The Impact Of Role Design On Performance

It is difficult for anyone to perform well when in a poorly designed role.?No matter how motivated someone is flawed role design can impact performance negatively. The impact of poor design will vary across roles, since some have a greater impact on unit and organizational performance than others. But poor performance by anyone is to be avoided.

The recovery from the pandemic is underway, although uneven. The disruption caused by the catastrophe makes it prudent for organizations to plan what kind of workforce they must have in the future and how roles should be organized to enable people to be effective. Dissatisfaction with their roles and their workplaces has prompted a large percentage of employees to reflect on what they want to do going forward. Now is a good time to take steps to make an organization's value proposition and its employer brand as attractive as possible.

What Makes A Role Well-designed?

Decades of research has supported a model that leads to good role design.?The Job Characteristics Index identifies design characteristics that lead to desirable outcomes. Figure 1 defines the relationship between design and outcomes.

Employee motivation, satisfaction and effectiveness are outcomes that are valued highly.?In order for employees to experience those outcomes they must see their work as meaningful, they must accept responsibility for it and they must get adequate relevant feedback continuously to know how they are doing. It is difficult for anyone to perform well when in a poorly designed role.?No matter how motivated someone is flawed role design can impact performance negatively. The impact of poor design will vary across roles, since some have a greater impact on unit and organizational performance than others. But poor performance by anyone is to be avoided.

What Facilitates Performance?

Performance requires both effort and focus.?Working hard on the wrong things is unlikely to produce the desired results...focus without effort will result in failure as well.?Additionally the focused effort must be sustained for as long as necessary.

There is a difference between competence and performance.?Competence may establish the potential necessary to perform, but without the motivation to exert the required effort on the right things it is just that… potential.?A lot of gifted people accomplish little and experts can lack the motivation to turn their potential into results.?A lack of understanding of the difference was illustrated a few years back when consultants were heralding competency-based performance management as the new best thing.?The phrase is an oxymoron.??

Social scientists have identified three prerequisites for performance: capability, opportunity and motivation. The design characteristics in the JCI model relate most directly to opportunity, since even highly qualified and motivated people require sound job design to succeed. Well-designed roles contribute to satisfaction and to motivation, as well as making it possible to turn motivation into results. But the capabilities of an individual must be well matched to the role in order for a high level of performance to be possible.

Well-designed roles can assist with designing staffing strategies, development strategies, performance management strategies and rewards management strategies that facilitate high performance. A role design that is sound and that is a good fit for an individual makes high performance possible. But the context must facilitate performance by ensuring adequate resources, an appropriate amount of autonomy and appropriate rewards exist.

A person in the right role with the right resources and who has the other pre-requisites for being motivated to perform has the highest likelihood of success. But they must accept that the rewards for performance are equitable, competitive and in the appropriate form.?Rewards are not only in the form of money.?Some employees will highly value intrinsic rewards, in the form of challenge, opportunity to grow and satisfaction that what they do is meaningful, as illustrated in the JCI model.??

The needless debate about whether extrinsic rewards diminish intrinsic rewards is the result of a failure to understand the nature of the two types of rewards. The best source of intrinsic rewards is being in a role that makes them accessible.?Working on an assembly line doing routine work is not likely to offer intrinsic rewards. Henry Ford had to operate with turnover rate of over 300% in his plants even though he offered much higher pay than other manufacturers who designed production differently.?The high pay was a bribe to tolerate the lack of job satisfaction. Conversely, people working for charities often make do with a small amount of extrinsic rewards and still go home happy, extolling the virtues of their employer and what the organization does.?

Children claim they cannot finish their vegetables but still want dessert, claiming they have two separate compartments (as of today not supported by medical research). In a way, adults have two separate compartments, both of which must have an adequate amount of the type of reward that goes into each. Henry Ford’s experience illustrates that some people cannot receive an adequate amount of extrinsic rewards to overcome the deficiency of intrinsic rewards while others accept that value proposition because of the higher pay.?Ford did not try to lessen the pay required by redesigning the role, since the operational configuration prescribed that things be done that way.

Serving in an elite unit in an Airborne division resulted in my being in lock down for extended periods while on alert and subject to being sent anywhere at any time. But the satisfaction and pride associated with being a member of the unit overcame some of the exposure to danger and limitations on activities. Others viewed that as a fool’s choice and happily did without the extra pay and having the best uniform to avoid the negatives. Everyone has the two separate compartments and debating whether more of one type of reward can overcome less of the other type has no value.

Defining what a “well-designed” role looks like can be challenging, since not all people view their role in the same way and do not prefer the same things. There are people who do not mind a job that does not require their full attention, since they develop coping strategies like focusing their mind on what they will do when their shift ends.?Autonomy can be threatening to those who would rather be told what to do (or who are so used to it that anything else seems unnatural). Some cultures have high levels of uncertainty avoidance, making strictly prescribed routines preferable. High power-distance cultures also make taking orders an accepted way of performing a job. Given the culturally diverse workforces of today this makes “well-designed” a subjective judgment, rather than a single set of design criteria.

Conclusion

• High performance is challenging to realize.??
• There are many prerequisites that must be met for it to occur.?
• Incumbents must be in a well-designed role.
• They must have the capabilities that are a good fit to the role.
• They must operate within a context that results in them having adequate resources, an appropriate amount of autonomy, clear objectives and appropriate rewards on offer.
• Their needs for both intrinsic rewards and extrinsic rewards must be met.
• The value proposition offered by an organization must be equitable, competitive and appropriate.
• And finally, the organizational culture must be aligned with their beliefs and values.?

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About the Author:

Robert Greene, PhD, is CEO at Reward $ystems, Inc., a Consulting Principal at Pontifex and a faculty member for DePaul University in their MSHR and MBA programs. Greene speaks and teaches globally on human resource management. His consulting practice is focused on helping organizations succeed through people. Greene has written 4 books and hundreds publications and articles about human resource management throughout his career.

• Strategic Talent Management: Creating The Right Workforce
• The Most Important Asset: Valuing Human Capitol
• Rewarding Performance Globally [with Fons Trompenaars]?
• Rewarding Performance: Guiding Principles; Custom Strategies (2d Edition)

Order his latest book entitled "Strategic Talent Management: Creating The Right Workforce" with a promotional offer code from the publisher, Routledge available here.??