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Job Differentiation Motivates Differently, Five Core Job Characteristics, Job Enrichment:
Motivation describes forces within the individual that account for the level, direction, and persistence of effort expended at work. Individuals need to be compelled, excited, and passionate to do their work, therefore, the setup or type of job is key to motivating an employee. It is all about how one perceives the job with attitude, the design, range and depth of jobs, the different management styles in the jobs, and how an employee may fit in the culture and system. Job range is the number of operations that a job occupant performs to complete a task, many jobs vary in range, say if you’re a janitor and a spill happens all you must do is mop the floor to complete the task. Compare that to say a military general and they have so many strategies and battles just to complete the task of ending the turmoil between others, the job range is very different between the two. Job depth is the amount of control an individual must alter or influence the job and the surrounding environment. So, a principle or dean of a school has more job depth then a teacher, thus having the superior more motivated due to the power at hand from the position.
Abraham Maslow is a well-known psychologist for his theory on human motivation, specifically the Hierarchy of needs theory. Maslow's theory can also be defined as "intensity at a task". This means that greater the motivation, the more constant and intense one will perform specific task. The basis behind this theory is the knowledge that all behavior is goal driven, to meet self needs, meaning one will do tasks according to what they obtain after the task is complete. Merriam Webster (2014) defines a goal as “something that you are trying to do or achieve or “the end toward which effort is directed”. Goal Setting on the other hand is defined by Business Dictionary (2014) as “Motivational technique based on the concept that the practice of setting specific goals enhances performance, and that setting difficult goals results in higher performance than setting easier goals”. Goals must be S.M.A.R.T specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.
From my research there are five core characteristics of job design are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and job feedback. Each job has these characteristics to a greater or lesser extent. No one combination of characteristics makes for the ideal job; rather, it is the purpose of job design to adjust the levels of each characteristic to attune the overall job with the worker performing it. This alignment is important because the worker brings psychological states to bear upon the job that affect job outcomes when combined with the core characteristics.
Responsibility is derived from autonomy, as in the job provides substantial freedom. Being able to identify the task significance as contributing to something wider, to society or a group over and beyond ...
