1000 Business Lessons Every Businessman Must Know

Chapter 41 Job design: Only when the design is good can it run smoothly (1)
[-]. Five principles of job design

318. Principle of division of labor
The principle of division of labor is the first principle of organizational design. The idea of ​​division of labor comes from Adam Smith's division of labor. It means that instead of letting one person complete all the work, the work is divided into several steps and completed by one person alone. One of the steps, that is, the individual is specialized in some part of the activity rather than the whole activity.

The classic division of labor principle holds that the division of labor is an inexhaustible source of increased productivity. The finer the division of labor, the higher the level of specialization, the clearer the responsibilities, and the higher the efficiency.

319. Principle of equivalence of functions and powers
The so-called principle of reciprocal authority means that duties and powers must be equal.When designing jobs, it is necessary to clearly define the scope of responsibilities of each management level and each department, and to grant the necessary management authority to fulfill their responsibilities.Responsibilities and powers must be coordinated. To perform certain duties, there should be corresponding powers. This is the requirement of the principle of powers.

Only duties, no powers or too small powers, the enthusiasm and initiative of the duty bearers will be bound, and it is actually impossible to assume due responsibilities; on the contrary, only powers without any responsibilities, or the degree of responsibilities is less than Power will lead to abuse of power and "blind command", resulting in bureaucracy and so on.

Therefore, these two tendencies should be avoided in actual job design.Scientific job design should be to standardize the job, responsibilities, and powers, and set up a charter, so that no matter who is in charge of this job, they must obey it.

320. The principle of unity of command

The principle of unified command means that under the enterprise manager responsibility system, every position in the enterprise must be commanded and responsible for it. Everyone in the enterprise should know who is responsible and who should be responsible for themselves. Can only accept the command of a superior and be responsible for it.In this way, the hierarchy between the superior and the subordinate is clear, the route issued by the superior is clear, and the command and execution are less prone to confusion.The principle of unified command is implemented, the connection between the superior and the subordinate is single, and it is easier for each other to be familiar with each other's situation, which is conducive to improving work efficiency.At the same time, due to the strict implementation of "unified" leadership, it is possible to effectively avoid the chaotic situation caused by "multiple departments" and the phenomenon that everyone is responsible but in fact no one is responsible.

However, there are also shortcomings in the implementation of this principle. For example, it is easy to cause the lack of horizontal connections between various departments or production units within the enterprise and the blind and arbitrary problems of enterprise leaders.

This needs to be compensated in two ways:

First, under the principle of unified command, superiors authorize subordinates to make necessary horizontal direct contact in work, and subordinates report the results of their actions to their superiors in a timely manner.This will not only not weaken the principle of unity of command, but also help to implement this principle.Of course, the authorization from superiors to subordinates must be moderate or reasonable, and reasonable authorization must be achieved.Because the authorization is too small, on the one hand, the superior has to do everything by himself, and is entangled in trivial matters, which affects the performance of the leadership function; The situation that makes the department or the entire enterprise out of control will affect the normal production and operation activities of the enterprise at least, and cause the department and even the entire enterprise to lose money or go bankrupt at worst.

Second, in order to avoid the blind command of the superior leaders and the obedience of the subordinates in the process of performing tasks, it is necessary to make the superiors and subordinates responsible for the overall goals of the enterprise in terms of interests. The goal must be to do your job well, and whoever fails to complete the task will be responsible.The implementation of the principle of unity of command can also be ensured through methods such as economic, administrative, and ideological work.

321. Reasonable management range principle

The principle of reasonable management range refers to the maximum number of people that a command, supervisor or manager can lead at all levels of management within the enterprise.If one person leads or supervises too many people, the quality of leadership and the work efficiency of the managed people will be reduced due to ineffective management; if too few people are led or supervised, talents will be wasted due to wasted leadership.So, what is the management range of a leader, supervisor and manager?
Some people have done a survey and believed that the number of people under the jurisdiction of a manager can range from 1 to 24 people.A manager's management range is affected by the level of the management organization, the types of problems faced, the manager's talent, and the degree of authorization from superior leaders.

For example, the higher the level of the management organization, the scope of management should be relatively small. The number of people directly led by a manager of an enterprise is much smaller than that of a workshop director, because relatively complicated and major problems are often concentrated at the top. Leaders should not directly lead too many people, and grassroots leaders can lead more people because most of the daily affairs are involved in the grassroots.

322. Principles of department division
Departmental division is essentially a continuation of the principle of division of labor, which states that activities in an organization should be grouped into departments through specialization.Departments can usually be established in terms of the functions of the work performed, the products or services provided, the target customers set, the geographical areas covered, or the processes used to convert inputs into outputs, etc.Departments are the basic units that constitute bureaucratic organizations, and the division method of departments should reflect the requirements that are most conducive to the realization of organizational goals.

However, the problem is that in a departmentalized organization, each department often pursues its own interests without seeing the overall interests. This is especially the case when departments are divided by function, and no function (department) is fully responsible for the final result. Responsibility, members of each functional area are isolated from each other, and they rarely understand what people in other functions are doing. The different interests and visions of different functions will lead to constant conflicts between functions, and each strongly emphasizes its own importance.Since various departments are not fully responsible for the final result, it is often difficult to find the real responsible person when mistakes occur.The clear division of organizational departments is the best way to blame the blame. Anyone who is experienced in this field probably knows that poor performance can almost be pushed to the system, to other departments, or to other departments. to factors beyond my control.

Not only that, organizational design often emphasizes the use of uniform division standards when dividing departments, so that the activities of various grassroots organizations in the enterprise have consistent specifications and are easy to manage.In fact, the purpose of departmental division is not to establish a rigid structure that is balanced at all levels and is characterized by consistency and equivalence. It should also be allowed.Simultaneously adopting a team organization that crosses traditional departmental boundaries will complement the original rigid departmental divisions.

[-]. Basic method of job design

323. Observation method

The observation method is a method for job analysts to use sensory organs or other tools at the work site to observe the actual work actions and working methods of specific objects, and record them in the form of text, charts, images, etc. to collect work information.

The observation method is suitable for physical workers and transactional workers, such as porters, operators, secretarial and other positions.

Since different observation objects have different work cycles and work bursts, the observation method can be divided into direct observation method, stage observation method and work performance method.

direct observation

Job analysts directly observe the whole process of employees' work.Direct observation is suitable for jobs with very short duty cycles.For example, the cleaning staff, whose work basically takes one day as a cycle, and job analysts can follow the cleaning staff for direct work observation throughout the day.

phase observation

The work of some employees has a long period of time. In order to observe all the work of the employees completely, it must be observed in stages.For example, an administrative clerk, she needs to prepare for the company's summary and commendation meeting at the end of each year.Job analysts must then review the job at the end of the year.Sometimes because the span of each stage is too long, the job analysis work cannot be delayed for a long time. At this time, it is more appropriate to use the "job performance method".

job performance

It is more suitable for the work with a long work cycle and many emergencies.Such as security work, in addition to normal working procedures, there are many emergencies that need to be dealt with, such as interrogating suspicious personnel, etc. Job analysts can let security personnel perform the process of interrogation to observe the work.When using the observation method, job analysts should prepare observation forms in advance so that they can be recorded at any time.Enterprises with good conditions can use cameras and other equipment to record the work content of employees for analysis.In addition, it should be noted that some observed work behaviors should be representative, and try not to attract the attention of the observed, let alone interfere with the work of the observed.

324. Interview method

Also known as the interview method, it is a method of collecting job information through face-to-face conversations between job analysts and employees, which can be one-on-one interviews or group interviews.

Before the interview, job analysts should prepare an outline of interview questions, which can generally be carried out according to the predetermined plan during the interview.The interview method has higher requirements on the language expression ability and logical thinking ability of job analysts.

Job analysts must be able to control the situation of the conversation, not only to prevent the conversation from going off topic, but also to enable the interlocutor to talk freely.

Job analysts should make timely and accurate records of conversations, and avoid making the interviewees care about the records.

The interview method is suitable for persons with mental positions, such as developers, designers, and senior managers.

325. Questionnaire survey method

Job analysts must first draw up a set of questionnaires that are feasible and rich in content, and then filled out by employees to obtain job information.The questionnaire method is suitable for mental workers, management workers or employees with great job uncertainties, such as software designers and administrative managers.

The questionnaire is specially designed, and the content of the questionnaire should be concise and to the point, not too complicated and cumbersome.Before filling out the questionnaire, it is best for the staff to provide necessary counseling on the essentials, and the staff should fill it out independently.The questionnaire method is more convenient for statistics and analysis than the observation method.It should be noted that the design of the questionnaire is directly related to the success or failure of the questionnaire, so the questionnaire must be designed to be complete, scientific and reasonable.

Usually, the contents of the questionnaire are questions or statements prepared by job analysts concerning actual behavioral and psychological qualities, asking respondents to rate the importance (often) of these behaviors and psychological qualities in their jobs. Answer the given method.Generally speaking, the answer should have 3 levels:
The desirability of various special qualities: must have; need to have; do not need to have.

The number of times that particular qualities are used in a job: often; sometimes; never.

Whether various special qualities will be effective if they are trained: they can be greatly improved; they can be improved slightly; they may not necessarily be improved.

The questionnaire method can be divided into job orientation and personnel orientation.The job orientation questionnaire emphasizes the conditions and results of the job itself; the personnel orientation questionnaire focuses on understanding the work behavior of the staff.

The questionnaire method can cover all aspects and collect as much work information as possible; it can collect accurate, standardized and clear work information; and it can arrange surveys at any time.However, the questionnaire questions have been set in advance, and the investigation is difficult to in-depth; the collection of work information is greatly affected by the design level of the questionnaire; the knowledge level of the personnel required is relatively high.Generally, the questionnaire method is the main method, supplemented by the interview method and observation method, and the work investigation is carried out.

326. Participatory law

Also known as job practice law.As the name suggests, job analysts directly participate in the work of employees, play the role of employees, and experience the work information.The Participation Act applies to less professional functions.Compared with observation method and questionnaire method, the information obtained by participation method is more accurate.It should be noted that job analysts need to really participate in the work and experience the work, rather than just imitating some work behaviors.

Participatory methods can overcome the shortcomings of some experienced employees who do not always understand the way they perform tasks.Job analysts master first-hand information through practice, and can supplement and understand some unobservable content.The shortcomings of the participation method are also obvious. For many highly specialized tasks in modern enterprises, it is often difficult for job analysts to participate in them.At the same time, this method is suitable for jobs that can be mastered in a short period of time, but not for jobs that require a lot of training to be competent or harmful.

327. Typical event method

If there are too many employees, or the job content is too complicated, representative employees and typical time should be selected for observation, so as to improve the efficiency of job analysis.

The advantage of the typical event method is that it directly describes the specific activities of the incumbent in the job, so it can reveal the dynamic nature of the job; its disadvantage is that it takes a lot of time to collect and classify typical cases.

In addition, because typical cases are described, it is difficult to form an overall concept of usual work behavior, which is the main purpose of job analysis.

328. Worklog method

The work log method is a job analysis method conducted by employees themselves, which can be used for jobs that lack technical requirements and regular work, such as management jobs and transactional jobs.Job analysts should design a detailed work log sheet in advance, so that employees can fill in the job content in a timely manner as required, so as to collect work information.

It should be noted that the work log should be filled in at any time, such as 10 minutes or 15 minutes as a cycle, and should not be filled in at one time before leaving get off work, so as to ensure the authenticity and validity of the filled content.The biggest problem with the work log method may be the authenticity of the work log content.

In general, for the work of the same job, more than 10 days of continuous records are required to grasp the content of the job to a certain extent.

329. Data Analysis

If job analysts have a large amount of job analysis materials at hand, such as similar companies that have done corresponding job analysis, it is more suitable to adopt this method.Materials include existing job specifications or accountability documents, records of key events of employees, work diaries, etc.This approach is most suitable for start-up businesses.

Job specifications or related responsibility system documents can obtain a lot of job analysis information and avoid a lot of duplication of work, so they should be fully utilized.When collecting information, carefully analyze the applicability, objectivity and timeliness of these written materials.Key event records are required to be recorded by the work executor for events that can be observed within a certain period of time and have a significant impact on the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of the work.Collect and analyze key event records, similar to case collection in case studies.The information that can be obtained from the key event record includes: the background and reasons leading to the event; the effective or redundant behavior of the employee; the consequences of the key behavior and the ability of the employee to control the above consequences, etc.

The work diary is a work record that is regularly summarized by employees according to the format and requirements.Carefully recorded work diaries can provide a lot of information, such as employees' actual work content, rights, responsibilities, interpersonal relationships, workload, and work efficiency.Data analysis is an indirect analysis method.When analyzing second-hand data, it takes a lot of time to identify subjective factors and invalid information, and then classify and summarize them to obtain useful information.

330. Expert discussion method

The expert discussion method refers to a method that invites some experts in related fields or experienced employees to discuss and conduct job analysis.

This method is suitable for enterprises that are developing rapidly or whose job responsibilities have not yet been finalized.

Since companies do not have ready-made observation samples, they can only use the experience of experts to plan the job status they want to see in the future.

331. Order Analysis

The order analysis method is mainly used for the description of non-managerial work, and it is a job-centered job analysis method.One of the methods of job analysis is time study.The purpose of time research is to determine a standard completion time for each task in the work, and add the completion time of all tasks in the work to obtain the total time required for the completion of the work.This time can be used as the basis for determining wages and bonuses, the cost of new and old products, and the basis for balanced production of production lines and work groups.However, since the determination of the standard working hours is affected by various aspects such as the individual employees and the characteristics of the work itself, it is difficult to be accurate.

Therefore, it is often necessary to measure the "real effort" and "required effort" of employees.

Work samples are an effective method for determining working standard time.This method first classifies the activities in the work, and then the job analysis experts average the time for the incumbent to complete various activities, and the obtained average time for completing various activities can be used as the standard working time.

These job analysis methods can be used alone or in combination.Since each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, each enterprise should choose according to the specific circumstances of the enterprise.The ultimate goal is the same: to obtain as detailed and true job information as possible.

[-]. Job design content and skills

(End of this chapter)