Effect of Genrational Cohorts on Job Designing


“Job design specifies the contents of the jobs in order to satisfy work requirements and meet the personal needs of the job holder, thus increasing levels of employee engagement” (Armstrong ,2014).
The present workforce consists of three primary generations including Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1979), and Generation Y (1980-1999) also referred to as the Millennials (Schullery, 2013). Employees from different generations have varying expectations on what becomes valued in the workplace and what they expect from a job  (Lester, 2012).
Job design theory has largely overlooked the generations differences and workforce diversity (Hernaus & Vokic, 2014). Demographic trends, accompanied with economic, technological and cultural changes, require proportionate changes in how work is structured and organized (Cordery & Parker, 2012).

Personal values and work preferences of generational cohorts



Note: From ‘Personal values and work preferences of generational cohorts’ (Hernaus & Poloski 2014, p.618)


Key factors considered in job design

Note: From Human resource: Principles of Job design, 2019(University of Cambridge,2019)


According to career researchers, the person-job fit, and the work context should change as employees get older (e.g. Perry et al., 2012) or when employees make a step up the career ladder. Beyond age-related and career dynamics studies, generational differences could also affect how a worker reacts to different job characteristics (e.g. Truxillo et al., 2012).
Research have shown that workers belong to generation Y shows lowest autonomy when compared with their predecessors  and task Identity is highest in baby boomers while it is lowest in Generation x (Hernaus & Vokic, 2014). However,  all three generations look for task verity in a job (Hernaus & Vokic, 2014). When Considering task significance,  Xers’ and Yers’ need to have an influential job or considers higher task significance than Boomers (Durkin, 2006). Boomers and Xers are does not enjoy continues feedback but the Yers’ enjoy feedback about their jobs (Hernaus & Vokic, 2014).
Consideration generational differences is important in modern day job design.


References

Cordery, J. L. & Parker, S. K., 2012. work design: creating jobs and roles that promote individual effectiveness. In: S. Kozlowski, ed. s.l.:reserchgate.net, pp. 247-284.
Durkin, D., 2006. Managing the new Generation. Business NH Magazine, 23(08), pp. 21-22.
Hernaus, T. & Vokic, P., 2014. Work design for different generational cohorts. Journal of Organizational Change Management , 27(04), pp. 615-641.
Lester, S. S. R. S. &. W., 2012. Actual versus perceived generational differences: An empirical examination. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies , Volume 19, pp. 341-354.
University of Cambridge 2019, Human resource: Principles of Job design,2019. Available from: <https://www.hr.admin.cam.ac.uk/pay-benefits/grading%20-%20faq/grading/principles-job-design>[06 March 2019]



Comments

  1. harshaJune 11, 2019 at 8:19 AM

    Interesting brief view on generational diversity and its affect on job design practices. Since the millenial generation workforce is growing in numbers traditional job design practices are under threat and i think we have to find a better way to bridge this generation divide

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