Analysis of the Job Characteristics Model

Abstract

The Job-Characteristics Model is a concept constructed on the knowledge that a task is itself a key to the motivation of an employee (J. RICHARD HACKMAN, 1976). Precisely saying a repetitious job is very harmful to an employee’s motivation whereas a challenging and interesting job which keeps the employee engaged has a positive effect on the employee’s motivation (LĂZĂROIU, 2015). This theory mentions five job characteristics that are forecast to benefit the psychological state and work-related outcomes. This study also mentions some other factors that may function as mediators to show the relation between job characteristics and work-related outcomes (Syukrina Alini Mat Ali, 2014). The idea of work redesign arose to enrich the jobs in a way such that it would boost motivation and avoid monotonous tasks in a job. Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics model states that there are five core job characteristics namely skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback (J. RICHARD HACKMAN, 1976). These job characteristics impact the psychological states of an employee that are experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility for outcomes and knowledge of outcomes (J. RICHARD HACKMAN, 1976). These in-turn affects the work outcomes that are job satisfaction, performance and work motivation (J. RICHARD HACKMAN, 1976). In addition, it is possible to combine the five core job characteristics to calculate a motivating potential score for a job that can be used as an index of how likely a job is to affect the behavior and attitude of an employee (Syukrina Alini Mat Ali, 2014). Work redesign is becoming increasingly popular as a strategy to simultaneously improve the productivity and quality of employee work experience in contemporary organizations (J. RICHARD HACKMAN, 1976). In this article ahead, the job characteristics, psychological states and work outcomes are explained in detail.