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An organization does not function without people; It does not function well without competent, motivated people. How the operations manager formulates a human resource treated determines the talents available for operations. In most organizations, the human resources function is responsible for resolving three basic problems related to human resources. A). Recruitment of a sufficient number of people with adequate qualifications for the variety of Job descriptions to be filled. ). Effective utilization of existing personnel c). Holding and improving existing personnel through tangible and Intangible rewards The proper planning of the internal working environment and the utilization of human resources must satisfy workers in the same way as the design of products ND services must meet the needs of potential customers. In the past it was assumed that employee satisfaction was mainly related to wages or salaries and other financial incentives.
In contemporary business, it is widely understood that to attract and maintain an effective work force requires the satisfaction of a wide range of human needs relating to working conditions, proper motivation and opportunity for self-advancement Human Resource Strategy The objective of a human resource strategy is to manage labor and design Jobs so people are effectively and efficiently utilized which simply means: a. Workforce efficiently utilized within the constraints of other strategic operations management decisions; b. Have a reasonable quality of work life in an atmosphere of mutual commitment and trust. Note: Quality of Life will be discussed further in this chapter. Constraints represent the key bottlenecks between success and failure. While constraints are often seen as negative factors, they are actually quite valuable in designing HER metrics. Boudoirs & Armadas (1997) noted that constrained resources offer the greatest opportunity for improving organizational success. Example, an organization with a great deal of reduce in inventory, and plenty of production capacity. The key constraint to organizational success is the lack of sales, not the lack of production.
In such organizations, it is quite typical for HER managers to very diligently work to improve production efficiency through training, incentive pay and teams, and even to calculate elaborate money values based on the presumed selling price of the output. Many decisions that are made about human resources are constrained by other strategic decisions. First, the product mix may determine seasonality and stability of employment. Second, technology, equipment and processes, may have implications for safety and Job content. Third, the location decision may have an impact on the ambient environment in which the employees work.
Thus, constraints are not unpleasant facts to be avoided, but opportunities to be embraced. Quality of Work Life Generally people work to earn for a living, however as I mentioned early in contemporary business its not the money but rather several key aspects such as Job advancement, and physical and emotional contentment. Also, quality of life affects relation within the group and having a good manager. Also important is the working conditions and compensation. Working Conditions In order to have good and quality output, it is a must that the management should consider all aspects that might have an effect on the working conditions.
Some of the Physical factors are illustrated below: Temperature & Humidity – Heating & cooling is less of problem in offices than in factories and other work environments where high ceilings allow heat to rise and / or there is constant flow of trucks or moving equipment which causes or make difficult for the temperature to be consistent. In this case some companies implements working clothes to space heating and cooling device. Ventilation – workers cannot work properly if there is any unpleasant odor that can Illumination – The amount of light depends largely o the type of work being performed.
The more detailed work the more illumination required. From safety standpoint, hallways, stairways and other dangerous points is important. Noise and vibration – Noise is unwanted sound. This may be a result from human beings and equipment leading to errors and accidents Work Breaks – This also plays important role for workers who has a long working time hat can cause boredom and fatigue. Productivity and quality may deteriorate. Occupational / Health Care – This contributes to productivity, minimizes health care cost and enhances workers sense of well-being, Safety – this is the most basic issue in Job design.
Workers cannot work well and not motivated if they feel they are in physical danger. On the part of employers accidents are expensive (insurance & compensation). This may also cause re-hiring, re- training, interruption of work. An effective program of safety and accident control requires a full cooperation both by the management and workers. Workers must be trained in proper procedures and attitudes and can contribute in reduction of hazards and pointing out hazards to the management. Management should enhance safety procedures and use of use of safety equipment.
All of the above physical factors have a significant impact on worker’s performance in terms of productivity, quality of output and accidents. Compensation This is a significant issue for design of work systems. In order to attract and maintain suitable and competent workers and managers, the management must develop suitable compensation plan. If the wages are too high it may result for company loss r it the management may opt to increase the price of the product, which may have an effect on organization’s products or services.
The organization used variety of approaches to compensate employees: * Time- based system * Compensation based on time an employee has worked during a pay period * Output-based (incentive) system * Compensation based on the amount of output an employee produces during a pay period JOB DESIGN Job design is specifying the tasks that constitute a Job for an individual or a group. A element consists of micro-motions. Job design will be examined from the perspective f four components: I Job specialization and environment it. Psychological components iii.
Ergonomics and work methods and lb. Motivation and incentive system (that has been discussed already under compensation) Although the two basic approaches to Job design were developed separately. The first, the micro approach scientifically examines each details of the job so that wasted effort is eliminated and output rate is enhanced. The second, more recent, approach to Job design is behavioral. In it, physiological and socio- psychological considerations encourage Job enlargements and Job conditions; it too an result in improved output.
Design of Work System 1) Specialization 2) Behavioral Approaches to Job Design 3) Teams 4) Methods Analysis 5) Motions Study 6) Working conditions Job Specialization – Describes Jobs that have very narrow scope. -Work that concentrates on some aspects of product or services. – It is suggested that the person who opt to improve knowledge through training should be very happy in order to produce ideal output. However on the lower level that are monotonous will cause workers dissatisfaction and eventually resulted to turnover and absenteeism.
A Job with a high degree of repetition; greater efficiency and high quality. Consider the tasks required in a fast-food restaurant where the employees take the order, prepare and package the meal and accept payment. This Job design becomes inefficient as the volume of orders increases because the employees start bumping into each other. Alternately, the tasks could be divided into two Jobs; one an order taker who also keeps the French-fryer going, draw drinks, packages the meal and accepts the payment; the other a burger maker who does all the grill work.
Specialization results in benefits such as: * Less training time needed per employee cause the methods and procedure are limited * Faster work pace, leading to more output in less time; and * Lower wage paid because education and skill requirements are lower * However, the arguments against Job specialization suggest that narrowly defined Jobs lead to: * Poor employee morale, high turnover, and lower quality because of the monotony and boredom of repetitive works * The need for more management attention because the total activity is broken down into a large number of Jobs and a large number of employees, all of whom have to be coordinated to produce the entire Behavioral Dimension of Job Design In the past, industrialized societies have used economic criteria as their primary guides in designing Job.
Traditional Job design emphasizes specialization, task repetition and reduction of skill requirements to minimize the impact of the individual worker on the production process. Jobs have been designed to minimize immediate costs and maximize immediate productivity, it is agreed that economic criteria are still paramount. However, we must not forget, that behavioral implications in Job design can and do influence performance. To ignore these concepts is to yap’s the opportunity to add further economic benefits to those we obtain through traditional approach. I). Job Rotation: Where considerable aspects of a Job cannot be eliminated either by redesigning or automating it, Job rotation, provides an excellent way to approach such a Job.
Job rotation is a system whereby workers exchange Jobs periodically, thus getting more diversity in task assignment. This approach is most effective when the Jobs require an equal level of skills. Because workers learn many aspects of the Job, Job rotation increases the skills of the work force, giving management the flexibility to replace absent workers or to move workers’ workstations as necessary. In addition, rotating Jobs can give each worker a better appreciation for the production problems of others and the value of passing only good quality to the next person. Just as employees can move in and out of a shift that is undesirable they can be rotated in and out of Jobs that are undesirable.
Even there is no change in Job content; rotating employees among different Jobs can reduce boredom and monotony by exposing the employee to a broader perspective of the entire production process. 2). Job Enlargement: The horizontal expansion of a Job that is increasing the range of tasks at the same level is called Job enlargement. The employee competes a large proportion of the total work required for the product or service. Typically, this approach requires that workers have various skills and training programmer and wage increase often accompany it. Besides reducing boredom, Job enlargement has the potential to increase employee satisfaction because the worker feels a greater sense of responsibility, pride and accomplishment.
Thus, Job enlargement is the procedure of redesigning Job or modifying work so that employees can feel more involved in and responsible for what they do. 3). Job Enrichment: The most comprehensive approach to Job design, is Job enrichment, which entails a verticals expansion of Job duties. That is, workers have greater control and responsibility for an entire process, not Just a specific skill or operation. This approach supports the development of employee empowerment and self-managed team, whereby employees make basic decisions about their Jobs. Job enrichment not only provides satisfaction, however, it cam also make the organization more efficiency.
Many managers feel that goals of Job enrichment and increased efficiency are not only compatible, they are comforting and necessary partners. They argue that it is impossible to sustain productivity without the Psychological Components of Job Design Effective human resources strategies also require consideration of the psychological components of Job. Psychological components of Job design focus on how to improve the quality of work life, Job satisfaction, and motivation by designing Job that meet some minimum psychological requirements. There are many psychological parameters of good Job design but will Just discuss one of theory and this is:
The Two-factor theory (also known as Herbage’s motivation-hygiene theory and Dual- Factor Theory) states that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause Job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction. It was developed by Frederick Herbert, Frederick Herbage’s book The Motivation to Work’, written with research colleagues Bernard Amasser and Barbara Bloch Snyder in 1959, first established his theories about motivation in the workplace. In 1959 Herbert wrote the following useful little phrase, which helps explain this fundamental part of his heron, I. E. , that the factors which motivate people at work are different to and not simply the opposite of the factors which cause dissatisfaction.
Frederick Herbert theorized that employee satisfaction depends on two sets of issues: “hygiene” issues and motivators. Once the hygiene issues have been addressed, motivators create satisfaction among employees. The two dimensions: “hygiene” and motivation means as follows:Hygiene issues (disc-satisfiers), such as salary and supervision, decrease employees’ dissatisfaction with the work environment. Motivators (satisfiers), such as cognition and achievement, make workers more productive, creative and committed. Ergonomics and Work Methods Ergonomics – means OREGON –> WORK / MOOS –> LAW, The Laws to be Observed at Work Taylor and his contemporaries examined the role of management and employees in the workplace and were concerned with: 1.
Matching employees to the task (individual differences) 2. Work methods (improving task performance) 3. Work standards (so both employees and employer would know what was to be done and what constituted a fixed days work) Methods Analysis Is analyzing how Job is done. The need for methods analysis can come from a number of different sources: * Changes in tools and equipment * Changes in product design or new products * Changes in materials or procedures * Other factors (e. G. Accidents, quality problems) Methods Analysis Procedure 2. Get employee input 3. Study and document current method 4. Analyze the Job 5. Propose new methods 6. Install new methods 7.
Follow-up to ensure improvements have been achieved The five categories of product movement are: Operation; the work performed manufacturing the product usually assigned to a single workstation Transportation; any movement of the product, or of its parts, among various locations in the production process Storage; intervals during which the product or any of part of it, waits or is at rest. Often a T inside the triangle is used to design temporary storage, when the product is stored for a short time before the conversion process has been completed and a P inside the triangle is used to indicate permanent storage, when the completed ,product waits in a storage facility more than a day or two.
Inspection; all activities performed to verify that the product meets mechanical, dimensional and operational requirements. Delay; temporary storage before or after a productive operation. When the temporary storage symbol is used, this category is often, omitted. These three traditional techniques: operations charts, activity charts and flow process charts, facilitate inter-Job analysis (at the individual Job station) and inter-Job (between Job stations). After systematically studying existing Job content, engineers and technicians can often find means of improving, Jobs that have been, looked by foremen and managers. To realize idle time, they inlay recommend eliminating unnecessary elements or modifying the sequence of elements.