Why managers make jobs more boring than they have to be

Work engagement is consistently low and declining in some parts of the world. Elite consulting jobs have been described as "boring" and "uninspiring," work where people are "told exactly how to do something." Earlier this year, the Guardian reported that Amazon warehouse workers are being treated "worse than robots" - running to complete orders and skipping bathroom breaks while being electronically monitored. Evidence of increasing work intensification in many countries has been picked up by the media, including reports on the impact of "greedy jobs" on women, as well as popular books that deplore discouraging work and highlight the enormous toll that stressful work takes on communities internationally.

We believe that the lack of engagement, burnout and dissatisfaction of many employees can be traced back to poorly designed work. Job design refers to the nature and organization of tasks, activities and responsibilities within a job or work role. From a psychological perspective, a well-designed job provides workers with interesting tasks, autonomy in those tasks, a meaningful level of social contact with others, and a tolerable level of task demands: an appropriate workload, clear responsibilities, and manageable emotional pressure.

The benefits of well-designed work for employees include job satisfaction, engagement, better work-life balance, reduced work stress, better well-being and a general sense of purpose. For companies, good work design means they can fully exploit and cultivate their talents by giving them more autonomy in the workplace - one of the strongest drivers of employee creativity, proactivity and innovation. However, if the work is poorly designed, the opposite is true. Jobs can become unbearable and demotivating - especially those where the tasks are repetitive and tightly controlled, or those where the level of demands overwhelms people.

Despite the benefits of well-designed work, poor work design is widespread in many organizations. And why? The typical answer focuses on macroeconomic forces such as the decline of unions and inadequate national labor laws. While we agree that the big variables are important, our research shows that they don't tell the whole story.

Study #1: Managers often make boring jobs even more boring

To find out why poor work design remains so prevalent in organizations around the world, we conducted a study to understand how people think about and develop roles for others. A previous study has shown that when designing jobs, university-level management students tend to create tasks with highly repetitive and boring activities because they believe that such activities are more efficient. Our goal was to find out whether this finding also applies to managers and professionals.

We invited managers and professionals from the HR services industry (organizational psychologists, safety managers, health and safety inspectors) to participate in two online simulations. In the first simulation, participants had to design a job. They were given a half-day office job that consisted entirely of copying and filing tasks. We then asked them to make it a full-time job by selecting additional tasks from a list and adding them to the current role. Participants could make the work extremely repetitive by adding more copying and filing tasks, or they could make the work more meaningful and interesting by adding tasks such as greeting visitors or helping with a quality improvement project. They were told that all tasks were relevant, that the officer was capable of completing them all and that it would be a permanent position.

One surprising finding (especially considering we intentionally focused on executives and human services professionals) was that almost half (45%) of participants rated the job as even more boring, consisting almost entirely of copy - and filing activities, eight hours a day.

Study #2: Managers would often rather “fix” the worker than change the way work is designed

Next, we asked participants to imagine themselves as the manager in various scenarios involving workforce issues. As an example, we told participants that they managed a warehouse worker (Karen) who missed 50% of her deadlines. In each scenario, we made it clear that the work design was poor. In Karen's case, we explained that she "moves quickly" and "often runs" to get items, but still fails to get them off the shelves in a timely manner. Participants then rated how effective they thought different strategies would be to solve these problems. Some strategies focused on "fixing the poor job design" and others focused on "fixing the worker."

Although some participants chose strategies to fix the poor work design (e.g., "redesign the job so that tasks don't have to be timed"), a surprising number of participants chose to "fix the employee." For example, despite knowing that Karen often had to run to meet her times, more than two-thirds of participants said they would "send Karen on a workout"; almost a third chose to "advise Karen to improve her physical fitness" and almost a quarter chose to "threaten Karen with a pay cut if she doesn't improve her times." Each of these strategies indirectly "blames" the employee, even though poor job design is the more fundamental problem.

How can organizations help?

Managers and professionals are in an excellent position to create meaningful, motivating and stress-free work for their employees. However, our research suggests that many don't - they have a natural tendency to create poor work for others. Many professionals also tend to blame employees for performance problems rather than changing poor work design. Fortunately, companies can learn from our research and take steps to improve the situation.

Recognize the importance of well-crafted work - from all perspectives. Improving work design from a psychological perspective is not on the radar for many companies. Work design is usually only considered from a process perspective (e.g. introduction of lean principles) or from the perspective of the physical work environment (e.g. open-plan offices). However, when companies ignore the psychology behind truly good work design, they risk discouraging employees, increasing turnover, and reducing productivity. It doesn't make much sense to have a funky office designed to encourage innovation while also having bosses who tightly control all aspects of the work.

Training of managers and other relevant professionals

Management teams play an important role when it comes to designing quality work. Through their own actions, managers can give employees more freedom of choice, ensure that tasks are varied, and support employees when demands are high. However, our research shows that these skills do not come naturally to most, including those working in human services. In fact, our results suggest that people with high conservational life values ​​(i.e., those who value safety, conformity, and tradition) value tight, repetitive work most, design the worst jobs, and may require additional support and training. Without training those responsible for assigning work, poor work design will continue in many workplaces.

Beware of self-repeating cycles

In our study, the worst work designers had no autonomy in their own careers, suggesting that people unconsciously mimic their work designs when designing work for others. This means that organizations with a hierarchical command and control model present a unique challenge for managers who want to move to a more autonomous model. To avoid a vicious circle in which bad work is perpetuated, good work design must start at the top. Managers who have experienced the value of well-crafted work are more likely to create it for others.

Discuss job design in performance reviews

If an employee behaves sub-optimally (absenteeism, missed deadlines or lack of innovation), the cause may be poor work design. However, our research shows that managers often prefer to "fix" the employee by sending them to a training program or eliminating their bonuses. We believe that incorporating job design into performance appraisals allows managers to more easily recognize how big or how small the role it plays in employee performance. For example, if an employee is not innovative, managers should not assume that the person is "unable or in need of training" but should consider whether the task provides enough autonomy to motivate and encourage creativity.

Consult experts if necessary. Our study found that managers with specialized training and expertise in work design (i.e., organizational psychologists) designed more meaningful work. In some cases, particularly when improving work design requires system-level change, deeper expertise is beneficial. Organizational psychology is one of the fastest-growing professions in the United States, and scholars in the field are increasingly shaping the business world. We encourage companies to draw on this and similar expertise if poor work design is entrenched in their company.

Well-designed work pays off economically and socially

We need to create better work for people and that is the need of the hour. While the digital age is promising and productive, it also poses potential threats to the quality of people's work design. We see this at Amazon, where technology is used to monitor people's movements and excessively control their actions. Furthermore, there is ample evidence in the Western world that well-designed work helps prevent the onset of mental health problems. Now more than ever, we need to better understand what work design is optimal and how we can achieve it.