The idea of job enrichment emerged in the 1950s as a response to dull, routinized jobs that increased employee dissatisfaction, leading to higher turnover at many companies. Enrichment strives to heighten autonomy and variety in positions by allowing employees to engage in tasks that have normally been reserved for workers in higher positions. Studies suggest that job enrichment increases job satisfaction, helping companies retain experienced employees.
Function
Peter Mione, author of an article on job enrichment published by San Diego State University, describes job enrichment as a form of job redesign that tries to address the issue of boring, repetitive jobs in which employees have only limited autonomy, and the negative effects such positions have on companies, such as lower job satisfaction and loss of trained employees. Job enrichment expands the scope of a job by increasing the variety of tasks employees perform and injecting more self-sufficiency into jobs.
History
Job enrichment has its roots in the research of psychologist Frederick Herzberg (1923-2000), who developed a two-factor theory of employee motivation. This theory, described on the Accel Web site, suggested that motivators such as achievement, recognition and advancement opportunities contribute to employee motivation more than such factors as salary and supervision. Herzberg went on to articulate principles of job enrichment that include removing some supervisor controls but retaining employee accountability, increasing worker authority and freedom, introducing more advanced tasks into jobs, and encouraging employees to develop expertise by assigning them specialized tasks.
Theories/Speculation
During the 1970s, researchers Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham refined Herzberg's work, developing a job characteristics model, which suggested that job characteristics such as skill variety, task significance and autonomy improve employees' psychological states, leading to positive work outcomes.
Effects
A working paper for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics by economists Robert Mohr and Cindy Zoghi analyzed data from a survey of Canadian workers. They concluded that job enrichment satisfies workers' psychological and social needs, resulting in greater employee satisfaction. Further, they found no evidence that job enrichment lowers job security by requiring more intense work from employees with enriched jobs. A job enrichment study by Ohio State University identified advantages and disadvantages associated with job enrichment. Advantages included reduced employee boredom, new contacts and an exploration of new career options. Disadvantages included balancing the new workload of enriched jobs, a lack of clear goals, and what the study termed a "sink or swim" approach.
Warning
Mione cautions that because job enrichment has a goal of exposing employees to more advanced tasks, simply giving an employee more responsibilities related to his or her existing position is not job enrichment. True enrichment must vary the types of tasks required for a job by including more advanced and specialized activities.
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