Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Essay Example

Given the inherently individual natures of both workforces and workers, it is virtually impossible to determine a single system of production as more effective in a general sense.  Division of labor practices or those depending on employee autonomy, in regard to complete responsibility for a task assigned to one person, each have benefits and disadvantages; what dictates the best course to follow are the unique and specific factors in play.  For example, division of labor offers the significant asset of generating senses of worth within employees.  It is noted that this model typically requires relatively few skills from individual employees, as each contributes a certain ability to a finished product (Spector, 2012, p. 361).  The degree of skill, however, is apart from the employee’s sense of attending to an assignment solely entrusted to them; the worker responsible only for the fit of a laptop case, for example, likely views the work as crucial to the product’s success as any other element of it, so division of labor goes to increasing employee commitment.

At the same time, division of labor eliminates the valuable component of team interaction.  Division of labor would then seem to be better when there are specific and unchanging processes to complete, or when the end product, as in a computer, is the goal.  When tasks are less defined, as in an HR department’s need to devise new employee policies, it is more efficient to have multiple employees working together, to generate ideas through communication.  Such processes typically translate to less strict time parameters; as the goal is not established in terms of final product, the process demands consideration as it proceeds, and as ideas evolve from the interactions.  Nonetheless, what results is a product which may not be developed by the single individual, and which likely benefits from the group participation in the actual development.  Moreover, and importantly, the same sense of ownership as noted in the division of labor process may be evident here as well, as employees enjoy a sense of individually contributing to the whole.

References

Spector, P. E. (2012).  Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Research and Practice (6th ed.).  Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.