Approaches to Job Design and HR Strategy in Recruiting

Describe various approaches to job design

Job design focuses on determining what tasks will be grouped together to form employee jobs. There are four general approaches to grouping work tasks: mechanistic, motivational, perceptual, and biological.

1. Mechanistic Approach:
   • Job design is viewed from the perspective of creating an efficient machine that transforms labor inputs into goods and services.
   • Industrial engineers often use analyses designed to find the work methods that take the least time, such as Time and Motion studies.
2. Motivational Approach:
   • The motivational approach is aimed at increasing employees' enjoyment of their work and thus increasing their effort.
   • Jobs are designed not simply to get work done as quickly as possible, but also to provide workers with tasks they find meaningful and enjoyable.
   • A model of motivational job design is the job characteristics model, which focuses on building intrinsic motivation.
   • Intrinsic motivation exists when employees do work because they enjoy it, not necessarily because they receive pay and other rewards.
3. Perceptual Approach:
   • The basic objective of the perceptual approach is to simplify mental demands on workers and thereby decrease errors.
   • Safety and prevention of accidents are critical.
   • The perceptual approach to job design usually results in work characterized by sequential processing and low autonomy.
4. Biological Approach:
   • This approach is associated with ergonomics, which concerns methods of designing work to prevent discomfort and physical injury.
   • Job tasks are assessed in terms of strength, endurance, and stress put on joints.
   • Work processes are then designed to eliminate movements that can lead to physical injury or excessive fatigue.

Explain how overall HR strategy guides recruiting practices.

Employee recruiting is the process of getting people to apply for work with a specific organization. A strategic approach to recruiting helps an organization to become an employer of choice and thereby obtain and keep great employees. Recruiting is important because if the best person is not in the sample, it costs money for 'nothing'. Recruiting is as important as (or more important than) the selection process.

Factors influencing recruiting Strategies

There are two approaches: Broad scope, which represents a set of work skills that a lot of people have, and Targeted scope, which represents a set of skills that only a few people have.

There are two sources: Internal sourcing seeks to fill job openings with people who are already working for the organization. These are current employees who are ready for promotions or for different tasks. External sourcing of recruits seeks to fill job openings with people from outside the organization. Primary sources of recruits are other organizations.