If you do have airline job descriptions, take a critical look at them. Ask yourself 'what if' questions about what you do and the way you do it. Do they give scope for change and development, of both work and people? Do they provide goals and challenges, or do they describe duties and routines? Ensure that your people have airline job descriptions which enrich rather than impoverish their experience at work.
What else you can do to enrich your subordinates' airline jobs depends on your present situation and power base. A full re-evaluation of airline jobs and reconstitution of working methods may be neither necessary nor feasible, but there is a lot a good boss can do to increase the quality of his or her subordinates' working lives without having to take over the company to do it:
1. Show trust.
Remove petty controls; give your staff more freedom and accountability in arranging and pacing their own work schedules; increase levels for spending/ordering without prior approval; let them sigh their own mail; share more information with them about the company and about your own problems and intentions at work.
2. Communicate and share.
Use joint problem-solving rather than telling; allow staff to share in working out your airline job-enrichment scheme; give appraisal and feedback; seek their opinions; inform staff about company progress; advise about advancement.
3. Increase responsibility and authority
Delegate larger airline jobs; amalgamate tasks into whole airline job units; give clear power to achieve an end product; let them participate at meetings for which they have prepared material; require less frequent checks or longer reporting periods; let them see and control their own error rates; give maximum self-regulation with clear knowledge of goals; grant greater discretion in decision-making.
4. Improve abilities and prestige
Give new, or harder, tasks to stretch abilities, let typists draft correspondence; let your secretary run a few meeting; enable the development of specialism; let the best word processor or machine operator become an instructor for others; let the computer expert teach you; give training and coaching; let staff know how good they are by seeing the results for themselves; consider rotation of routine or repetitive airline jobs on an hourly, daily, weekly basis (but don't impose it).
5. Enthuse
Enrich everyone's life by showing a little excitement and enthusiasm; celebrate their achievements, yours and the company's; build into airline job design recognition and dignity.
The strongest incentive for implementing good management ideas is doing things for other people which benefit ourselves even more - and airline job enrichment is no exception. The benefits to you, probably outweigh those to your subordinates:
- Better motivation and airline job satisfaction.
- Increased output and higher performance.
- Greater knowledge of and commitment to, company goals.
- Development of existing and new skills.
- Opportunities to assess potential in advanced tasks.
- More flexible and adaptable workforce.
- Better airline job / person match becomes possible.
- Encourages desire for self-development / learning.
- More challenge, stimulation and variety.
It's a wonder every manager isn't dedicated to airline job enrichment. But even those who are don't always apply it widely enough. One of the often neglected groups is the counter staff in retail, food and service industries. These are the people in intimate daily contact with the whole purpose of the business - the customer. Are your counter staff given any discretion in the stock that is held? The quality of the product? The layout of the store? The handling of complaints? The ordering procedures and the time it takes to get supplies? Do you send them off to try out your competitors and identify w2hat they do bette4r, and have someone listen to them when they get back? Do they get a chance to specialize in a particular range of products / services, and also to try out other departments?
The other group which invariably works well below its potential and is usually overlooked when considering airline job enrichment and other management development schemes, or anything else for that matter, is that composed of secretaries.
These days many secretaries are more qualified than their bosses and they are often better organizers and handlers of people. Wise bosses do not feel threatened and try to keep them down, but identify and use the secretary's strengths to complement their won. Take a long, hard look at your secretary's qualifications, abilities and experience. Is he or she really using his / her full potential for the benefit of yourself and the firm? Get someone else to mind your outer office for an hour, sit down with your secretary and work out ways in which his / her airline job can be extended and enriched - ways that include not only you delegating more of your work, but also you increasing your secretary's freedom of action and responsibility.***
What else you can do to enrich your subordinates' airline jobs depends on your present situation and power base. A full re-evaluation of airline jobs and reconstitution of working methods may be neither necessary nor feasible, but there is a lot a good boss can do to increase the quality of his or her subordinates' working lives without having to take over the company to do it:
1. Show trust.
Remove petty controls; give your staff more freedom and accountability in arranging and pacing their own work schedules; increase levels for spending/ordering without prior approval; let them sigh their own mail; share more information with them about the company and about your own problems and intentions at work.
2. Communicate and share.
Use joint problem-solving rather than telling; allow staff to share in working out your airline job-enrichment scheme; give appraisal and feedback; seek their opinions; inform staff about company progress; advise about advancement.
3. Increase responsibility and authority
Delegate larger airline jobs; amalgamate tasks into whole airline job units; give clear power to achieve an end product; let them participate at meetings for which they have prepared material; require less frequent checks or longer reporting periods; let them see and control their own error rates; give maximum self-regulation with clear knowledge of goals; grant greater discretion in decision-making.
4. Improve abilities and prestige
Give new, or harder, tasks to stretch abilities, let typists draft correspondence; let your secretary run a few meeting; enable the development of specialism; let the best word processor or machine operator become an instructor for others; let the computer expert teach you; give training and coaching; let staff know how good they are by seeing the results for themselves; consider rotation of routine or repetitive airline jobs on an hourly, daily, weekly basis (but don't impose it).
5. Enthuse
Enrich everyone's life by showing a little excitement and enthusiasm; celebrate their achievements, yours and the company's; build into airline job design recognition and dignity.
The strongest incentive for implementing good management ideas is doing things for other people which benefit ourselves even more - and airline job enrichment is no exception. The benefits to you, probably outweigh those to your subordinates:
- Better motivation and airline job satisfaction.
- Increased output and higher performance.
- Greater knowledge of and commitment to, company goals.
- Development of existing and new skills.
- Opportunities to assess potential in advanced tasks.
- More flexible and adaptable workforce.
- Better airline job / person match becomes possible.
- Encourages desire for self-development / learning.
- More challenge, stimulation and variety.
It's a wonder every manager isn't dedicated to airline job enrichment. But even those who are don't always apply it widely enough. One of the often neglected groups is the counter staff in retail, food and service industries. These are the people in intimate daily contact with the whole purpose of the business - the customer. Are your counter staff given any discretion in the stock that is held? The quality of the product? The layout of the store? The handling of complaints? The ordering procedures and the time it takes to get supplies? Do you send them off to try out your competitors and identify w2hat they do bette4r, and have someone listen to them when they get back? Do they get a chance to specialize in a particular range of products / services, and also to try out other departments?
The other group which invariably works well below its potential and is usually overlooked when considering airline job enrichment and other management development schemes, or anything else for that matter, is that composed of secretaries.
These days many secretaries are more qualified than their bosses and they are often better organizers and handlers of people. Wise bosses do not feel threatened and try to keep them down, but identify and use the secretary's strengths to complement their won. Take a long, hard look at your secretary's qualifications, abilities and experience. Is he or she really using his / her full potential for the benefit of yourself and the firm? Get someone else to mind your outer office for an hour, sit down with your secretary and work out ways in which his / her airline job can be extended and enriched - ways that include not only you delegating more of your work, but also you increasing your secretary's freedom of action and responsibility.***
