Job design in the office

Abstract

Attitudes towards job design are changing. Initially, managers were influenced by the concept of the division of labour, or specialisation. This consisted of breaking‐up the work into a series of distinct operations, the operations then being shared out amongst a group of workers. The scientific management group — Taylor, Gilbreth, Bedaux and the like — developed procedures by which work could be more ‘scientifically’ accomplished. They stressed the significance of physical activities, and their work — combined with the work of the early industrial psychologists on fatigue, training and optimum environmental conditions — led persons to believe that the industrial worker could, if given the right monetary reward, be ‘set up’ to produce maximal output.

Citation

Jones, L. (1974), "Job design in the office", Education + Training, Vol. 16 No. 2/3, pp. 63-64. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb016337