Respone to "Job Rotation for the Head Honchos"

     This article did a great job of illustrating the benefits of job rotation.  It discussed several people in upper management/executive positions, switching departments and job titles that were very different than the ones they had previously been performing.  As the article points out, job rotation is an excellent way for employees to gain fresh, new perspectives and insights, as well as giving them an opportunity to explore a field they may enjoy and excel in.  By switching employees around, it gives companys a chance to discover contributions employees can make that may not have been noticed or utilized before.  It also avoids the hassle, risk, and cost of outside hiring.
    In my own work experience I have seen the positive effects from job rotation.  I work in a restaurant and there are sometimes misunderstandings, disputes, "mini-fights," and anamosity between the different positions in the restaurant (servers, bartenders, hosts, cooks).  When someone decides they want to be cross-trained in another position, or if they are asked to work a different position, it is very interesting to watch how they behave after returning to their original job.  For example, the cooks can be very rude to the servers.  One day a cook (Ben) decided he wanted to try serving.  Ben lasted two days before getting overwhelmed, very stressed and confused, and eventually dropped a tray of drinks all over two ladies and then ran in the bathroom and refused to get out for quite some time.  He quit serving and returned to cooking after realizing how difficult the job was.  Needless to say, he is no longer mean to the servers, in fact he is very helpful. 
    Examples like this one happen on a regular basis at my job.  By switching employees around from time to time, it enables them to see things in a way they may not have been able to before; it allows them to gain valuable insights that can help them add greater contributions to the organization.
     Job rotation will not always work.  As our book points out, in jobs that are highly specified and monotonous, job rotation may not have the same benefits.  If an employee has a very boring job or feels that their work is very insignificant, allowing them to perform a differnt, boring, monotonous, and insignificant job is not going to please them or add to their development.  Therefore, I do not think job rotation is always effective; howver, in many situations, especially those that are not entry-level and require decision making and creativity, job roation can be highly beneficial.

"Uncle Sam Wants You"

     For this case, it is clear that motivation from the recruiters is a problem as it seems that many of them are unhappy in their position.  Since the current number of recruits is not optimal, it is clear that this issue needs to be addressed.  However, there are several external factors mentioned that are negatively impacting their productivity.  First of all, the army no longer has a draft, so recruiters have to rely soley on volunteers; and as this case mentioned, the current generation does not have a strong sense of civic duty compared to other generations.  Also, those who are actually voluntering are not committing to the army for very long.  Instead, they are serving as much time as they need to accumulate financial and educational benefits and then leaving.  The workforce is also much more educated than it used to be, therefore people are choosing more sophisticated jobs. 

For this case, there were many problems associated with motivation.  The recruiter's job clearly needs to be redesigned, along with adding incentives.  First of all, the amount of hours they are expected to work needs to be decreased dramatically.  Second, I don't think the recruiters should simply be assigned to this position.  As the case pointed out, many of them feel out of place and don't want to be doing this kind of work, instead they want to use the skills they were trained in for the army.  As one recruiter put it, "I'm a soldier not a salesman.  If I wanted to be a salesman I wouldn't have sifned up."  Therefore, I think only those who volunteer should be expected to be recruiters.  However, to attract more volunteers, the army is going to have to greatly increase the incentives for this position.  This includes promotions since it is clear that this is an important incentive to them.  Also, the expectations (quotas) from the chain of command either needs to be readjusted or the way they are communicating with the recruiters and the pressure they are putting on them needs to be re-evaluated.  Many recruiters felt that you can't simply push people to sign up for the army.  The higher-ups need to understand that the recruiters are doing the best they can and pressuring them to sign more people up does not help, instead it provokes resentment.  I also feel that the targeted demographic for recruitees needs to be revisited.  The case mentioned that the recruiters were trying to fill entry level positions because those in college usually self-select.  However, the case also mentioned that one of the reasons its has become harder to recruit people is because the workforce is becoming more educated and those people are not opting to work in the army.  Therefore, I think it makes sense to target this audience by going to colleges as well to recruit.
     
Do you think different people are motivated by different factors?  Is there a way for employers to address these differences in an attempt to motivate more people?

Enriching Jobs at Standard Decoy

      In this case, it was not merely money that motivated the employees; instead job enrichment motivated them.  Prior to this program, the employees were getting bored with their work and didn't take much pride in it because their tasks weren't very meaningful and they were not even creating a whole product.  
      The "Odd Ducks" program enriched the jobs at Standard Decoy in several ways.  It gave them a chance to express their ideas and creativity about their work and gave them more autonomy by allowing them to create their own pieces of work.  This gave the workers a sense of pride and accomplishment, thus improving motivation.  The success of the "Odd Ducks" program can be explained by the Job Characteristics Theory discussed in our book. 
     This program demonstrated the five characteristics of jobs that enable the three psychological states that lead to greater worker outcomes.  First, it demonstrated skill variety; by creating their own ducks, the workers were able to use a variety of different skills and activities instead of simply working on just a small part.  This also prevented the workers from getting bored from performing the same monotonous tasks over and over.  Second, the program demonstrated task identity by allowing the workers to create a whole, tangible, identifiable piece of work that they could be proud of.  Third, the program demonstrated autonomy because it allowed the workers to work on their own individual projects and at their preferred pace.  Fourth, it demonstrated task significance because it created a market for odd ducks and the workers could sell them and collect half of the money.  Many of the workers also collaborated with others to make the odd ducks.  Lastly, the program demonstrated positive feedback from the managers, buyers, and fellow workers. 
     As the job characteristics theory points out, the existence of all five of these dimensions allows for the three critical psychological states: experienced meaningfulness of the work, experienced responsibility for outcomes of the work, and knowledge of the actual results of work activities.  Since all 5 core job dimensions were present in the "Odd Ducks" program, the workers were able to experience these psychological states, thus resulting in higher motivation, higher quality work performance, higher satisfaction with their work, and probably lower absenteeism and turnover.