an employee might work four ten-hour days. Other examples of flexible work schedules include job sharing where two or more people share a certain work schedule.
Employee Involvement Programs
Employee involvement programs seek to motivate employees by increasing their responsibilities or getting them more involved in decision-making processes. There are several types of employee involvement programs; the more basic programs include job enlargement, job rotation, and teamwork. More ambitious programs include open-book management and worker empowerment.
Job Enlargement. Job enlargement is a direct way to increase job responsibility. It involves expanding a position and giving an employee a greater variety of tasks.
Job Rotation. A job rotation program periodically reassigns employees to new positions. In addition to increasing employees’ involvement in the firm and adjusting their responsibilities, job rotation can also improve employees’ skill sets, thereby increasing their job security. In addition, it can also relieve the boredom in the workplace associated with doing the same job over a long period of time.
Teamwork. This program attempts to increase motivation by putting individuals with different positions onto a team and setting them the task of achieving a specific goal. Teamwork serves to increase an employee’s responsibilities and involvement in the firm. The best types of teams are self-directed. This provides the team with the authority to make decisions regarding planning, accomplishing, and evaluating the task they are working on.
Open-Book Management. Open-book management is a challenging, but direct way of increasing employee involvement and responsibility. It involves allowing employees to see how their job performance affects key performance indicators important to the firm. In order to institute this program a firm needs to make key indicators available to employees and educate them on how to interpret key performance measures. Employees also need to be empowered to make decisions related to their positions and training and be given the opportunity to see how these decisions affect the rest of the firm. Open-book management also necessitates an adequate compensation program whereby compensation is tied to performance.
Worker Empowerment. Worker empowerment attempts to increase employee job responsibility as well as employee involvement. It does this by giving employees more authority and involving them in the decision-making process. Employees who are empowered can often make better and more informed decisions than can a manager who is not directly involved in the process. Participative management is similar to worker empowerment. Although it does not provide employees with direct decision-making power, it encourages managers to consult closely with workers before making decisions. Another type of participatory management is management by objective. This approach allows employees to set their own goals and provides them with the freedom to decide how they can best achieve these goals.
Measuring Job Satisfaction
How do managers know that after gaining an understanding of the theories of motivation and applying different approaches to increase job satisfaction that their efforts have been successful? In practice a manager must draw conclusions on a daily basis from social observations and interactions in the workplace. Sometimes, however, it is a good idea to conduct a more formal survey. This can be accomplished through either interviews, surveys, or focus groups that often involve only a specific group of employees. Two useful surveys are the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Job Descriptive Index. Both of these surveys address areas of employee satisfaction in regard to different aspects of an organization and provide managers with useful information. They cover work, working conditions, rewards, opportunities for advancement, and the quality of relationships with managers and coworkers.
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