S.M.A.R.T work design for better health, satisfaction and performance

Whenever you go to work, you have a number of tasks, activities and responsibilities that you need to carry out, usually in collaboration with others. Work design is basically how these tasks, activities, responsibilities and interactions with other people are organised and structured. Good work design is crucial, as it affects both individual employees and organisational outcomes. For employees, work design can affect their motivation, their well-being and their development.

Increased employee motivation, well-being and accelerated development can in turn improve organisational outcomes such as safety, performance, and innovation.

- Sharon Parker, Director of the Centre for Transformative Work Design

What is S.M.A.R.T work design?

The S.M.A.R.T work design framework outlines the job characteristics that are associated with a whole range of positive employee and organisational outcomes, such as enhanced mental health and wellbeing, job satisfaction and performance, and reduced turnover. Research has identified a number of job characteristics that are positive, and the S.M.A.R.T work design framework provides a consolidated view of these job characteristics grouped around 5 key themes: Stimulating, Mastery, Agency, Relational and Tolerable:

Designing work that incorporates and considers how to optimise the job characteristics in the S.M.A.R.T work design framework will lead to more meaningful, interesting, and motivating work, which will have significant benefits for employees and employers alike.

If you find yourself or your employees in a role that provides little opportunity for S.M.A.R.T, there are a number of strategies you may find useful. As an employee, you could:

• Meet with your manager and ask for new challenges and skill development opportunities

• Make a list of the variety of tasks you get to do in different areas: skills, activities, people interactions etc. Try to focus on a different area each week

• Be the first to ask for formal and informal feedback. Check if the tasks you complete can offer immediate feedback

• Sit down with your team or with your manager to work out how to group the team’s interdependent tasks to make a meaningful set. Make sure to involve a balance between less popular and desirable tasks

• Speak to your manager about any projects in which you could take ownership

• If you are able to identify a more effective or efficient method of carrying out your work, develop a business case for it that you can take to your manager

• If your work does not have a social club, consider starting one

• When positive external feedback is given for a project or piece of work that others have contributed towards, be sure to share this with those involved

• Discuss and negotiate your deadlines with your manager. They may not be aware of current length of time some tasks take to complete

• Take an adequate number and amount of time for breaks. A quick ten minute walk around the block can assist greatly with cognitively demanding tasks

Find out more on the SMART work design website!

Discussing Virtual Team research on RTR FM

Employees working in ‘virtual teams’ can overcome performance difficulties to work effectively if they have positive feedback, social support and job autonomy in their tasks and jobs, new research involving Curtin University has found.

The research, published in the annual review of the journal Small Group Research, investigated the mutual impact of virtual teamwork, which includes using virtual tools such as email or video conferencing from different countries and locations, and work design on the functioning of teams.

Centre for Transformative Work Design's researcher Dr Florian Klonek joined RTRFM to discuss the report.

Listen to the interview where Florian discusses the virtues and drawbacks of virtual teams. He also touches on team interdependence and how virtual teams can outperform face-to-face teams.

Florian Klonek

‘Virtual teams’ can overcome barriers to thrive, study finds

Employees working in ‘virtual teams’ can overcome performance difficulties to work effectively if they have positive feedback, social support and job autonomy in their tasks and jobs, new research involving Curtin University has found.

The research, published in the annual review of the journal Small Group Research, investigated the mutual impact of virtual teamwork, which includes using virtual tools such as email or video conferencing from different countries and locations, and work design on the functioning of teams.

Co-author Dr Florian Klonek, from the Centre for Transformative Work Design based in Curtin’s Future of Work Institute, said modern work environments were constantly evolving and ‘virtual teams’ were a common trend as employees are embedded in increasingly flexible work arrangements.

“There are many benefits of virtual communication and collaboration including being able to draw experts from all over the globe, lower maintenance costs for office spaces, working in different time zones, increased flexibility, less time spent communicating and better work-life balance,” Dr Klonek said.

“Despite the obvious benefits, there is evidence to suggest that virtual teams can lead to team performance decline. Our research aimed to examine whether a potential negative impact of working virtually on overall team functioning can be mitigated, or even reversed, by the team’s work design.

“We identified that virtuality does not always harm team functioning and in some cases virtual teams may even outperform traditional teams, but it depends on how we design their work. We found that job resources, such as feedback, social support and job autonomy, were especially helpful for teams who operate under increased levels of virtuality.”

The findings suggest that feedback helps to reduce the negative consequences of lacking interactivity in virtual environments, team autonomy enables team members to switch between different communication channels, and social support compensates for the lack of warmth, trust and cohesion, which is often experienced in virtual collaborations.

Task interdependence, which is when co-workers depend upon one another for access to critical resources such as information, materials or expertise, appeared to increase virtual team members’ motivation, team learning, and creativity.

Co-author ARC Laureate Fellow Professor Sharon Parker, Director of the Centre for Transformative Work Design based at Curtin University, said the research also identified key work design features that are likely to be detrimental for virtual team functioning.

“We found that when teams have more complex, ambiguous, non-routine, and pressured tasks, it is quite challenging to achieve high levels of performance as a virtual team,” Professor Parker said.

“It is especially important in these more difficult situations to provide support and autonomy to virtual teams so they can work together well as a team.”

The paper was led by Lisa Handke from Technische Universität Braunschweig in Germany.

The paper titled, ‘Interactive effects on team virtuality and work design on team functioning,’ can be found online here.

Co-author, Florian Klonek

Co-author, Sharon Parker