Work structuring
Work structuring includes all measures to change the work organization .
Work structuring is therefore part of work design and can be assigned to the functional concept of organization . Frequently cited work structuring are Jobenlargement and Jobenrichment .
In this definition, work structuring is neutral. However, the term was coined in the context of the Taylorism criticism and thus politically charged. It is often seen as a program to overcome the division of labor and high hierarchical work structures.
History of work structuring
A significant part of today's prosperity, but also its side effects in the environment, are a consequence of a (now global) division of labor . The division of labor can be different. In industrial production it reached its greatest depth with the development of Scientific Management in the 1890s to 1930s.
This division of labor, called Tayloristically, enabled considerable increases in productivity on the one hand, but also had clearly negative consequences for the motivation of the employees and the quality of the work. Although the Taylorist work organization also reduced some of the health risks that existed for workers at the time, the system itself also contained new risks.
Due a debate, the degree of division of labor and provide fewer dissected working structures again in total starting from the Human Relations movement- largely in Germany alone for long by the Ergonomics promoted. This was done essentially from a humane point of view. The work in Germany was supported by the federal research program “ Humanization of Working Life ” (HdA), the successor program “ Work and Technology ” ( AuT ) and the trade unions . Only later did studies show that technical progress, in particular increasing automation and the so-called "new information technology", made a reduction in the division of labor appear economically advantageous.
A breakthrough in the USA and Europe was only achieved through the example of the incomparably more productive lean production developed at Toyota , the structures of which were presented to western management by Womack , Jones and Roos .
Work structuring and work organization
Based on Taylorism, the structuring of work was aimed from the beginning on reducing the division of labor in organizations. A distinction is made as general strategies between job declaration and job enrichment. The former means work expansion, i.e. the transfer of more tasks on the same level of requirements, while the latter also means that tasks of higher requirement levels enrich the workplace (see also: Requirements determination ). The distinction is made against the background of the pay differentiation : Job declaration usually does not lead to any change in pay , but job enrichment does . In terms of collective bargaining law , such enriched jobs are often referred to as divisional jobs , as they usually go beyond the scope of the standard examples (in the new language of the collective agreement on the general remuneration agreement : level examples ).
In principle, work structuring can be carried out in two directions: the individual work principle or the group principle . In both directions, the goal is to achieve task structures that are not only seen as executable , harmless and free of impairment , but can also be fully described as sequential-hierarchical (for the term, see below: Theories of action regulation). A work organization that can be achieved in this way is referred to as promoting personality .
If the enrichment succeeds at a single workplace, i.e. without an employee having to rotate or a team being established, one speaks of the principle of individual work and individual workplaces . Otherwise one speaks of the group principle , whereby specific stages of development are distinguished here.
A first implementation and thus a work organization according to the group principle is " job rotation ". With the progressive enrichment of the work system with work tasks, group work arises , which is further developed into semi-autonomous group work .
Scientific basics of work structuring
Industrial Engineering: Stress, Breaks, and Recreation
When structuring work in industrial engineering (now more common: industrial engineering ), the load-stress model is important. Load is an impact variable and stress is an impact variable. The picture: Load and stress as a mechanical model shows this relationship. According to this model, the level of stress depends not only on the level of stress and its duration of exposure, but also on the individual characteristics, abilities and skills of the worker . This means,
- the same stress can lead to different levels of stress in different people and
- a time-dependent deterioration in the properties that are important for the execution of the work ( fatigue ) results in an increase in the stress with constant stress and the same person.
Endurable levels of stress are determined by the continuous performance limit. A stress that is above this limit causes fatigue in the affected organs or organ systems . In this context, the continuous performance limit is the maximum performance that is possible in the long term during the usual daily continuous working hours - 8 working hours - and up to which additional recovery is not necessary (see also normal performance ).
The aim of structuring work is now to prevent unnecessary and avoidable fatigue and to create unavoidable opportunities for recreation during working hours in such a way that, viewed as a whole, work does not harm people's health or social well-being.
A distinction is made between fatigue and fatigue-like states. While fatigue is the result of a previous stress, fatigue-like states result, for example, from monotony, saturation and excessive demands. They show similar or identical phenomena in terms of symptoms (loss of performance, thought disorders, ...) of fatigue, but differ significantly in the way they are compensated. While the fatigue-like conditions abruptly subside with changes in the work content, sufficient recovery must be ensured in the event of fatigue.
Fatigue increases exponentially when the load is above the endurance limit. For the recreational effect of breaks, however, an exponentially falling relationship applies (see exponential growth ). A short break system is therefore recommended for loads that are above the continuous output limit. With short breaks in between, an excessive accumulation of fatigue, i.e. an excessive accumulation of fatigue factors, is avoided. Frequent short breaks can also reduce the “average fatigue”. From the picture: Recovery value of breaks it can be seen that with the same total break time, the recovery effect of frequent short breaks is greater (A) than with less frequent changes from work to break (B). The knowledge that the most effective recovery is achieved through short breaks of 5 to 10 minutes is recorded in the form of the "short break rule" as a reliable ergonomic knowledge.
A distinction must be made between recovery time (see also: time per unit ) and break . Breaks result from the Working Hours Act , collective bargaining agreements and works agreements and are primarily used to eat food in a suitable environment and social contacts. Recovery times are additional and serve to recover from previous stresses (see: Working hours ).
Two types of fatigue must be distinguished. One arises, even when doing nothing, as a result of the human circadian rhythm ( need for sleep ), the other, important here, as a result of stress. In English, a distinction is made between tiredness and fatigue .
However, the recovery effect of recovery times is not only created by passive waiting for the recovery process, but can also occur when changing from one type of stress to the next, combined with the use of other elements of the organism. With many forms of stress, especially with Tayloristic, one-sided work in work systems with a high degree of division of labor, a break is usually sufficient for the stressed organs to achieve the desired recovery effect. A break for the entire organism is usually not necessary. Appropriate, sufficiently frequent changes in activity that involve a change in stress can therefore also replace the necessary rest breaks.
As a consequence, you have to keep at work enrichment that not any activities will be combined, but those produced by a strain change a load balancing can make. Then starting the other stressful activity can bring recovery for the previous one.
In the case of “ job rotation ”, which you will always choose when a corresponding redesign at a workplace in the sense of the individual work principle, it must also be ensured that the change in type and rhythm balances the load . The result can be a significantly increased work performance, ideally even with less stress.
Motivation theories in work structuring
There is an abundance of motivational theories . Since a standardization is not in sight, this means for the work structuring to consult those serving the respective concern. Significant were from the property theories ( cause-effect theories ) the hierarchy of needs of Maslow and the two-factor theory of Herzberg .
The situation theories are theories that focus on the perception and evaluation of situations . They are divided into consistency theories and attribution theories .
As consistency theories is referred to approaches that deal with how inconsistencies, imbalances and contradictions in knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of individuals determine their actions. Attribution theories deal with how people find causes for their own actions or for the actions of others, and how they “explain” actions and action results. Festinger's “theory of cognitive dissonance ” is the most important consistency theory for work structuring . and its application in Adams ' equity theory .
For the field of attribution theories , there are the works of Heider (attribution of the cause of action), Rotter (attribution of the control of a situation), Seligman ( learned helplessness ) and Weiner (success orientation).
Of the theories combined from the basic models , the so-called process theories (or expectation theories ) and here in particular the “ expectation times value ” theories became interesting for work structuring. In these theories, performance-motivated action is understood as behavior that is characterized, for example, by an examination of a quality standard that is used to assess one's own performance.
Based on basic considerations of internal (intrinsic) or external (extrinsic) motivation, the theories of Vroom as well as Hackman and Oldham are important for the structuring of work. Since Hackman and Oldham also presented an analytical inventory with the “ Job Diagnostic Survey ” (JDS), this theory was used particularly often.
The theories can be used to derive essential statements for the structuring of work ( Image: model for work motivation according to Hackman and Oldham ):
- A work task should be closed and the result should be a product that the employee can perceive as such (diversity of skills, task identity, task meaning).
- Quality control tasks (self-control) are part of a motivating workflow (feedback).
- Dispositive tasks should also be integrated (autonomy).
From the point of view of work structuring, the theories provide a very good basis for the “direction of approach”, and progress through the JDS is even measurable. However, the questions remain open: What is enough? And when does it get too much?
Job satisfaction
In countless publications and some management systems , especially in quality management , the requirement is often and repeatedly raised that the aim of work structuring must also be to increase job satisfaction . The intensive scientific work on the topic has not yet supported these claims. For example, after decades of his own research, Neuberger came to the following key statements in a collective lecture in 1985:
- The closer you get to the concept of job satisfaction, the more blurred and meaningless it becomes.
- In the case of an expression of satisfaction, it is difficult to determine whether it is actually caused by the situation ("Strength through joy ..." - as in the title of Neuberger's collective presentation) or simply comes from the fact that one has learned not to wish anymore ("... or Euphoria in bad luck? ")
- A connection between job satisfaction and job performance, motivation or any other relevant business performance indicator could not be proven.
- “Humanizing work cannot mean making people happy” (p. 137).
Action regulation theories
To answer the questions about enough and too much , the action regulation theories (HRT) are used, the development of which is particularly influenced by Hacker , Austria and Volpert .
The HRT is based on the following findings:
- There is an interaction between the work activity and the personality of the worker.
- This is either conducive to personality or impairing personality .
- Under the circumstances of an eight-hour day and a 40-hour work week (or more), a personal impairment caused by work structures is not compensated for by appropriately demanding leisure activities, only slowed down.
This is the basis for the requirement that work must be feasible, harmless, free from impairment and personal (see above: work structuring and work organization ). The HRT introduces the sequential-hierarchically complete activity as a component of the work as a distinguishing feature of work that promotes personality . With the procedure for the determination of regulation requirements (VERA), Oesterreich and Volpert present a possibility for the objectified determination of this property.
The idea can be illustrated using the example of changing a car tire ( image: example of sequential hierarchical completeness ). A complete sequence forms an act when the doer
- set a goal
- plans the actions required to achieve the goal,
- puts the plan into action as well
- Controlling the achievement of goals (and correcting them if necessary in the event of a lack of goal achievement, goals, plan or actions).
According to Hacker, the complete hierarchy includes at least the levels “Complex plans”, “Drafts of action” (schemes) and “Drafts of movements” (stereotypes).
In order to recognize how personality-impairing, Tayloristic work organizations are in comparison, imagine a conveyor belt on which the tasks of the example of changing tires are divided between one person who opens the trunk, another who takes out the tool, and so on .
Incomplete activities can also be found in executives: It is possible that they only plan, never execute.
The sequential-hierarchical completeness is dynamic and dependent on the worker . If shifting gears is part of an activity for the learner driver that requires an execution plan, then through practice it is reduced to an activity capable of being conscious but no longer requiring consciousness. New challenges are required.
Semi-autonomous group work
While appropriate technologies make it possible for service providers such as banks (one employee takes over the complete processing of a loan), insurance companies (complete processing of a claim) etc. to implement personal work structures at an individual workstation, this is often impossible in industrial environments.
An explanatory example based on group work on a cold rolling mill in the steel industry . Depending on the level of automation, such a system has, for example, a helmsman at the inlet, one at the outlet, one at the roll stand , an inspector, a jumper and an assistant. Organized conventionally, you are trained on the helper's workstation and trained to become a helmsman over the years.
Technological upgrading would make it conceivable that a system could be created that could be operated by one employee. Without such a comprehensive, partly not economic, technological change, work structuring takes place in the following steps:
- "Job rotation" across the workplaces and thus the realization of a load compensation. The jumper, maybe (after some technical adjustments) also the helper can be omitted. This step already contains considerable human and tariff conflict potential.
- The next enhancement is the establishment of a quality circle in which a continuous improvement process (CIP) is embedded. A first form of group work has emerged. The employees regulate the handling of vacation and illness themselves. The work does not change physically, but: The perception of work, psychologically, begins to change, for example, from a "helmsman" to a "cold rolling miller".
- The employees also take over quality control and approval, plan the order sequence, take over inspection and maintenance work as well as simple troubleshooting. With this, semi-autonomous group work is achieved. The criteria of the motivational theories are fulfilled, the hierarchical-sequential completeness is present for the time being, as the employees make plans (order scheduling), have taken over the operation of their systems ( maintenance ) and receive feedback on their performance results ( system availability , quality, etc.). They are still at the helm at the inlet; only in the head is now much more going on.
outlook
Semi-autonomous group work creates a different, non-hierarchical form of cooperation, both in the group and in a value chain (new German: "Supply Chain"). There are therefore considerations for a new, non-hierarchical organizational paradigm , with self-organization as a “ learning organization ”. In the meantime, the practice mostly foregoes the actual completion of the activities, saves on process facilitators and "reconciles" the groups with the hierarchical structures in the environment via so-called group speakers, but without admitting that the group-internal task completeness is eliminated again. Many dead group work structures in companies are the consequence. In recent times it has also appeared to be easier and more attractive for many people in charge to outsource productions abroad than to continue to deal with the development of intelligent production systems in Germany. Current developments in 2009 represent adaptable production systems in adaptable factories . At the same time, semi-autonomous group work is being reverted to guided group work.
Individual evidence
- ^ Rolf Grap: New forms of work organization for the steel industry. Augustinus, Aachen 1992, ISBN 3-86073-088-6 , p. 38.
- ↑ Ingrid Spickenbom: employee participation and corporate development. P.56.
- ↑ From the broader point of view of working in production networks, changed employment relationships and employment orientations, today's (2008) BMBF is funding suitable research in the framework of the concept of Innovative Work Design - Future of Work. ( Memento of July 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Kurt-B. Bellmann: Cost-optimal division of labor in the office: The influence of new information and communication technology on the organization and costs of office work. Schmidt 1989, ISBN 3-503-02855-2 .
- ^ James Womack , Daniel Jones, Daniel Roos: The Machine that Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production. HarperCollins, New York 1990, ISBN 0-06-097417-6 . German translation: James Womack, Daniel Jones, Daniel Roos: The second revolution in the auto industry. 4th edition. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-453-11750-6 .
- ↑ Winfried Hacker: Industrial Psychology: Psychological regulation of work activities. Huber, Bern 1986, ISBN 3-456-81464-X , p. 511 f.
- ↑ Walter Rohmert: The stress-strain concept. In: Journal of Ergonomics. 38, 4, 1984, pp. 193-200.
- ↑ Johannes-Henrich Kirchner, Walter Rohmert: Ergonomic guidelines for humane work design: Catalog of ergonomic guidelines on humane work design (BVG §§ 90, 91). Hanser, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-446-11887-X , p. 90.
- ^ Leon Festinger : A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. University Press, Stanford 1957, ISBN 0-8047-0131-8 .
- ^ J. Stacy Adams: Toward an understanding of inequity. In: Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 67, 1963, pp. 422-436.
- ^ Fritz Heider : Psychology of interpersonal relationships. Klett, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-12-923410-1 .
- ^ Julian Rotter : Social Learning and Clinical Psychology. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey 1954, ISBN 0-384-52160-6 .
- ↑ Martin Seligman : Learned helplessness. 5th, corrected and advanced Edition. Beltz, Weinheim 1995, ISBN 3-621-27014-0 .
- ↑ Bernard Weiner : Theories of Motivation. Klett, Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-12-928560-1 .
- ^ Victor H. Vroom : Work and Motivation. Wiley, New York 1964, ISBN 0-7879-0030-3 .
- ^ J. Richard Hackman , Greg R. Oldham: Development of the job diagnostic survey. In: Journal of Applied Psychology. 60, 2, 1975, pp. 159-170.
- ↑ Oswald Neuberger : Job satisfaction: strength through joy or euphoria in unhappiness? A collective review. In: DBW - Business Administration. 45, 1985, pp. 184-206.
- ↑ Winfried Hacker : General industrial psychology: Psychological regulation of knowledge, thought and physical work. 2nd Edition. Huber, Bern 2005, ISBN 3-456-84249-X .
- ^ Rainer Oesterreich: Action regulation and control. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-621-10161-6 .
- ↑ Walter Volpert : The connection between work and personality from an action-theoretical point of view. In: Peter Groskurth (Hrsg.): Work and personality, professional situation in a society based on the division of labor: results of ergonomics. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1979, ISBN 3-499-17240-2 , pp. 21-46.
- ↑ Walter Volpert et al.: Procedure for determining regulatory requirements in work activity (VERA). TÜV Rheinland Verlag, Cologne 1983, ISBN 3-88585-108-3 . Current: Rainer Oesterreich, Walter Volpert: VERA, Version 2: Work analysis method for determining planning and thinking requirements in the context of the RHIA application. TU, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-7983-1433-0 .
- ↑ Rolf Grap: Production and Procurement: A Practice-Oriented Introduction . Vahlen, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-8006-2321-8 .
- ^ Knut Bleicher : Future perspectives of organizational development: From structural to human-centered approaches. In: zfo - magazine leadership and organization . 59, 3, 1990, pp. 125-161.
- ↑ Gilbert Probst: Self-organization: Order processes in social systems from a holistic point of view. Parey, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-489-63334-2 .
- ^ Peter M. Senge : The fifth discipline: art and practice of the learning organization. 10th edition. Klett, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-608-91379-3 .
- ↑ Volker Gebbert, Rolf Grap (ed.): Group work in practice: New work structures between claim and reality. 2nd Edition. GOM-Verlag, Herzogenrath 1996, ISBN 3-931196-01-1 .
- ↑ Jürgen Dörich: Guided group work: The return to efficient work processes. In: applied ergonomics journal for business practice. 198, 4, 2008, pp. 3-17.