Some workers want more
complexity in their jobs

Managers can sometimes motivate these bored workers by increasing the complexity of the tasks that are assigned to them.

Various factors contribute to enriched jobs that people enjoy.

The first is skill variety, which refers to the number of different abilities that a person brings to a job so that it can be completed successfully. Service managers at automobile dealerships must have social skills to work with customers, must know technology to work with mechanics and must have mathematical skills to prepare billing statements. They also have to know the basics of marketing since they have more dealings with the public than other specialists within an automobile dealership.

A second factor contributing to job enrichment is task identity, or the opportunities to complete an entire task or a clearly identifiable piece of work. The classic example of a job with low task identity is an assembly line position where a person repeats the same small chores again and again over an eight-hour workday. Computer technicians have jobs with high task identity. They can enter a company having problems with information technology, can diagnose problems and can make necessary repairs and adjustments. They can observe the happy faces of people getting back to their computers and using them in their work.

A third factor is task significance, or the impact of one's work on people's lives. Elementary and high school teachers clearly have a major impact on the lives of their students. Nurses play a major role in all aspects of a patient's time spent in the hospital prior to, during, and after surgery. Insurance agents contribute to people's financial peace of mind through various policies covering their health care, home, and automobiles.

Workers whose jobs involve high task significance would answer "strongly agree" after reading the statement, "The results of my job have a significant effect on the lives and well being of other people."

The fourth and fifth factors deal with employee decision making and knowledge of how they are doing. Enriched jobs permit workers to be autonomous and to make their own decisions about how to carry out assigned tasks.

The number of supervisors needed to oversee workers should decrease as employees become more autonomous. Enriched jobs also allow workers to know what they are doing right and what they need to do to improve their performance. This feedback can come from many sources, including supervisors, customers, and coworkers. It can also come from the job itself, as when automobile mechanics see customers driving away in smoothly running cars that had to be towed into the repair shop a few hours ago.

There is an important caveat if managers decide to move toward increasing job complexity. Job enrichment only is effective with employees who have growth needs. Such employees want to improve, want to obtain raises and promotions through their efforts, and want to have the reputation of dependable, hard-working people who value their contributions to their workplaces. Increasing the complexity of jobs will not be welcome by unmotivated and clock-watching employees who come to work only to earn enough money so that they can pay their bills and pursue their hobbies.