Assignment no 1.

Submitted by: Yamna Feroz ASSESSMENT EXERC

How Enjoyable Was That Work or Project?

Consider the job that you hold now or in the past. If you have no work experience, consider a
course project or other effort where you had to work for a reward. Please respond to the
following questions frankly:

Strongly
Statement about Your Work/Project Disagree DisagreeAgreeStrongly Agree

1. I felt that I had control over the quality and performance of my job. 3
2. I was not allowed to plan the optimal pace at which I could work. 2
3. The work/project involved various activities. 3
4. It was the same routine every day; I did the same things day after day. 3
5. At the end of a day, I could see a finished job or part of the project. 3
6. There were many days when I had little sense of accomplishment. 2
7. My boss/supervisor always told me whether I did the work well or poorly. 3
8. I got little feedback from anyone about how well I performed during the course of the 2
project.

9. The work I did (or the project I completed) was an important one. 3
10. Often I felt that it made little difference how I did on this job/project. 3

SCORING
For the odd-numbered statements, assign a score of 1, 2, 3, or 4 for Strongly Disagree,
Disagree, Agree, and Strongly Agree, respectively. For the even-numbered statements, reverse
the scoring—that is, Strongly Disagree gets a score of 4 and Strongly Agree gets a score of 1.
Add up your scores for all 10 statements.

Your score should lie somewhere between 10 and 40. If you received a score of 32 or higher,
you had an enjoyable experience with your past work or assignment—at least most of the
time. If you scored less than 20, it is unlikely that Varyou had much fun doing the job or
project.

While this is not a validated instrument, statements 1 and 2 above indicate the overall
autonomy you had in doing the project; 3 and 4 measure the dimension of variety; 5 and 6
reflect task identity; 7 and 8 measure feedback; and 9 and 10 measure task significance. On
each dimension, your scores can range anywhere from 2 to 8. It is possible for you to get a
high score on one dimension and a low score on another, although an “enriched” project would
have had high scores on all dimensions.

Overall score: 27

Rationale for the scores:

I worked as an HR Generalist at a manufacturing firm in my home country. I do believe that I
had autonomy over how I executed various activities (recruitment, separation, organizing
trainings etc.) however, due to the constraints around deadlines and many simultaneous activities
needing attention I couldn’t plan the work on my own. So the follow ups did not happen on
‘how’ I managed the tasks but on ‘when’ they would be delivered, and I was told to stop doing
one task to complete another one needing priority. Hence, score is higher on point 1 but less in
point 2.

In spite of some routine tasks that are a part of every job, I believe I was doing multiple activities
for example, arranging for trainings, sourcing activities for candidates, working on D&I policies
and introducing new initiatives. Hence, I have scored high on both points 3 and 4.

I believe I could see finished jobs when I had shortlisted candidates and the hiring manager
appreciated the quality of candidates or when employees appreciated the arrangements that had
been made for trainings. However, many days I didn’t have the sense of accomplishment for
example when there wasn’t any significant hiring activity or campus events planned. I have thus
scored higher on point 5 but less on point 6.

My supervisor was always candid with her feedback but being a small team of only me and my
supervisor and the HR working somewhat in silos I didn’t get a lot of feedback working on many
projects. In fact many people were not even aware of the scope of activities that the HR was
performing. I have therefore scored higher on point 7 but less on point 8.

The tasks I did were important and had the potential to impact the organization. For example, the
efforts that went into sourcing would determine whether we got a good candidate for a role and
organizing the internship campaign ensured we brought on fresh perspective to the organization.i
have scored high on both points 9 and 10.

JOB CHARACTERISTICS MODEL:

1. Autonomy:
In order to enrich the job, I believe it is important that senior management does not take
their team for granted; for example, interrupting an activity they are performing because
the CEO needs some important data by the end of today. Instead of framing their requests
in such a time bound way, they can explain to the employee why the data is important to
them and put the onus on the employee to have it ready as soon as possible. This way the
employee won’t feel that they are being taken for granted or being rushed for a job or that
the work they were doing before isn’t important.

2. Variety:
I believe that the work I performed had a lot of variety possibly because of the ‘human’
nature of the job. But more importantly, I think that the reason why I felt so satisfied in
terms of the variety of the job is because my supervisor always empowered me to find
 better ways to do even routine tasks like filing and documentation. For example, I
simplified the separation files in which there were two separate files being filled by
employee and supervisor where many of the questions overlapped. So I combined those
files and put them on a Shared file so that employee can keep updating it while the
Supervisor, HR and Finance can also keep track of their actions related to separation.
Thus even routine tasks can be enriched by empowering the employee to come up with
creative ways of handling those tasks or use automation if possible.

3. Task Identity:
I believe this part of the role can be enriched when management can tell their direct
reports how an activity they perform will be used for the overall benefit of the
organization. For example, asking me to collect data on all employees who are entitled to
a perquisite car and how upgrading the car would impact the cost to the company. This
seemingly mundane data can help the company stay competitive in the market in terms of
job benefits and employee satisfaction. However, when such clarity is not given,
employee may not feel ownership or responsibility towards the task at hand.

4. Feedback:
In large teams, there is ample opportunity for feedback from both supervisor and peers.
However, I was in a team comprising only my supervisor and myself, so I mostly worked
alone with little opportunity for feedback. This part of the role can be enriched by ‘check
ins’ where employees from seemingly disconnected functions can let others know what
they are doing and how it contributes to the mission, or values of the organization.
Workplace communication tools can be utilized for this purpose. Many companies now
have tools resembling Facebook for office where everyone can post about their
achievements or a project they undertook and peers from other functions can weigh in
their feedback.

5. Task significance:
In order to enrich this part of the job, it is very important for managers to let employees
know the value of the tasks performed, or the context of it being required. I believe that
this point ties back to ‘task identity’ where workers can see that what they do is
identifiable and how it contributes to the targets of an organization or let say a CEO.
Moreover, during a project its important that the team members meet often and then
develop a kind of ‘map’ which outlines the activities that will be performed by each
member that will lead to the completion of the project. It is also sometimes up to the
supervisors to shine a spotlight on the activity performed by their direct reports and show
its significance to the senior management as the employee themselves may not do it out
of humility.