Job enrichment

Job enrichment can be described as a medium through which management can motivate self-driven employees by assigning them additional responsibility normally reserved for higher level employees. By doing this, employees feel like their work has meaning and is important to the company. This theory is based on the premise that employees have a natural tendency to want to succeed and are eager to be trusted with a bigger role in the company. When these type of workers aren't being challenged, they tend to slack off and not give their best effort because they view their task to be below their skill set. Conversely when an employee is given autonomy over his/her work, they tend to feel responsible for the outcome of the project and will try to put forward the best end result possible. Overall Job Enrichment is essential to the workplace because it helps prevent feelings of repetitiveness in the day-to-day operations from hindering productivity.

Frederick Herzberg, an American psychologist, originally developed the concept of 'job enrichment' in 1968, in an article that he published on pioneering studies at A T&T. The concept stemmed from Herzberg's motivator-hygiene theory, which is based on the premise that job attitude is a construct of two independent factors, namely job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction. Job satisfaction encompasses intrinsic factors that arise from the work itself, including achievement and advancement; whilst job dissatisfaction stems from factors external to the actual work, including company policy and the quality of supervision.

He came up with this term while he was working on his "two factor theory" which states that both satisfaction (e.g. job satisfaction) and dissatisfaction are driven by separate factors that are completely independent of each other. To this effect he implies that just because an individual experiences a decrease in dissatisfaction, does not mean that the result is also an increase in satisfaction.

Job enrichment, as a managerial activity includes a three steps technique:

Job enrichment can be contrasted to job enlargement which simply increases the number of tasks without changing the challenge. Job enrichment is seen as a vertical job restructuring technique where the focus is on giving the employee more authority, independence, and control over the manner the activity is completed. On the other hand, job enlargement is seen as a horizontal restructuring technique where the focus is merely increasing the number of assignments but does not change the overall authority, autonomy, and control of the projects. Job enlargements impact on the work environment is not always the most positive due to the fact that it is largely just an increase in work for the employee and not really a step up in responsibility. Job enrichment on the other hand is a very motivational technique in the management world. The act of enriching an employee's job not only is a sign of respect but it also shows that the employer actually cares about the employee as a person. This creates a desire for the employee to want to pay the employer back in the form of hard work, loyalty, and dedication the company.

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