Search results

INTRODUCTIO The title of this review is rather misleading and inaccurate. It is true that jobs are structured and work is organised, but very few papers are written advocating the status quo. Most academics and all consultants make their names and indeed their livings by recommending, proposing and implementing change. Sometimes change for change's sake, often change because almost anything would be better than the existing situation. But always change.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the influence mechanisms of specific HR practices variables – salary, job stability and job enrichment – upon employee commitment, through the mediating role of job satisfaction, in a developing country context. Crucially, these indicate employee commitment.

The study analyzed three specific HR practices with a sample of 263 employees in the banking industry of Pakistan. A structural equation modeling methodology is adopted.

The findings indicate that remuneration strategies were positively related to job satisfaction and employee commitment. Regarding the intervening impact of job satisfaction, this study found that it mediates only for non-monetary strategies between job satisfaction and employee commitment.

A key limitation is that this is a cross-sectional study, perhaps not generalizable over longitudinal approaches. Another limit is posed by the developing country context of this study, perhaps not applicable to some developed countries.

From an HR perspective, managing salary structure is an ongoing issue. The proposed model suggests the use of specific practices about satisfaction and commitment as intermediate steps to manage employee commitment.

The research offers a unique understanding from the developing country context of Pakistan. This provides a novel study conducted to examine employee commitment using the high-performance work practices model.

In part 1 of this paper we used the concept of the occupational role to illustrate some of the contributions social scientists make to the better understanding of the problems confronting members of work organisations. The problem we were particularly interested in commenting upon was the difficulties surrounding the inter and intra‐organisational mobility of labour, and we used an analysis of the structure of the occupational role to examine the processes which result in the inability and/or unwillingness of employees to change their job.

This research was conducted in order to determine what variables would give small businesses (defined as any firm with less than 100 employees) an advantage versus larger businesses in attracting and maintaining employees while optimizing their performance. Job enrichment, employee recognition, pay equity and managerial skill do affect employee job satisfaction in small business. However, there was sufficient evidence to indicate that income was, at the very least, a moderating factor with regard to the success of non‐monetary incentives. Therefore, the variables studied are most effective when supplemented with an income that allows employees to meet physiological and security needs for themselves and their families. What this article demonstrates is that by increasing job satisfaction via job enrichment, employee recognition, internal pay equity and the use of skilled managers, smaller firms can increase productivity and attractiveness to existing and potential employees.

Most of us have read and thought about job enlargement, job enrichment, job design and restructuring. Much has been said and written on these subjects, and perhaps we may now be forgiven if we are somewhat confused by the differences in methodology, terminology, perspectives, etc presented by authors in this area.

Employee surveys, such as a Job Dimension Survey, can be useful since they provide a different viewpoint in analysing a job situation (see Appendix A). Employee interviews—a representative sample of the work force may be interviewed individually, in pairs, or in small groups. Critical incident interviewing is used to extract more data about personal responses to work content; this involves getting a person to talk freely about his perception of particularly good or bad work experiences. Adroitness at probing for relevant information takes great care and practice.

In recent years the concept of the “focused factory” has emerged in the field of operations management, and the “contingency approach to job design” has evolved in the area of organisational development. Utilising these two concepts in combination, the creation of a contingency continuum of job enrichment, the “focused labour force”, for improved utilisation of human resources is proposed.

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between human resource practices and staff retention by selecting three high performance work practices (precursors) and one outcome variable (turnover intentions), and trying to demonstrate the mediator role of employee commitment and job satisfaction in this relationship.

The proposed model has been analyzed with a sample of 198 employees and a structural equation modeling methodology.

Salary strategies and job enrichment strategies were positively related to job satisfaction. Job enrichment strategies and job stability strategies were positively related to employee commitment. Employee commitment was negatively related to turnover intentions. The relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intentions was mediated by employee commitment

One limitation of the findings is the use of self‐report questionnaires to collect data on all measures. Another potential limitation concerns the measurement of some latent factors with only two observable variables.

Turnover continues to be a serious problem for businesses. The proposed model suggests the use of specific practices that develop satisfaction and commitment as an intermediate step to low turnover intentions.

A sample of 198 workers was used as the source of information. This information offers clear advantages over the more widely used samples from managerial directors or statistical data gathered in human resource practices, as in this case. The perceptions of those people on whom these measures are directly carried out are readily accessible.

YEARS ago the only people who feared the law were the “baddies”. They took the risks of their nefarious profession and when they were copped, took their sentences with resignation as the price they had to pay for whatever it was that they had illegally gained.

Bill Walsh has a reputation for taking complex concepts which originated at the academic level and simplifying them for popular consumption. In this article he treats the subject of job enrichment in this way and summarises his experience in introducing it in practice.