How do you design jobs in your company?

Harvard Business Review’s July / August 05 issue carried this article on Job design Tuning Jobs to Fit Your Company : Organizations : HBS Working Knowledge QUOTE To understand what determines whether a job is designed for high performance, you must put yourself in the shoes of your organization’s managers. To carry out his or her job, each employee has to know the answer to four basic questions: * “What resources do I control to accomplish my tasks?” * “What measures will be used to evaluate my performance?” * “Who do I need to interact with and influence to achieve my goals?” * “How much support can I expect when I reach out to others for help?” The questions correspond to what I call the four basic spans of a job: control, accountability, influence, and support. Each span can be adjusted so that it is narrow or wide or somewhere in between. ENDQUOTE You can read article by follwing the link. I feel this is a very superficial way of designing jobs. At the most basic level questions to be asked are -which business processes are being performed through the job holder? -what kind of projects will be executed involving the job-holder -what knowledge and abilities are critical for success -what operating values are critical for success Failed jobs or jobs which leave the job-holder fending for herself happen because above questions are never raised. I feel that the four spans arise out of answers to above questions. The answers to the basic questions which I have mentioned will lead to a good job design. Hemant