Work Design in the Digital Age

Introduction

Whether it is driven by market demands, product innovations, or other disruptions, technological change is a constant in our working lives. New digital technologies are adopted to promote greater organizational efficiency and to create new value-propositions for consumers who demand digital solutions. Artificial intelligence is posed to disrupt, augment, and improve many existing work processes. And events such as the covid-19 pandemic can majorly disrupt the way that businesses operate using technology. These and other changes require organizations to change the way work is designed, sometimes very quickly.

Work design concerns the content, structure, and organization of work tasks, activities, and relationships and the effect they have on individual and group outcomes. Good work design requires seeing the technological and human components of the organization as interdependent and knowing that success requires ensuring that human needs are addressed when technology is introduced or changed. When this is achieved, work design contributes positively to a range of important work outcomes, including increased performance, safety, motivation, and well-being. Poorly designed work, however, can lead to lower productivity and higher rates of absenteeism, workers compensation, and turnover. Designing work where humans work synergistically with technology to promote positive outcomes, and being quick to adjust work design when needed, is critical to the competitive advantage of organizations. Thus, work design is a core skill that organizational psychology specialists should possess to contribute to organizational success and viability both now and in the future of work.

In this course, students will learn theoretical and practical knowledge necessary for designing work that contributes to positive individual and group outcomes in the digital age. They will be exposed to different approaches to work design and how work design interacts with people’s abilities and needs to influence important work outcomes. They will gain insight into the implications new technologies have for work, and how to design work that leverages new technologies in a “human-centered” way.

Course content

Topics covered in the course include:

• Work design as the optimization of psychosocial and technical systems
• Person-job fit
• Different approaches to work design, including mechanistic approaches (e.g., scientific management, Taylorism), perceptual/motor approaches (e.g., ergonomics, human factors), and motivational approaches (e.g., work enrichment, empowerment)
• Work design in digital work contexts (e.g., remote work, hybrid work)
• Different frameworks for work design development and analysis