Can Jobs speak? I am positive about it; in my humble view a job can speak with its doer. ‘Talking Jobs’ are need of the hour. Reason is that millennials/Gen-Yers, who are replacing Gen-Xers at work places, want to experience and feel their work. Interactive designs are among one of their ideals. Thus, in order to make them involve into work and make them perform at their best such jobs are needed that talk to them. First we need to understand ‘talking jobs’. A ‘talking job’ is a job that interacts with its doer. It tells the person that s/he is doing it right or not. It suggests solutions to employees if they get stuck during the course of performing it. It provides continuous feedback. It informs employees that what skills they need in order to do it. It asks worker if s/he needs further resources in order to perform it.
Now we are going to discuss the ideas that are helpful in making jobs talk to employees.
Continuous Feedback:
Continuous feedback means providing feedback to an employee for his every action that s/he does during the course of performing a task. If s/he is doing a right thing s/he must be informed with appreciation. If s/he is making any mistake s/he must be immediately informed about it along with the guidance to correct it. It is easier to do this in those companies that are small, where there are few and simple tasks. Feedback can be provided by directly by supervisors. Those organizations that are big, over there software based mechanisms should be placed for this purpose. Software provides feedback for every milestone that an employee meets during the course of performing a task. Tasks can be divided into many parts and time-bound milestones may be set. You must be wondering that I am talking about ‘talking jobs’ and I am suggesting that supervisors or software are the ones who may be used for the purpose of feedback. Let me elaborate it so that it makes sense to you. A job cannot talk or speak itself, things must be designed in such a way that give an impression to the one who works that the work is in contact with her/him. The concept of feedback is that it informs the doer that s/he is on the right track or not. It makes the doer feel that the two way communication is taking place between her/him and the work.
Time Bound Tasks:
Time bound tasks communicate with doers. As time progresses during the course of performing a task it tells the doer that how much time s/he is left with him. Actually this way communication happens between the doer and her/his job. Let me give you an example for explaining it, during the course of playing video game the timer tells that how much time has passed and what is left behind. The aim is to connect player with the game and to make him involve into it.
Announcement of Accomplishments:
When a work related accomplishment of an employee is being highlighted it brings her/him more close to her/his work. It helps to make the employee-job bond strong. S/He feels connected to her/his work due to the fact that it helps her/him to earn recognition.
Autonomy:
Job enrichment bestows control and authority to employee over her/his job. S/He becomes responsible in terms of job. S/He feels more close to his job along with having the sense of ownership. It makes the connection between both of them strong.
Freedom to Fail:
Things that make us scare of exams are fear of doing unseen and fear of failure, due to these two reasons many of us hate exams. Due to these facts during the course of studies one thing that most of us want to avoid is appearing in exams. For this reason connection between us and exams is week. Most of people hardly feel that questions paper talks to them; they feel that it orders them to write correct answers. Imagine if exams allow us to make mistakes and give us chance to correct our mistakes by learning out of it, people will love exams. People love video games because they get freedom to fail while playing games. If players lose game they get further chances to start it again. Game teaches players how they must play it and how they should meet challenges. It is a unique example of communication. This communication is another reason that people love video games. The same model may be applied to jobs.
The above mentioned factors will help to design such jobs that talk with doers. ‘Talking Jobs’ will improve performance of employees. Connection between employees and their work will grow strong. Most of all ‘talking jobs’ will prove to be beneficial in the case of millennials/Gen-Yers. Issues of employee engagement and motivation may also be sorted this way.
