Early in the last century, Henry Ford became rich and famous by building automobiles on an assembly line. Every Ford worker was assigned a specific, repetitive task. For instance, one person would just put on the right-front wheel and someone else would install the right-front door. By breaking jobs up into small standardized tasks, which could be performed over and over again, Ford was able to produce cars at the rate of one every ten seconds while using employees who had relatively limited skills.
Ford demonstrated that work can be performed more efficiently if employees are allowed to specialize. Today, the term, job specialization, or division of labor, is used to describe the degree to which tasks in the organization are subdivided into separate jobs.
By definition, Job specialization is the degree to which the overall task of the organization is broken down and divided into smaller component parts.
Job specialization occurs when a job is composed of a small part of a larger task or process. Specialized jobs are characterized by simple, easy-to-learn steps; low variety; and high repetition, such as the Ford's automobiles assembly line just described.
The essence of job specialization is that, rather than an entire job being done by one individual, it is broken down into a number of steps, each step being completed by a separate individual. In essence, individuals specialize in doing a part of an activity rather than the entire activity.
Although specialization is generally thought of in terms of operating jobs, many organizations have extended the basic elements of specialization to managerial and professional level as well.
Benefits and Limitations of Specialization
Job specialization provides four benefits to organizations.
- First, workers performing small, simple tasks will become very proficient at each task.
- Second, transfer time between tasks decreases. If employees perform several different tasks, some time is lost as they stop doing the first task and start doing the next.
- Third, the more narrowly defined a job is, the easier it is to develop specialized equipment to assist with that job.
- Fourth, when an employee who performs a highly specialized job is absent or resigns, the manager is able to train someone new at relatively low cost.
Equally important, training for specialization is more efficient from the organization’s perspective. It is easier and less costly to find and train workers to do specific and repetitive tasks. This is especially true of highly sophisticated and complex operations. For example, could Cessna produce one Citation jet a year if one person had to build the entire plane alone?
On the hand, job specialization can have negative consequences. The foremost criticism is that workers who perform highly specialized jobs may become bored and dissatisfied.
The job may be so specialized and easy to learn that it offers no challenge or stimulation. Boredom and monotony set in, absenteeism and employee turnover rises, and the quality of the work may suffer, all of which are very costly to organizations.
Furthermore, the anticipated benefits of specialization do not always occur. For example, a classic study conducted at Maytag found that the time spent moving work in process from one worker to another was greater than the time needed for the same individual to change from job to job.
Thus, although some degree of specialization is necessary, it should not be carried to extremes because of the possible negative consequences.
Definition: Job specialization is a process where individuals or employees develop specific skills and expertise to perform certain activities. It involves training the person to excel in a given set of tasks.
What Does Job Specialization Mean?
Assembly lines are an example of job specialization environments. Since productive activities are reduced to very simple tasks performed by various individuals throughout the whole system. These workers are very specialized in what they do since they only do one task. On the other hand, job specialization can also happen in other organizational and academic environments. Individuals can choose certain academic paths that will lead them to be specialists at their specific field.
Organizations can also train its employees to take control over certain unique activities such as digital marketing, social media or human resources recruitment. This will cause the person to specialize in that particular tasks, but it will also create a highly inflexible work situation since it will be difficult to shift his career path after some years have passed.
This is perhaps the most important disadvantage of job specialization, since workers can have a hard time to either change their field of expertise easily or to obtain a new job if the demand for their expertise starts to decrease or the job itself becomes obsolete because of new technologies.
Example
Marcus is a mechanical engineer working for a big automobile manufacturer based in Detroit. Marcus has 10 years of experience working in the development of engine technologies and maintenance and the company has invested a lot of money into his training, raising Marcus to be an expert in this particular field. Recently, Marcus started to develop interest in finance and he has been trying to apply for a position inside the company at the Finance Department.
Since his training and academic background is not related to this field at all, Marcus is having a difficult time to shift. A career advisor told him that in order to make this radical change he will need to earn an academic degree in that field and start working his way up in the corporate ladder from scratch.
In organized structure how job tasks are formally divided, grouped and coordinated. There are six key elements that manages need to address when they design their organizations structure. These are: work specialization, departmentalization chain of command, span of control, centralization and decentralization and formalization. The following sections describe these six elements of structure.
Early in the twentieth century, Henry Ford became rich and famous by building automobiles on an assembly line. Every Ford worker was assigned a specific, repetitive task. For instances one person would just put on the right front wheel and someone else would install the right front door. By breaking jobs up into small standardized tasks, which could be performed over and over every 10 seconds while using employees who had relatively limited skills.
Ford demonstrated that work can be performed more efficiently if employee area allowed to specialize. Today we use the term work specializations or division of labor, to describe the degree to which activities in the organization are subdivided into separate jobs. The essence of work specialization is that rather than an entire job being done by one individual it is broken down into a number of steps with each step being completed by a separate individual. In essence individuals specialize in doing part of an activity rather to the entire activity.
By the late 1940s most manufacturing jobs in industrialized countries were being done with high work specialization. Management saw this as a means to make the most efficient use in its employee skills. In most organizations some tasks require highly developed skills and others can be performed by untrained workers. If all workers were engaged in each step of, say and organizations; manufacturing process al would have to have the skills necessary to perform both the most demanding and the least demanding jobs. The results would be that, except when performing the most skilled or highly complex tasks, employees would be working below their skills levels. And because skilled workers are paid more than unskilled workers and their wages tend to reflect their highest level of skill, it represents an inefficient use of organizational resources to pay highly skilled workers to do easy tasks.
Managers also saw other efficiency that could be achieved through work specialization. Employee skills of performing a task successfully increase through repetition. Less time is spent in changing tasks, in putting away one’s tools and equipment from a prior step in the work process, and in getting ready for another. Equally important, training for specialization is more efficient from the organization’s perspective. It’s easier and less costly to find and train workers to do specific and repetitive tasks. This is especially true of highly sophisticated and complex operations. For example could Cessna produce one Citation jet a year if one person had to build the entire plane alone? Not likely! Finally, work specializations increases efficiency and productivity by encouraging the creations of special inventions and machinery.
For such of the first half of the twentieth century, managers viewed work specialization as an unending source of increased productivity. And they were probably RIGHT. Because specialization was not widely practiced, its practiced its introduce almost always generated higher productivity. But by the 1960s there came increasing evidence that a good thing can be carried too far. The point had been reached in some jobs at which the human diseconomies from specialization – which surface as boredom, fatigue, stress, low productivity, poor quality, increased absenteeism and high turnover – more than offset the economic advantages. In such cases, productivity could be increased by enlarging rather than narrowing, the scope of job activities. In addition, a number of companies found that by giving employees a variety of activities to do allowing team to do a whole and complete job, and putting them into teams with interchangeable skills, they often achieved significantly higher output with increased employer satisfaction.
Most managers today see work specialization as neither obsolete nor an unending source of increased productivity rather managers recognize the economies it provides in certain types of jobs and the problems it creates when it’s carried too far. You’ll find, for example, high work specialization being used by McDonald to efficiently make and sell hamburgers and fries, and by medical specialists in most health maintenance organizations. On the other hand, companies like Saturn Corporation have had success by broadening the scope of jobs and reducing specialization.
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