Psychological Characteristics of Jobs



Psychological Characteristics of Jobs

Introduction

This paper intends to evaluate my current job through 'Job Characteristics Model (JCM)' and calculate the 'Motivating Potential Score (MPS)' for my current job.

Discussion

I am an Aerospace Control Officer in the United States Air Force. I have worked as one for 4 years and before that I was a space systems operator and controller of the GPS satellite constellation. As an Aerospace Control Officer I control restricted airspaces for all rocket launches on the East coast out of Cape Canaveral Air force station - I have been on the launch team for shuttle, Falcon 9, Atlas V, Delta IV and Delta II. As a Space systems operator I conducted satellite states of health and provided navigation, time transfer and nuclear detection for the world.

I am using the self report instrument for managers developed by Hackman and Oldham in 1976 in order to diagnose the working environment. I have filled up the questionnaire which is the first step towards calculating the Motivating Potential Score. After filling up the questionnaire, I found the following results;

Skill Variety (SV) shows various different activities of a job which requires different set of skills = 3.4

Task Identity (TI) shows how the job is well understood to achieve a measurable outcome = 3.25

Task Significance (TS) shows how the job impact the employees life both in professional and personal manner = 3.25

Autonomy (AU) shows the flexibility in work an employee can enjoy in order to gain maximum benefits with the tasks he performs = 6.5

Feedback (FB) is gaining information about the effectiveness of employees performance = 3

The Motivating Potential Score calculated by the above mentioned figures is 64.35 which are quite low because of the fact that I have huge job satisfaction and I love my job immensely. The MPS scores does not provide a realistic figure related to my job satisfaction and I feel that there are few factors which lead to job satisfaction are lacking in the instrument provided by Hackman and Oldham.

The JCM model is basically dependent on the fact that the job itself is a key to employee motivation. Job variety, autonomy and authority to decide are considered the best ways to make any job challenging. Thus, enrichment of job and rotation of job are used often in order to make the job challenging and full of variety. JCM depicts that challenging job improvises motivation levels whereas boring ...