1 Dejobbing is likely to introduce training costs as employees are required to develop new skill areas. What arguments could you use to justify such costs?

A job may be enriched by an individual undertaking greater responsibility,

e. g. by organising and checking their own work, or by being involved in decisions about planning the work of their unit. Extending the opportunities for making decisions and exercising judgement changes the content of the work. Job enrichment programmes attempt to build in, over time, scope for the development of an individual’s skills to provide a sense of personal achievement. This approach frequently affects the nature of other jobs, and therefore careful consideration needs to be given to the whole process of reallocating responsibilities, redefining roles and providing the necessary retraining. Over the years there have been a number of instances where job enrichment has led to increased job satisfaction and favourably influenced performance.
Source: based on Department of Employment (1975).
ICI – experimenting with job enrichment In the 1960s ICI was one of a handful of companies in the UK that experimented seriously with job enrichment. One job enrichment study within ICI examined the role of sales representatives who appeared to be satisfied with their job but were given very little discretion over the way they operated. The following changes were instituted as part of the job enrichment programme.
Sales representatives no longer had to write a report on every customer call. Instead they passed on, or requested, information at their own discretion. They were also given total responsibility for determining the frequency of calls to customers, deciding how to deal with faulty or unwanted stock, requesting service from the technical services department and making immediate settlements up to a certain sum in case of customer complaint, if they felt this would prejudice further liability of the company. In addition, they were given discretion to adjust prices on a range up to 10 per cent on the price of most of the products sold, the lower limit often being below any price previously quoted by the sales office. Following the implementation of the job enrichment scheme, both job satisfaction and performance increased.