Hey thanks for joining me as we briefly discuss the job characteristics model of motivation.
And when we look at motivation we usually consider the impact or the extent to which
someone is motivated based upon a couple of different factors.
Rarely is someone's drive or motivation solely the result of one variable.
And so usually we cluster, we break them down into three separate things.
Usually they're driven by people's personal needs.
We also take a look at managerial actions and how the, essentially management impacts
the motivation of employees in the workplace.
But we also look at the job or the work itself that plays a role of somebody's motivation.
And so specifically taking a look at how the job or how the work itself affects our motivation
in the workplace.
The most common or one of the most common models is what we call the job characteristics
model of motivation.
And so the whole idea behind this model is that it helps explain why really some jobs
are more motivating than others.
And it establishes a set of five criteria that help us determine why certain jobs are
more motivating.
And why the people within those jobs are maybe more satisfied, more happy ultimately with
the work that they do.
Now the benefit of this model here is that it allows employes to take a look at the aspects
of the job that lead the motivation.
Right.
The whole goal of course is that we can employees to perform at a higher setting or a higher
performance level.
And so we have to consider multiple different things.
We can't necessary just think "well because they're not meeting their targets it's obviously
just they're lazy".
That's usually the conclusion that we often jump to rather quickly.
But the unfortunate thing is that we don't consider how we as managers are necessarily
impacting motivation, but also two we don't look at the job itself.
And how does the job or the work that's being done impact the employes motivation?
And so there are five separate criteria if you will.
Things that need to be present that ultimately will enhance the motivation of the job or
ultimately the satisfaction of the workers that are in those particular positions.
And so the first thing that we look at is what we call skill variety.
Now skills variety essentially has to do with the tasks that you perform.
So we're talking about the range, right, of the number of skills used in the course of
your work.
And so the idea here is that if you are lets say an assembly line worker or a data entry
clerk or a sign spinner or something where you do one thing right.
The argument is that that job would not be inherently satisfying and motivating.
Because it's going to become very mundane, very redundant in a very short time frame.
And so positions that allow employees to perform a variety of skills are more motivating because
they generally keep our interests.
Positions like teachers or instructors for example have the opportunity to use a wide
variety of skills.
Plant managers have the opportunity to use a wide variety of skills over the course of
any given day.
So the argument is that those positions would be a more fulfilling in a way because they're
exercising multiple different skills as opposed to a position to where I'm doing the same
thing repeatedly over and over.
It doesn't take a very long time period to pass for that to become very redundant.
To become very unsatisfying, and that ultimately at least according to the job characteristics
model will impact my level of motivation to continue to do that work.
And so jobs that have a greater degree of skill variety are inherently more motivating.
The second thing that we look at is what we can task identity.
And task identify is the degree to which your job requires the completion of a whole or
at least some identifiable piece of work.
And so with this particular element here, what we're looking at is the work that you
do.
Do you have the opportunity to see a finished product our of what you contribute?
And so this had to do a lot with how vehicles were manufactured.
The traditional assembly line kind of structure is that you perform obviously one task, so
not very high on skill variety, and then you pass the product on to someone else who would
perform a separate task.
Then after all of those tasks were performed you would essentially have a finished product,
in this case an assembled automobile.
but the problem is that auto manufacturers began to notice that those vehicles that were
produced had a lot of flaws in them.
A lot of problems.
The quality of them was not great.
And that had a lot to do with the task identity.
If I perform one small piece of the overall puzzle if you will, if I perform one task
and I don't necessarily see what the finished product looks like I don't identify with it.
And that has a very significant impact on my motivation because I'm merely passing it
off to someone else and I don't really care what happens to it after that.
Now so what auto manufacturers did as well is they establish work in teams.
And so you would work collaboratively with a group of individuals and you would perform
the work on in this case assembling an automobile.
And you would actually continue to work on the automobile through each stage of the process.
Thus increasing your task identity because you took more pride in the work that you actually
did.
And so that's one way that employers can instill task identify.
But the goal is for them to see that their work matters in some way, shape, or form.
That it has an impact on the overall grand scheme of things.
So if you look at other positions.
Things like carpenters and artists have a high degree of task identity because they
have the opportunity to see their work from beginning to end.
Assembly line workers, insurance underwriters, even restaurant hosts and hostesses sometimes
lask, last rather tasks identity because they don't see what happens through the later stages.
So they don't necessarily associate with that process as much.
What could, or which could rather, according to the job characteristics model have an impact
on their motivation level as well.