Job Enlargement vs Job Enrichment: Difference and Comparison

Job enlargement refers to increasing an employee’s tasks, responsibilities, and overall workload in the same job position. This may be done to increase job satisfaction and productivity or even to avoid boredom and monotony.

On the other hand, job enrichment refers to planning and organizing an employee’s tasks, responsibilities, and overall workload to gain more control over the work.

This tool grants more authority and decision-making power to an employee.

Key Takeaways

1. Job enlargement involves increasing the range of tasks and responsibilities within an employee’s role to reduce monotony and improve motivation.
2. Job enrichment focuses on adding complexity and depth to an employee’s tasks, enabling them to use more of their skills and achieve greater satisfaction.
3. Both approaches aim to improve employee motivation and productivity but differ in how they expand job duties and responsibilities.

Job Enlargement vs. Job Enrichment

An increase in an employee’s workload is called job enlargement. It helps in enhancing the skills of employees. Productivity can also be increased through job enlargement. It focuses on the quantity of work. Planning and arrangement of the duties of the employees is called job enrichment. It helps in developing confidence and self-discipline in employees. It focuses on the quality of work.

Another difference is that job enlargement restructures a job using horizontal expansion, while job enrichment uses vertical expansion.

Comparison Table

Parameters of Comparison	Job Enlargement	Job Enrichment
Definition	Job enlargement refers to additional tasks, responsibilities, and an increased overall workload at the same position.	Job enrichment refers to planning and organizing tasks and responsibilities in a way that grants more authority and decision-making power to an employee.
Concept	Job enlargement is a job design technique.	Job enrichment is a management tool.
Objective	Job enlargement aims at improving the skills and productivity of an employee. It may also be done in times of economic crunches or downsizing.	Job enrichment aims to boost employee morale to encourage more self-discipline, confidence, and accountability.
Core idea	Increasing the quantity of work to expand the scope of a job.	Job enrichment focuses on increasing the quality of work.
Expansion	Restructures a job using horizontal expansion.	Restructures a job using vertical expansion.
Skill requirement of employee	Motivates unskilled and semi-skilled employees to perform better.	Motivates skilled employees by increasing job satisfaction and boosting morale.
Authority and responsibility	The authority of the employee remains the same while the responsibilities increase.	The level of authority as well as the responsibility of an employee increase.
Supervision	Demands the supervision of employers.	The employees do not require supervisory control; they are self-directed.
Effects after implementation	The effects on the employee may be positive or negative.	The effects on the employee are positive.
Dependence	Job enlargement is not dependent on job enrichment.	Job enrichment is hugely dependent on job enlargement.

What is Job Enlargement?

Job enlargement is a job design strategy that employers use to motivate employees. It involves increasing an employee’s tasks, responsibilities, and overall workload at the same job position.

The core idea of job enlargement is increasing employees’ work quantity to enhance their skills and productivity.

The new tasks given to a worker are similar to the previous ones.

Job enlargement proves to be insufficient when implemented in large organizations. Here, the workload of an employee already tends to be high.

What is Job Enrichment?

Job enrichment is a management tool that employers use to motivate employees. It involves granting employees more authority and decision-making power to boost their morale.

This simplifies the work and improves job satisfaction by allowing employees to focus on their development and skill enhancement.

Job enrichment allows more authority as well as responsibility. This encourages employees to practice self-discipline, self-direction, self-control, confidence, and accountability.

As the workload and power increase, an employee may fall short of the skills and expertise required for the job.

Main Differences Between Job Enlargement and Job Enrichment

1. Job enlargement refers to increasing the tasks and responsibilities of an employee in the same job position, while job enrichment refers to granting more authority and responsibility to an employee.
2. Job enlargement is a job design strategy, while job enrichment is a management tool.

References

1. https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amr.1977.4409178
2. https://platform.almanhal.com/Files/2/37998