Work Design - Answers Specifies the content and methods of jobs
Objectives of Work Design - Answers Productivity
Safety
Quality of Work
Efficiency School - Answers Job design that emphasizes systematic, logical approaches to job design
Behavioral School - Answers Emphasizes the satisfaction of the needs and wants of the workers and
employees
Specialization - Answers Work that concentrates on one aspect of a product or service
Pros of Specialization for Managers - Answers simplifies training, lowers wage costs, high productivity
Pros of Specialization for Employees - Answers For Employees: low skill requirement, minimal
responsibilities, little mental effort
Cons of Specialization for Managers - Answers Difficult to motivate quality, threat of employee
dissatisfaction
Cons of Specialization for Employees - Answers boring work, limited opportunities to for advancements,
little work control, little opportunity for self-improvement
Job Enlargement - Answers giving a worker a larger portion of a task by horizontal loading
Job Rotation - Answers workers periodically exchange jobs
Job Enrichment - Answers increasing responsibility for planning and coordination tasks by vertical
loading
Standard Elemental Times - Answers work times derived from a firm's own historical time study data,
which can be revisited in the future to determine the standard times for current tasks
Predetermined Time Standards - Answers Involves the use of published data on standardized elemental
times
Steps in the Predetermined Time Standards Method - Answers 1. Divide jobs in to basic elements
2. Measure distances involved
3. Rate each element's difficulty
4. Refer to appropriate data tables to obtain time for that element
, Work Sampling - Answers Estimates proportions of time that a worker or a machine spends on various
activities and idle time
Steps in the Work Sampling Process - Answers 1. Identify the worker to be studied
2. Notify the worker and supervisor of the study and its purpose
3. Compute initial estimates of sample size n using estimate of p
4. Develop a random observation schedule.
5. Take observations and recalculate sample size as needed
6. Determine estimated proportion of time spent of specific activities
Pros of Work Sampling - Answers 1. observations are spread out over time
2. there is little disruption of work
3. workers are less resentful
4. studies are cheap and short, and require less skill
5. studies can be interrupted
6. no timing device required
7. well suited to nonrepetitive tasks
Cons of Work Sampling - Answers 1. Less detail on job elements
2. Works may alter patterns when they see the observer
3. no record of method used by the worker
4. observers may fail to adhere to random schedule of observations
5. not well suited to repetitive tasks
6. much time required to move from one workplace to another
Stopwatch Time Studies - Answers Used to develop time standards based on observations of one worker
taken over a number of cycles
Stopwatch Time Study Process - Answers 1. Define task to be studied and inform worker
2. Determine number of cycles to observe
3. Time the job and rate the worker's performance