JOB DESIGN AND EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT IN MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN RIVERS STATE

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JOB DESIGN AND EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT IN MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN RIVERS STATE

CHAPTER ONE

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The concept of job design and its effects on employees job satisfaction is not a recent phenomenon in research (Hom and Kinicki, 2001; Lu and Lin 2002; Bernhard and Sverke, 2003). Jobs in any organization are designed following established procedures. These procedures were arranged or design by managers in the organization who are professionals or experts in any specific job type. The more these procedures save time, effort, and improve output quality, the better for the organization and their employees as it increase employee job satisfaction, and reduces labor turnover in any organization. Job design is a very important issue in human relations. After all, designing work so employee achieve a sense of task identity and task significant and are provided with skill variety, autonomy and feedback stimulate motivation and by extension, job satisfaction (Hodgetts and Hagar, 2005).

The organization of a job and its attendant tasks can complement positive physical work station design, or detract from it. In this regards, Hackman and Oldman (1976), incorporated into their research on job design, as variables, needs of individuals and the intensity with individuals strive to satisfy such needs. Skill variety enables a worker to vary the task performed and to change position at various times during the day. This variation provides a change in mental activity as well as physical well/being through movement and changes in body posture. It provides some variety of pace, methods location and skills. Job autonomy is the extent to which an individual can control his or her work. When management set rigid standards, organize the work to last detail, prescribes methods and supervises the work closely, job autonomy is low however, if after objective and general rules are set and employees are free to set their own pace and do that job as their think best, then job autonomy is high.

The above dimension can be combined into an overall measure of job enrichment. Job enrichment attempts to increase both the number of the tasks a worker has over the job. To implement job enrichment HRM must remove some controls from the job, delegate more authority to employees, and structure the work in complete natural units. These changes increases employee satisfaction and satisfied employees tend to be more productive, creative and committed to the organization.

Job satisfaction is one of the most studied concepts in the social and behavioral science. Unfortunately, the numerous research literatures on the topic have not resolved some important and enduring questions that continue to puzzle the researchers and managers in a variety of organizations.

Job satisfaction is defined as “extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their job (Spector, 1997). This definition suggests job satisfaction is a general or global affective reaction that individual holds that their job. Most scholars recognize that job satisfaction is a global concept comprised of various facets such as employee satisfaction with job itself, pay, supervisors, and co-workers (judge et al., 2003). Satisfy employee tend to be more productive, creative and committed to their employees, and recent studies have shown a direct correlation between staff satisfaction and patient satisfaction Kaldenberg and Regrut, 1999).

However, while Black (1978), opined that effective use of human resources is the key to organizational productive, Nwackukwu (1988), averred that employees productivity is a function of adequate strength and ability yet the productivity will fall below expected level because of job dissatisfaction.

STATEMENT OF THE STUDY

In Nigeria, the number of manufacturing firms has increased substantially; it is a pit to say that rapid increase has not matched by a corresponding increase in efficiency, high productivity and employee satisfaction as revealed by probes into some of these manufacturing firms. It is against the background of alleged and proven cases of poor performance, low productivity, high levels of absenteeism, staff turnover and employee dissatisfaction with their jobs in some manufacturing firms that the researcher deemed it necessary to joint in the search for solutions to these problems.

The ways in which employee’s job or tasks are organized have direct impact on his/her mental and physical health, as well as on job performance. The organization of a job and its attendant tasks can complement positive physical work station design thus, if a worker is satisfied, he or she will be more productive, creative and committed to his organization. Hence every organization strives to design employee’s job in such a way that will help in the attainment of organizational goal. Enriched jobs have high levels of skill variety, task identity and task significance which influence the extent to which an individual experiences a job as meaningful. Autonomy in the job influences the extent to which an individual believes he or she is responsible for the outcome of job execution. Feedback in the job increases the individual’s knowledge of the actual result of work activities.

Unfortunately, some manufacturing firms design employee jobs in such a way that it lacks or have low level of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback about results; therefore, leaving the employee with the option of being dissatisfaction while doing their jobs.

Skill variety is the employee’s proficiency that enables him to vary the tasks performed and to change positive position at various times during the day. This variation provides a change in mental activity as well as physical well-being through movement and changes in body posture. It provides some variety of pace, method, location and skill. But some manufacturing firms design a job in such a way that it lacks low level of skill variety, employee perform a small number of repetitive activities, without variety of pace, method, location and skill. Therefore, leaving employee with the option of dissatisfied.

Task identity is all about, how task should fit together to make a complete job since this gives the employee a sense of doing a whole job from the beginning to the end and with visible outcome. One the other hand jobs in some manufacturing firms involve only a limited piece of work and hence scores low on tasks identity and leads to employee job dissatisfaction.

Task significances how the job perceived to have a substantial impact on the lives of other people. People like to feel that they have achieved something meaningful during their working day. It is important for them to see them importance of the tasks that are performed and their contribution to the organization. But in some manufacturing firms the image of job in the minds of employees, bears no significant substance on how employees describe their job in the public.

Autonomy give’s the worker freedom, independence and discretion an employee enjoys in the execution of a job. Where possible employees are encouraged to have input as to how their jobs are done, the order of tasks and the speed of work. While in some manufacturing firms, job are design without or little level of autonomy as the work pace is scheduled and people perform programmed tasks, which leads to employee job dissatisfaction.

Feedback is all about how a job provides the employees with direct and clear information about the effectiveness of task performed. While in some manufacturing firms, job does not provide constructive information regarding how employees job are performed. Thereby, reduce intrinsic satisfaction for employee to achieve their career goals.

To perform any job an employee should have ability required and along with ability, the willingness of that employee to perform is also essential. To create the willingness of employees and to motivate them, managers should design jobs that motivate the employee and satisfy them on work.

The researcher therefore, seeks to examine the effect of job design on employee satisfaction in selected manufacturing firms in Rivers State. Recommendations will be made base on the knowledge gained from this study for improvement.

The study conceptual framework is shown in the figure below, this conceptual frame work focuses on the effect of job design on employee satisfaction and the researcher will examine technology as the moderator on the effect of job design on employee satisfaction.

Source: Research Survey 2014.

Job itself refers as nature of work, work itself, job characteristics and general satisfaction.

The researcher has taken job itself (general satisfaction) as a measure of the study dependent variable (employee satisfaction). The reason of self (general satisfaction) is because of flow with job characteristics model taken as a dimensions for job design. Job itself (general satisfaction) is an overall measure of the degree to which the employee is satisfied and happy with the job (Hackman & Oldham, 1975). Job itself (general satisfaction) involves the variety of task involved in job, the interest and challenges the job generates and the clarity of the job description/requirements.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The study was designed to achieve the following objectives:

To determine how skill variety relates to employee satisfaction
To find out how task identity relates to employee satisfaction
To ascertain how task significance relates to employee satisfaction
To establish how autonomy relates to employee satisfaction
To examine how feedback relates to employee satisfaction
To determine how the technology of the organization moderates the relationship between job design and employee satisfaction.