How can jobs be redesigned?

Repetitive tasks provide little variety, autonomy or motivation. In contrast, an alternative can be challenging and stimulating. Let's look at some of the ways to put the job characteristics model into practice to make jobs more motivating.

Job rotation: the periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another.
Job enrichment: the vertical expansion of jobs, which increases the degree to which the worker controls the planning, execution and evaluation of the work.

Job rotation - if workers suffer from over-routinisation of their work, one alternative is job rotation, or the periodic shifting of a worker from one task to another with similar skill requirements at the same organistional level.

- Strengths: reduces boredom, increases motivation and helps workers better understand how their work contributes to the organisation; workers with a wide range of skills give management more flexibility in scheduling work, adapting to changes and filling vacancies.

-Disadvantages: increases in training costs and decreases in productivity may occur, disruptions when members of the work group have to adjust to a new group member, supervisors may have to spend more time answering questions and monitoring the work of recently rotated workers.