Horizontal Job Loading & Enlargement – How It Works?

The most popular method for increasing flexibility is horizontal job loading. You can get a thorough explanation about horizontal job loading (also known as job enlargement) in this article. In addition, we will explore its benefits and demonstrate its importance in today's fast-paced environment.

A horizontal job loading is defined as adding new activities to an existing role while maintaining the same level of responsibility. This means that a person's current employees will have more and different activities. For example, rather than relying on her management, the worker will now conduct her own planning.

Job enlargement, like work enrichment, rotation, and simplicity, is an important approach in workforce planning.

Horizontal Job Enlargement 

​One of the most well-known methods for increasing diversity in a profession is to expand it. Job enlargement is defined as adding more activities to an existing role at the same level. This suggests that a person's current employment will include more and varied activities. For example, an employee who will now handle her own planning instead of relying on her manager to do it.

Along with work enrichment, job rotation, and job simplification, job enlargement is a significant method in job redesign.

The terms "job enlargement" and "job enrichment" are frequently interchanged. There is, however, a distinction to be made. Employment enlargement is the process of broadening one's job in order to make it more interesting. The technique of adding motivators to existing occupations is known as job enrichment. This indicates that job enlargement is a type of job enrichment, but not all job enrichment activities qualify as job enlargement.

One of the most important qualities of enlargement is that it expands the job's scope horizontally. As a result, it's also known as horizontal expansion, and it's the polar opposite of specialization. Specialization creates a division of labor in which individuals do specialized jobs. The assumption is that the individual will be extremely effective at doing these duties. Job expansion has the opposite effect. This takes us to the advantages and disadvantages of job expansion.

Advantages of job enlargement

1) Job enlargement essentially entails increasing responsibilities to existing roles. As a result, the job becomes more varied, with a greater range of activities.

2) It lessens boredom, and monotony decreases as a result of a greater diversity of activities. People do not repeat the same highly specialized work 30 times in a row for 9 hours. Instead, they are more involved from start to finish, managing an automated assembly line or carrying a single product through many production processes.

3) Provides a variety of talents and aids in job advancement. More job responsibilities necessitate additional training and assistance in gaining experience. This gives employees new abilities and helps them advance in their careers.

4) It provides employees with the opportunity to earn a greater salary. Increasing a role's duties typically leads to higher pay. The employee receives a specific benefit in the form of higher earnings.

6) It provides greater autonomy, accountability, and accountability. As a result of the added obligations, a number of motivational variables emerge. Because the person is now in charge of numerous linked activities, he or she has greater control over how they do their tasks, resulting in more autonomy. Furthermore, they are more responsible for errors and product quality because they have more engagement with a particular product or service, which gives them a greater sense of ownership and accountability (compared to when they were specialized).

Vertical Job Loading 

Herzberg coined the term "vertical job loading" to characterize his approach to enlarging jobs and providing more challenging work for employees. It's meant to contrast with job enlargement, also known as horizontal job loading, which typically entails providing people additional work without increasing the level of difficulty.

While job enlargement is a horizontal restructuring technique, job enrichment is a vertical restructuring technique since it gives the employee more authority, autonomy, and influence over how the job is done. Job enhancement or vertical job growth are other terms for the same thing.

How vertical job loading differs from horizontal job loading?

Vertical job loading or job enrichment are sometimes mistaken with horizontal job loading or job enlargement. Obviously, there is a substantial difference. Horizontal loading is the process of making one's job more joyful by increasing it.

The process of adding motivating factors to existing jobs is known as vertical loading. Although not all horizontal loading operations qualify as vertical loading, this demonstrates that horizontal job loading is a kind of vertical job loading.

The following are some of the reasons why horizontal job loading differs from vertical job loading:

Job expansion is described as an increase in job responsibility achieved by widening the job's scope. Unlike vertical loading, which enhances control, this strategy focuses on adding extra responsibilities to the task without increasing autonomy or control.

Horizontal job loading enables a person to do more, participate in a greater variety of activities, diversify their abilities and experience, and increase their earning potential.

Vertical Loading Job Enrichment 

Job enrichment entails reworking occupations to make them more complex and less monotonous for employees. According to Herzberg, the top employee motivators are (in descending order) achievement, acknowledgment, the job itself, responsibility, progress, and growth, based on various studies. Jobs should be adjusted to maximize the motivators available to employees in order to improve employee motivation and productivity. To put this concept into context, assume you're a company manager who wants to improve employee pleasure. Keep the following aims in mind as you go through the job enrichment process:

• -Reduce the amount of work that is repetitive.
• -Increase the employee's sense of accomplishment and recognition.
• -Provide opportunities for progression for your employees (as in promotions into jobs requiring more skills).
• -Create opportunities for employees to advance (as in, an increase in skills and knowledge without a job promotion).

The goal of job enrichment is to make the person happier in their current work. Increasing employee work happiness, lowering turnover, and raising staff productivity are all common organizational goals. Managers strive to improve their employees' jobs so that they are happier, more productive, and less inclined to leave. 

Qualities of job enrichment 

Organizations utilize job enrichment as a method to keep their employees and make them feel valued. The qualities of job enrichment listed below will help us learn more about it:

1) Job enrichment adds functions to an employee's job profile that were previously undertaken by higher-level superiors, such as decision-making. Consequently, it is regarded as a vertical extension of tasks.

2) Employees who have power, responsibility, and accountability for their work are more likely to have a self-disciplined attitude and be sincere about their role in the company.

3) Job enrichment is a delicate method that might be difficult to adopt if employees lack decision-making and problem-solving abilities.

4) Giving employees decision-making autonomy makes their jobs more difficult and leads to employee empowerment and engagement.

5) Job enrichment instills professionalism in employees' work and attitudes by providing them with a sense of worth and appreciation.

6) The employee is totally responsible for his work, which means that good work will be praised and bad work will be reprimanded.

7) Employees have the freedom to make decisions about their work, and they are responsible for successfully performing the assigned assignment.

Job enrichment is not something that can be done right away. It necessitates extensive planning and execution.

Job Loading Vs. Enrichment 

Job enlargement entails a horizontal loading or extension of the job, in other words, the addition of similar tasks. Job enlargement is aimed to make certain repetitive occupations less monotonous by lengthening the cycle of operations. Job expansion does not always necessitate the development of higher-level or new skills on the side of employees. As a consequence of the increase in the scope of his tasks, the job holder may require additional external direction and control.

On the other hand, job enrichment entails the vertical loading of an employee's activities and responsibilities. In terms of intrinsic merit, it is an enhancement in job quality. The goal of job enrichment is to make your employment more interesting, challenging, and rewarding. Maslow's high-level demands are met. Job enrichment necessitates the development and use of higher abilities, as well as initiative and creativity on the side of employees. In job enrichment, the employee makes use of his own self-direction and control qualities. He doesn't require as much external guidance and control.