Work design (psychology)

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The psychological work design as part of the Work Psychology describes all in an efficient and effective working process embedded measures serving employee of the promotion of personal and skills development and their performance and health trying to get long term.

introduction

According to Ulich (2005), the principle of the unity of analysis, evaluation and design applies. In this case, this means that psychologically sound work design should be based on the results of a previous analysis and evaluation and should be carried out at least in part by the people involved in the collection of these results.

The added value brought in by the psychological approaches consists primarily in the development of scientifically founded strategies for the humane design of work (see also humanization of the world of work and humanization of working life ) and the establishment of so-called defined human criteria as their basis. Winfried Hacker and Eberhard Ulich are important psychologists who have made significant contributions to research in this area.

Starting points and measures of work design

The job design can be used to optimize the ergonomic, technical and organizational aspects of work organization and the working system applied

become. This includes the following aspects:

The work content and, derived from it, the work task occupy a special position . Is it well designed, e.g. B. in the form of sequential and hierarchically complete tasks (see action regulation theory and section “Criteria of psychological work design - personality enhancement”) it contributes significantly to the personality enhancement of a work activity .

Work design measures are condition-related interventions, that is, relationship-oriented. They aim to change the given conditions in systems or groups.

The counterpart to this is the personal, behavioral, interventions. These relate to a person's individual behavior. An example of this could be training in stress management or attending a back school. These measures are not located in the field of job design.

With the EN ISO 9241 , Part 2, an international standard exists for designing good work tasks .

As an important measure to optimize the organization of work, at this point the work structuring called.

Theoretical foundations

The approaches and measures of work design are essentially based on three theoretical concepts:

  1. Action regulation theory approaches
  2. Concept of the socio-technical system
  3. Motivation theory approaches

Criteria of psychological work design

In order to identify the need for any change or optimization measures and to be able to develop specific design proposals based on them, it is necessary to use criteria or references on the basis of which reliable statements can be made. The success or failure of the work design can also be measured against these goals.

With these criteria, a fundamental distinction is made between company-related goals, characterized by the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization, and employee-related goals, which in practice, however, cannot be viewed separately from one another. The employee-related criteria should be explained here based on the classification by hackers and judges in the form of the four essential defined human criteria.

The sequence of criteria shown is hierarchical, which means that the minimum requirements of the respective subordinate criterion must first be met so that a transition to the next evaluation level can take place. The personality support represents the highest level, the optimization of which does not make sense as long as there are deficits in the hierarchically lower criteria.

The four defined human criteria according to Hacker and Richter are:

  1. Feasibility: Work activities should be able to be carried out according to requirements, reliably and in the long term, in that the requirements placed on the employee do not exceed their physiological and psychological requirements. In practice, this means above all compliance with relevant psychophysiological norm values ​​(e.g. through mechanical help when lifting heavy loads).
  2. Harmlessness: It should be ruled out that carrying out a work activity is accompanied by psychophysical damage to health. This can include measures to reduce noise, training courses on handling hazardous substances or reducing e.g. B. mean dust exposure (see also maximum workplace concentration or biological limit value ).
  3. Freedom from impairment: The exercise of a job should be as free as possible from somatic or psychological impairments that can potentially have negative effects on health and well-being. A distinction is made between non-existent or reasonable impairments, conditionally reasonable and ultimately no longer reasonable impairments. Relevant impairments can e.g. B. Stress or monotony . Emotional work is an example of a particularly problematic form of work. Together with the ability to promote personality, the freedom from impairment represents the criteria that are particularly interesting from a psychological point of view, because the processing of the other two criteria tends to fall within the tasks of other ergonomists.
  4. Personality promotion: A job is personality promotion if it enables the employee to develop his or her potential, develop skills and thus develop his or her personality as a whole. In order to achieve this, the work item in particular must have a number of design features. These design features are according to:
    • Holistic approach : In the sense of sequential completeness (see action regulation theory and work structuring ), a task should always have planning, executing and controlling parts. This enables the employee to recognize the importance of his activity.
    • Diversity of requirements : It should always be possible to use different knowledge, skills and abilities when performing a task. This corresponds to the hierarchical completeness (see action regulation theory and work structuring ). This avoids one-sided stress and promotes development.
    • Opportunities for social interaction : Mutual support promotes overcoming difficulties.
    • Autonomy: The employee should be able to control the execution of the task. This includes decision-making options and the freedom to influence processes. In this way, self-esteem can be strengthened and encouraged to take on responsibility.
    • Learning and development opportunities: Qualifications are promoted and expanded if the solving of problematic tasks is also required.
    • Time elasticity and stress-free adjustability: schedules to be adhered to should contain sufficient time buffers.
    • Meaningfulness : The products or services offered or produced should enable the employee to recognize a social benefit in them. The degree to which these structural conditions can be met cannot be separated from the competence of the respective employee and should therefore be adjusted accordingly. As already mentioned, it turns out that the creation of complete tasks according to the action regulation theory of Hacker and Richter (1980) lays the essential foundation for the above-mentioned design features. This should therefore always be the goal of good work design. However, the associated complexity of the tasks can often only be achieved through group work (see work structuring ). To evaluate the Persönlichkeitsförderlichkeit an activity that can, for example, activity evaluation system (TBS) can be used.

The selected representation can also be seen as representative of other approaches to the definition of basic human criteria, as there is a broad consensus in the literature on the number and content of these.

Work structuring strategies

Work design measures can pursue various goals that are independent of the specific content.

They can always be operated at a time level as follows:

  • corrective
  • preventive
  • prospective (foresighted): The relevant criteria for good work design are already included when planning new tasks

For this purpose, measures can be differential, i.e. the employee is free to choose the work structure that suits him according to his needs and potential, or they can be dynamic. In dynamic approaches, the working conditions are continuously adapted to the further development of the employee. This can e.g. B. mean assigning tasks with higher requirements to his competencies if he has acquired the necessary experience.

Effects of work design

In addition to the health benefits of reducing stress or other damaging factors, it can generally be stated that complete tasks have a positive effect on well-being, health and skills development, in contrast to tasks that are highly divided up.

For example, it could be shown that, according to the theory of action regulation, incomplete tasks significantly increase the experience of stress.

According to Ulich, the positive effects are expressed in an improvement in productivity and quality of the work performed, as well as in lower absenteeism and fluctuation.

Bibliography and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c d N. Schaper: Work analysis and evaluation. In: FW Nerdinger, G. Blickle, N. Schaper (eds.): Industrial and organizational psychology. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2014, pp. 347-370.
  2. ↑ a b c d E. Ulich: Industrial Psychology. 6th edition. Schäffer Poeschel, Stuttgart 2005.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j N. Schaper: Work design in production and administration. In: FW Nerdinger, G. Blickle, N. Schaper (eds.): Industrial and organizational psychology. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2014, pp. 371–391.
  4. ^ A b W. Hacker, P. Richter: Psychological evaluation of work design measures. Goals and evaluation criteria. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1980.
  5. ^ A b W. Hacker: General industrial psychology. (= Writings on industrial psychology. Volume 58). Publisher Hans Huber, Bern 2005.
  6. ^ E. Ulich: Design of work activities. In: H. Schuler (Ed.): Textbook Organizational Psychology. Verlag Hans Huber, Bern 2007, pp. 221-251.
  7. ↑ P. Richter, K. Uhlig: Mental stress and resources in work and cardiovascular diseases - approaches for occupational prevention. In: E. Bamberg, A. Ducki, AM Metz (eds.): Handbook of workplace health promotion. Work and organizational psychological methods and concepts. Hogrefe, Göttingen 1998, pp. 407-422.