Week 1- Agile work from a job design perspective
1JV10 Organisational Behaviour for
IE
Topic 1 - Agile work from a job design
perspective
Book chapters:
1.1-1.6: Setting the Scene: People at Work
2.4: Research Methods in Work Psychology
4: The Classic Models that Made Psychology Work
5: Current Theoretical Perspectives in Work Psychology
6: Job Demands
Slides: Lecture 1: Introduction to organisational
behaviour of IE:
3 perspectives:
Organisational psychology:
o Is focused on understanding how organizations affect individual behavior.
o Organizational structures, technology, social norms, management styles, and
role expectations are all factors that can influence how people behavior within
an organization
Personnel psychology:
o looks at how to best match individuals to specific job roles. People who work in
this area assess employee characteristics and then match these individuals to
jobs in which they are likely to perform well.
o Topics that they focus on include selecting and placing employees, training
employees, developing job performance standards, and measuring job
performance.
Work psychology:
o Concerns people's work activities, i.e. the way people handle their tasks.
o The main topics are work environment, working time arrangements, errors,
effort, workload, fatigue, task design, tool design (cf. ergonomics), etc.
Historical Developments in W&O psychology:
Historical precursors / Roots 1700 - Medicine
1900
Taylorism 1910 - Psychotechnic
1920
Human Relations (Hawthorne 1930 - Social Factors
experiments/Maslow/Herzberg 1950
Huamn Factors / Ergonomics 1960 Cognitive factors
,Week 1- Agile work from a job design perspective
1st challenge: healthy motivated employees
2nd challenge: performance
3rd challenge: technology
Outlook in the future:
Change in the type of employees
fewer young people, more women, more minorities, more temporary employees
Change in the type organisations
mergers & downsizing (more work through less people), smaller organisations, more
focus on teamwork (flatter hierarchies)
Growing importance of technology:
Technology-mediated communication (teleworking, less direct contact)
Human-technology interaction (new jobs in technology maintenance, more focus on
decision-making and coordination of human activities)
Redefinition of “work”:
Fewer fixed tasks, emphasis on constantly changing tasks, constant learning, less “9 to
5”
Individual employment conditions:
Rewards, working hours, job responsibilities etc. depending on KSAOs, job crafting
Job Analysis:
“Job analysis is the process of studying a job to determine which activities and
responsibilities it includes, its relative importance to other jobs, the qualifications
,Week 1- Agile work from a job design perspective
necessary for performance of the job and the conditions under which the work is
performed”
Goals of job analysis: What is measured in job analysis:
o Training design and o Concrete Behavior
evaluation • descriptions of typical, specific
o Performance assessment and actions
development of criteria o Behavioral requirements
(which employees must • ideal task performance
meet) o Job requirements
o Job design • KSAOs: knowledge, skills, abilities,
o Personnel selection other characteristics (personality,
o Legal matters (dangerous traits)
work?) o Job characterstics
o Career development and • Job as a collection of external
planning stimuli
Methods of information collection:
o Job analyst does the work himself
o Observation of activities in function
o Interviews with employees, managers or groups
o Employee self-reporting
o Diary, kept by employee
o Organization files and statistics
o Psychophysiological measurements (EEG, EMG, cortisol)
o Information from customers
o Critical Incidents Technique :
“Incidents" during the execution of the work, which are an example of
exceptionally good or very bad performance
A ‘critical incident’:
o Is specific
o Focuses on observable behaviors in the position
o Describes the context in which the behavior is shown
o Describes the consequences (outcomes/products) of the
behavior
Self reports: pros and cons: Ways to overcome problems with self-
Pros reports:
o Cheap o State items carefully and in
o Differences between individual understandable terms
employees o Do not refer to the person too
o Easy to quantify and statistically much / avoid subjectivity
analyze o Answer scales: Preference for
Cons frequency instead of intensity
o Effect of selective memory o Study several people per position
o Fatigue effects
o Halo-effect and other biases
o Sociale desirable answers
(positive impression)
Observations: pros and cons: Ways to overcome problems of
Pros observations:
• Objective information over job o Observation of entire 'working
• insight in the context of the job shift’
Cons o Training of observers
• Time consuming o Careful construction of observation
, Week 1- Agile work from a job design perspective
• Not appropriate for complex instrument
mental tasks o Observation of different employees
• Situation that occur seldom o Observation of "ideally typical"
difficult to observe employee
• More appropriate for structural
instead of dynamic aspects
• Halo-effect and other biases
Reliability: How good does the instrument measure what it aims to measure?
(e.g., test-retest reliability, interal consistency, inter-rater agreement)
Validity: Does the instrument measure what it should measure?
(bv. criterion-, content and construct validity)
Utility: Time and costs in relation to profit (and within limits)
Some key developments after WW2:
1. Personnel selection
2. Motivation
3. Culture
4. Leadership
Slides: Job design:
What is Job Design:
What is job design: All activities that plan, design, and influence the interaction
between people and the work system.
Involves design of work tasks, products, objects, tools, workplace, environment,
all except employees.
Goals of job design:
1. Optimal fulfilment of a position
2. Effectiveness and reliability
3. Efficiency
4. Safety, no negative consequences for performer
5. Maximising positive outcomes for people
When do you have a good position:
1. Feasible
2. Free from personal damage
3. Free from negative outcomes
4. Promoting the “personality”
What is a good job function?
- Sequential aspect: completeness of
action
- Hierarchical aspect: Hierarchically complete
1JV10 Organisational Behaviour for
IE
Topic 1 - Agile work from a job design
perspective
Book chapters:
1.1-1.6: Setting the Scene: People at Work
2.4: Research Methods in Work Psychology
4: The Classic Models that Made Psychology Work
5: Current Theoretical Perspectives in Work Psychology
6: Job Demands
Slides: Lecture 1: Introduction to organisational
behaviour of IE:
3 perspectives:
Organisational psychology:
o Is focused on understanding how organizations affect individual behavior.
o Organizational structures, technology, social norms, management styles, and
role expectations are all factors that can influence how people behavior within
an organization
Personnel psychology:
o looks at how to best match individuals to specific job roles. People who work in
this area assess employee characteristics and then match these individuals to
jobs in which they are likely to perform well.
o Topics that they focus on include selecting and placing employees, training
employees, developing job performance standards, and measuring job
performance.
Work psychology:
o Concerns people's work activities, i.e. the way people handle their tasks.
o The main topics are work environment, working time arrangements, errors,
effort, workload, fatigue, task design, tool design (cf. ergonomics), etc.
Historical Developments in W&O psychology:
Historical precursors / Roots 1700 - Medicine
1900
Taylorism 1910 - Psychotechnic
1920
Human Relations (Hawthorne 1930 - Social Factors
experiments/Maslow/Herzberg 1950
Huamn Factors / Ergonomics 1960 Cognitive factors
,Week 1- Agile work from a job design perspective
1st challenge: healthy motivated employees
2nd challenge: performance
3rd challenge: technology
Outlook in the future:
Change in the type of employees
fewer young people, more women, more minorities, more temporary employees
Change in the type organisations
mergers & downsizing (more work through less people), smaller organisations, more
focus on teamwork (flatter hierarchies)
Growing importance of technology:
Technology-mediated communication (teleworking, less direct contact)
Human-technology interaction (new jobs in technology maintenance, more focus on
decision-making and coordination of human activities)
Redefinition of “work”:
Fewer fixed tasks, emphasis on constantly changing tasks, constant learning, less “9 to
5”
Individual employment conditions:
Rewards, working hours, job responsibilities etc. depending on KSAOs, job crafting
Job Analysis:
“Job analysis is the process of studying a job to determine which activities and
responsibilities it includes, its relative importance to other jobs, the qualifications
,Week 1- Agile work from a job design perspective
necessary for performance of the job and the conditions under which the work is
performed”
Goals of job analysis: What is measured in job analysis:
o Training design and o Concrete Behavior
evaluation • descriptions of typical, specific
o Performance assessment and actions
development of criteria o Behavioral requirements
(which employees must • ideal task performance
meet) o Job requirements
o Job design • KSAOs: knowledge, skills, abilities,
o Personnel selection other characteristics (personality,
o Legal matters (dangerous traits)
work?) o Job characterstics
o Career development and • Job as a collection of external
planning stimuli
Methods of information collection:
o Job analyst does the work himself
o Observation of activities in function
o Interviews with employees, managers or groups
o Employee self-reporting
o Diary, kept by employee
o Organization files and statistics
o Psychophysiological measurements (EEG, EMG, cortisol)
o Information from customers
o Critical Incidents Technique :
“Incidents" during the execution of the work, which are an example of
exceptionally good or very bad performance
A ‘critical incident’:
o Is specific
o Focuses on observable behaviors in the position
o Describes the context in which the behavior is shown
o Describes the consequences (outcomes/products) of the
behavior
Self reports: pros and cons: Ways to overcome problems with self-
Pros reports:
o Cheap o State items carefully and in
o Differences between individual understandable terms
employees o Do not refer to the person too
o Easy to quantify and statistically much / avoid subjectivity
analyze o Answer scales: Preference for
Cons frequency instead of intensity
o Effect of selective memory o Study several people per position
o Fatigue effects
o Halo-effect and other biases
o Sociale desirable answers
(positive impression)
Observations: pros and cons: Ways to overcome problems of
Pros observations:
• Objective information over job o Observation of entire 'working
• insight in the context of the job shift’
Cons o Training of observers
• Time consuming o Careful construction of observation
, Week 1- Agile work from a job design perspective
• Not appropriate for complex instrument
mental tasks o Observation of different employees
• Situation that occur seldom o Observation of "ideally typical"
difficult to observe employee
• More appropriate for structural
instead of dynamic aspects
• Halo-effect and other biases
Reliability: How good does the instrument measure what it aims to measure?
(e.g., test-retest reliability, interal consistency, inter-rater agreement)
Validity: Does the instrument measure what it should measure?
(bv. criterion-, content and construct validity)
Utility: Time and costs in relation to profit (and within limits)
Some key developments after WW2:
1. Personnel selection
2. Motivation
3. Culture
4. Leadership
Slides: Job design:
What is Job Design:
What is job design: All activities that plan, design, and influence the interaction
between people and the work system.
Involves design of work tasks, products, objects, tools, workplace, environment,
all except employees.
Goals of job design:
1. Optimal fulfilment of a position
2. Effectiveness and reliability
3. Efficiency
4. Safety, no negative consequences for performer
5. Maximising positive outcomes for people
When do you have a good position:
1. Feasible
2. Free from personal damage
3. Free from negative outcomes
4. Promoting the “personality”
What is a good job function?
- Sequential aspect: completeness of
action
- Hierarchical aspect: Hierarchically complete
