Job Enlargement: A Strategic Way to Develop Employees

Job enlargement is a professional enrichment strategy that seeks to engage employees by giving them additional responsibilities that expand their current skill set and facilitate career growth. Through this process, human resources professionals broaden the scope of an employee’s job scope, creating a more challenging and diversified work environment that helps further develop skills and increase job satisfaction. 

According to research published by the University of Minnesota Libraries, job enlargement can increase engagement “by giving employees several different tasks to be performed, as opposed to limiting their activities to a small number of tasks, [which helps] to reduce boredom and monotony as well as utilize human resources more effectively” [1]. Furthermore, if your business provides opportunities for career growth and new challenges, it can attract more top talent. 

Discover more about the definition of job enlargement and how it might benefit your workplace below.

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What is job enlargement?

Job enlargement occurs when you assign employees additional responsibilities at the same level as their existing tasks, which are meaningfully distinct from those they currently perform. This provides the employee with a more comprehensive list of duties, ensuring their daily tasks are more challenging and, potentially, increasing their job satisfaction.

Job enlargement helps to reduce the monotony of repetitive tasks, which can assist your employees with maintaining their concentration. It is also called horizontal job enlargement because it expands with additional related responsibilities. For example, a bank teller who is assigned additional duties like selling certificates of deposit would be experiencing horizontal job enlargement. 

Job enlargement example

One example of job enlargement is the horizontal expansion of an employee's output. For example, you might increase the baseline amount of transactions or sales and offer higher compensation.

Combining tasks, such as asking a worker to complete more steps of a project before sending it to the next team member, is an example of job enlargement that helps the employee develop new skills and better time management.

Job enlargement benefits

Job enlargement has the potential to provide a range of benefits for both your employees and your business. These benefits include:

• Enhanced job satisfaction and employee morale: Employees given the opportunity to develop skills and grow their experience tend to feel more motivated and satisfied.

• Increased skill development opportunities: Job enlargement provides the chance for employees to develop a wide range of workplace skills, such as self-discipline, organization, and communication.

• Impact on employee engagement and retention: Employees who get the chance to work on various tasks tend to stay longer in their roles and enjoy their work more.

• Improved work-life balance through varied tasks: Job enlargement often leads to work flexibility, such as working from home, which can increase productivity and job fulfillment. 

Read more: Employee Engagement: What It Is and Why It Matters

Implementing job enlargement strategies

Implementing job enlargement strategies requires clear communication with your employees, which helps to set expectations and demonstrates the reason why you are choosing to implement job enlargement. Connecting the choice to an employee’s career growth is helpful. Take time to assess and evaluate the tasks your employees currently have and identify the ones that might be monotonous and repetitive.

Once you know which skills you’d like your employees to develop through job enlargement, it’s important to provide them with the right training and support as they attempt to perform their new tasks. Even after completing the training, you might consider pairing more senior staff members with the employees as mentors or coaches. Continuous supervision and feedback can help balance employees' new responsibilities within their expanded roles. This also helps to minimize the risk of job creep, where an employee’s responsibilities continue to increase over time, possibly leading to frustration or lack of capacity.

Consider creating a system of recognition and reward to further develop a positive working environment and encourage employees to continue improving their skill set. You can also consider deliberately limiting the number of new tasks given at any time to prevent feelings of being overwhelmed.

Read more: 9 Ways to Boost Employee Skills at Your Company

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Job enlargement challenges

Job enlargement has potential obstacles, so it’s important to be aware of them before implementing these strategies. One common issue, for example, is the risk of increasing an employee's workload too much without the proper compensation, which can decrease their motivation and raise their stress level. To mitigate these negative possibilities, you might consider offering an incentive program, such as pay raises, to encourage continual engagement.

Another method for overcoming these obstacles is to collaborate with your employees. Involve your staff in decision-making to help ensure they have the skill set necessary to manage their new responsibilities effectively without leading to burnout.

Measuring the success of job enlargement

To measure the success of your job enlargement program, ask your employees for feedback. This can help you discover if the program is actually providing employees the opportunity to develop skills or if, instead, they are feeling overwhelmed. You can also discover where they might benefit from extra support regarding their new responsibilities. 

A positive job enlargement program can also increase your employees’ agility when faced with new tasks and their value to the business. Furthermore, you may see a marked increase in employee motivation and engagement, as well as a greater sense of job satisfaction because your employees can now perceive the overall effect of their efforts.

Read more: Unlocking Success through Employee Development: An In-Depth Guide

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Job enlargement helps increase worker motivation and engagement by reducing monotonous tasks and adding opportunities to develop new skills. By expanding a role horizontally through similar tasks, you provide employees with a variety that helps to minimize boredom and keeps them motivated and inspired. 

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