Job Characteristics: What Are They?

Job characteristics are an approach to designing work that describes work in five core dimensions: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback.

Job Characteristics

These core dimensions of job characteristics are standard features across various work levels. These core dimensions of job characteristics are further described as follows:

Skill Variety

Skill variety is the extent to which a job requires an individual to perform various tasks that necessitate using different skills and abilities.

Task Identity

Task identity is the extent to which a job requires the completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work.

Task Significance

Task significance is the extent to which a job substantially impacts the lives or work of others.

Autonomy

Autonomy is the extent to which a job provides freedom, independence, and substantial discretion to individuals in planning their work and determining the procedures to be used in carrying out the work.

Feedback

Feedback refers to the extent to which the performance of work activities provides a person with clear and direct information about the effectiveness of their work.

These five dimensions of job characteristics create psychological reactions in an individual regarding the meaning, responsibility, and knowledge derived from the job. Ultimately, this impacts employee motivation, performance, and job satisfaction, as well as turnover and absenteeism rates.

CONCLUSION

Job characteristics influence the psychological state of an employee. Employees will perceive the significance of the tasks they are performing, feel responsible for the outcomes of their work, and apply the knowledge they have gained to perform their functions better. This, in turn, results in high internal work motivation, high-quality performance, employee satisfaction, and low employee absenteeism and turnover rates.