Now in addition to skill variety and task identity we also have to deal with task significance.
And task significance is the degree to which the job, in some way shape or form, has an
impact on the lives of other people.
To some extent all jobs obviously matter.
They perform something, they provide a service.
They contribute to the greater good.
But some jobs are more significant than others.
So for example if you were to take the position of an actual surgeon.
Right someone who operates on others in a hospital setting of some type has a great
deal of task significance because they are responsible for the livelihood of certain
people.
And so arguable they have a high degree of task significance because they have an impact
on whether or not those people continue to live.
And so those positions are greater, or more in terms of motivation.
Or at least the job itself is more motivating because it incorporates that element.
Positions with not a lot of task significance.
Lets say telemarketer for example where it's difficult to see how you positively impact
the life of someone else.
Then that might be inherently unmotivating because that degree or that element isn't
necessarily present.
They have a very low amount of task significance.
The next element that needs to be present is what we call autonomy.
And autonomy is simply having the freedom to select how and when particular tasks are
performed.
If you work in the type of occupation or in a particular setting which you have to get
permission to use the restroom you arguably don't have a great degree of autonomy in your
position.
But if you have the opportunity to choose not only the time to which work is done, but
also the manner in which it is done.
The process is really up to you, it isn't dictated to you in some type of standard operating
procedure or something similar then you have a great degree of autonomy.
And that really implies flexibility to control what it is that you do and how you do it.
So jobs that are obviously heavy on autonomy include being self employed.
So obviously being your own boss.
Professors obviously have a high degree of autonomy.
They have the academic freedom to choose how to present the material, they manner in which
they communicate it, and the different elements that they actually use to present the material.
All have high degrees of autonomy.
Whereas positions like military personnel and even police officers really have a low
degree of autonomy because they're very rigid in terms of what the structure is for work.
How they handle specific situations, they're generally streamlined to avoid any type of
inconsistencies with regards to performance in various situations.
And so arguably those jobs don'e necessarily have a great degree of autonomy.
That doesn't mean in their own right that those jobs are inherently unmotivating.
It just means that they might be a little low on that particular element here.
But as you see there's going to be five of them, and so as long as a majority of them
are present it generally would lead to a relatively motivating job, at least from the position
itself.
Alright the last element on the job characteristics model is what we call feedback.
Feedback we all probably know in varying degrees right.
Feedback being information that we receive from others related to our performance.
But feedback in the job characteristics model is very different than the typical feedback
that we receive from a manager or co-worker regarding our work.
Feedback refers to your knowledge that you receive in terms of your performance that
you get from the job itself.
So the degree that you receive knowledge of your performance
from the job itself.
And so what this looks like is that as you do your work, as you perform the functions
and the daily responsibilities of your job or occupation, do you get feedback from actually
just doing your work?
Meaning does someone have to actually tell you if you're doing a good job or not, or
do you get feedback from simply doing the work?
For example, standup comedians have a great degree of feedback present in their jobs because
they get instant feedback as to whether or not they're perform their job well.
The audience either laughs or doesn't.
And that can be very very awkward if there's silence after a joke is told.
So that provides you with instant feedback from the course of your position.
And so maybe in positions where they're service related and you have direct access to the
public.
Maybe you have a higher degree of feedback because you know whether or not you're doing
a good job based upon the feedback that you're receiving from your customers.
But a production worker for example may not get feedback from their job.
Especially if they're producing tangible products that are going to be consumed at a later date
but also in a different location.
They don't necessarily get the opportunity to get feedback from their work because the
consumption of the product is so far removed from when it is actually created.
So the importance of this model isn't to necessarily pinpoint you know why jobs are inherently
motivating, but more importantly, to actually figure out how do we improve the motivation
that the job brings.
Remember that we're looking at things from a number of different standpoints right.
Now just personal drives.
Not just managerial actions.
But the job or the work itself, how that impacts motivation.
And so from an organizational perspective we have the duty and the obligation really
to design jobs that are going to be more interesting and more satisfying.
Because ultimately jobs that are more interesting or satisfying are going to lead to reduced
turnover, reduced absenteeism, which is going to have a significant impact on productivity,
and ultimately an impact on quality and on profits as well.
Because your going to have customers that are obviously more satisfied with the product
if it's good quality, no faults and defects and those types of things.
And so it's very important to incorporate this.
Some jobs are going to be very difficult to try and make more motivating simply because
of the work that they do.
But their are certain things that you could do kind of keying in on each of these five
elements, as a way of trying to identify and pinpoint what can we do to make them more
motivating.