I scream, you scream: We all scream for “ice cream” – unless under bad work design conditions

We did not have Drew Barrymore, Neve Campbell, or Edvard Munch in mind when we invited participants to take part in a little work design simulative experiment around producing i(ce) (s)creams....

In order to trial a work design simulation, the Centre for Transformative Work Design set up a small ice cream factory on Friday, 21st of April. What (most of) our participants did not know is that they had to work under systematic different conditions of work design.

In this social experiment (adapted from Karasek's Tzatziki game), we created four different work designs that we ordered along the two dimensions of Karasek’s (1979) job demands-control model. This model allows us to characterize jobs with respect to their physical, psychological, or social demands, that is, aspects of the job that require sustained effort, on the one hand, and the amount of control that the job allows workers to have over their working methods, decision-making, and work planning, on the other hand.

To give our participants a better understanding how the same job can be designed differently, we systematically varied the extent of both job demands on control and thusly created four different work design conditions (jobs with low demands/low control; low demands/high control; high demands/low control; and high demands-high control).

While our participants might have thought initially that producing ice creams should be a fun activity, they quickly had to learn that work design can have a significant impact on how enjoyable they perceived their job. One of the results from our debriefing at the end of the activity revealed that those participants that had the lowest level of autonomy in their jobs were also those that had the highest desire to quit their job.

Who would have thought that people would scream and run away if you’d ask them to make ice cream? Well, we knew (under which conditions) and we hope that those involved in the design of future jobs know this, too.

References

Karasek Jr, R. A. (1979). Job demands, job decision latitude, and mental strain: Implications for job redesign. Administrative science quarterly, 285-308.

#JobDesign

Doctors are Human Too

From "The New York Times", April 21, 2017

Following a recent spate of suicides by young doctors in New South Wales, a young Sydney doctor, Lisa Pryor, gives us some raw and painful insight into the job of a young doctor and why it all too often leads to distress, burnout and mental illness. In her opinion piece, she tells us that good work design could make a difference - there are practical and cultural changes that can be made to improve doctor well-being.

Click here for the full article.

McKinsey & Co: Report on future work and the impact on global productivity

From McKinsey Global Institute, January 1, 2017

A recent report released by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) - “A Future That Works: Automation, Employment and Productivity” - analyses the automation potential of the global economy, the factors that will determine the pace and extent of workplace adoption, and the economic impact associated with its potential.

MGI believe automation will give a much-needed boost to productivity, resulting in economic growth and prosperity that will help offset the declining share of the working-age population in many countries. They note, however, that people will need to continue working alongside machines to produce the desired growth in per capita GDP, and they make the assumption that people displaced by automation will find other employment.

The report includes the prediction that more occupations will change than will be automated away. MGI estimates that while less than 5% of occupations can be automated entirely, about 60% of occupations have at least 30% of activities that could be automated.

MGI report that ultimately technical, economic and social factors will determine the pace and extent of automation. Their scenarios suggest that half of today’s work activities could be automated by 2055, but this could happen up to 20 years earlier or later.

Challenges lie ahead for policy-makers. MGI believe they should embrace the opportunity and develop policies to encourage investment and market incentives to encourage progress and innovation. However, policy-makers must evolve and innovate policies that help workers and institutions adapt to the impact on employment. This will include rethinking education and training, income support and safety nets, as well as transition support for those dislocated. Individuals in the workplace will need to engage more comprehensively with machines as part of their everyday activities, and acquire new skills that will be in demand in the new age.