Class discussion on provided reference materials and attachments

.....jobs that I had that were not motivating, but one in particular was an office job that involved mind-numbing work. It checked a lot of boxes for jobs that you don't want to do and I could not get out of there quickly enough. The office was a large, open space, a true cubicle farm, but without partitions, more open. So it was noisy. The lighting was terrible fluorescent. Everybody there was a lifer. I have never heard so much complaining about Mondays, and talk about Hump Day, and that sort of negativity. Nobody really wanted to be there but nobody seemed all that motivated to leave, either. For a young person looking to build something, it was just awful.

Barrick, Mount and Li (2013) wrote a paper discussing the role of personality, job characteristics and experienced meaningfulness. They argue that "personality traits initiate purposeful goal strivings" and essentially make the point that when job characteristics are aligned with these personality traits, the worker experiences meaningfulness. By logic, the misalignment between job characteristics and personality creates meaninglessness. This is really what I experienced. The personalities of people working there were such that most of them accepted their lot in life, even if they didn't like it. So there was this element of depression but for the most part, no conflict, whereas for me it was this direct conflict between my personal ambitions in life and what could ever be achieved in that environment. The main role of people there was to double-check paperwork, and my role was mortgage forms. I was contributing to literally nothing other than making sure that no major errors were happening in these forms, and nobody in that place was on any sort of positive career track, not even the managers.

Job design, and aligning personality type with job design, is important because some people, given their personality type and career expectations, are simply not a good fit for certain jobs. Some people are well-suited for mundane, routine work, but for people who are not such job design really only creates motivation to leave, not motivation to perform.

Herzberg's two-factor theory (NetMBA, 2010) argues that there are factors that lead to dissatisfaction and factors that lead to satisfaction in the workplace. This theory highlights why certain factors do not increase work satisfaction -- those factors being good is the default condition employees will accept, so anything above that is pointless but below is not. This ties in with the job characteristics model because job characteristics should be aligned with personality type.

The key lies in the fact that different personality types value different motivation and hygiene factors. Some personality types, for example, value stability in their situations (Smith & Shields, 2012). If the hygiene factors are all present, they are content, and not worried too much about motivation factors. This contrasts with other personality types that place more emphasis on motivation factors. At the extreme end, some people will work under a lot of negative conditions -- low pay, lousy boss, etc., - if the work itself is stimulating, meaningful, and there is opportunity for growth.

This still means that there has to be some alignment between job design and personality, but with the recognition that different personality types have different needs with respect to the different hygiene and motivating factors. So both of these theories are correct, when you understand what each is. A mundane job filled with routine can be filled if hygiene factors are covered. If hygiene factors lack, then the job had better hit on some motivators, the more the better, and even then it will only attract those people with personality types that are specifically oriented towards those factors.

References

Barrick, M., Mount, M. & Li, N. (2013) The theory of purposeful work behavior: The role of personality, higher-order goals, and job characteristics. Academy of Management Review. 38 (1) 132-153.

NetMBA (2010). Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory. NetMBA.com. Retrieved May 13, 2017 from http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/herzberg/

Smith, D. & Shields, J. (2012) Factors related to social service workers' job satisfaction: Revisiting Herzberg's motivation to work. Administration in Social Work. 37 (2) 189-198.