What is the purpose of job redesign?
Job redesign tailors employee positions to an organization’s current functions and needs. During times of change, job redesign ensures that organizational needs are filled by proficient employees. Job redesign can involve something as simple as adding a single job function, or it can be as complex as completely overhauling the position.
Job redesign can also involve the addition of new tasks to provide employees with variety and challenges. This can contribute to increased employee satisfaction in workplace experience. The process can also be purposed to holistically balance the tasks and abilities of a group of employees.
What are the advantages of job redesign?
- Creates the best match between an employee’s abilities/experience and a position
- Establishes lean organizational efficiency
- Increases employee productivity and workplace satisfaction
- Increases employee retention
When are jobs redesigned?
Workforce Optimization Job Redesign
Job redesign is an important part of optimizing an organization’s workforce, especially if:
- There has been a major shift in an organization’s use of technology.
- Employees are being transferred from one department to another.
- Employees are taking on additional job functions after organizational or departmental right-sizing.
In situations like those described above, the following process is most effective:
- Competency mapping of current employee functions
- Functional analysis of new employee functions
- Gap analysis of current and new employee functions
- Reassign job functions elsewhere, as necessary
- Identification of custom training to bridge the employee’s transition
Succession Planning Job Redesign
Some organization may find that a retiring employee’s job functions have become too diverse to fill with standard succession planning practices. This is especially pertinent when a retiring senior employee has been with the organization for many years. In a case like this, the following process is ideal:
- Competency mapping of retiring employee functions
- Determine logical groupings of employee functions and whether these groupings warrant the organization of new positions
- Functional analysis of successors’ current employee functions
- Gap analysis of skills required by new positions and potential successor’s current employee functions
- Selection of successors best equipped to take on new job functions
- Identification of custom training to bridge the successors’ transitions into new job functions