Editing Work design (section)

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2023}}
{{Short description|Area of research and practice within industrial and organizational psychology}}
{{Psychology sidebar}}
'''Work design''' (also referred to as '''job''' '''design''' or '''task design''') is an area of research and practice within [[industrial and organizational psychology]], and is concerned with the "content and organization of one's work tasks, activities, relationships, and responsibilities" (p.&nbsp;662).<ref name=":4" /> Research has demonstrated that work design has important implications for individual employees (e.g., [[employee engagement]], [[job strain]], risk of [[occupational injury]]), teams (e.g., how [[Team effectiveness|effectively]] groups co-ordinate their activities), organisations (e.g., [[productivity]], [[occupational safety and health]] targets), and society (e.g., utilizing the skills of a population or promoting [[Successful aging|effective aging]]).<ref name=":6" />

The terms ''job design'' and ''work design'' are often used interchangeably in [[psychology]] and [[human resource management]] literature, and the distinction is not always well-defined. A [[job]] is typically defined as an aggregation of tasks assigned to individual.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Wong|first1=Chi-sum|last2=Campion|first2=Michael A.|date=1991|title=Development and test of a task level model of motivational job design.|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.76.6.825|journal=Journal of Applied Psychology|volume=76|issue=6|pages=825–837|doi=10.1037/0021-9010.76.6.825|issn=0021-9010}}</ref> However, in addition to executing assigned technical tasks, people at work often engage in a variety of emergent, social, and self-initiated activities.<ref name=":6" /> Some researchers have argued that the term ''job design'' therefore excludes processes that are initiated by incumbents (e.g., [[proactivity]], [[job crafting]]) as well as those that occur at the level of teams (e.g., [[autonomous work group]]s).<ref name=":6" /> The term ''work design'' has been increasingly used to capture this broader perspective.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":6" /><ref>{{Cite book|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452231518|title=Job and Work Design: Organizing Work to Promote Well-Being and Effectiveness|date=1998|publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc.|isbn=978-0-7619-0419-9|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|doi=10.4135/9781452231518|last1=Parker |first1=Sharon |last2=Wall |first2=Toby }}</ref> Additionally, deliberate interventions aimed at altering work design are sometimes referred to as ''work redesign.'' Such interventions can be initiated by the management of an organization (e.g., [[job rotation]], [[job enlargement]], [[job enrichment]]) or by individual workers (e.g., [[job crafting]], role innovation, idiosyncratic deals).<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Knight|first1=Caroline|last2=Parker|first2=Sharon K|date=2019-10-01|title=How work redesign interventions affect performance: An evidence-based model from a systematic review|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0018726719865604|journal=Human Relations|volume=74|issue=1|pages=69–104|doi=10.1177/0018726719865604|issn=0018-7267|hdl=20.500.11937/76392|s2cid=210583587|hdl-access=free}}</ref>