User Experience Quarter

Work Setup Quarter (hereinafter, the Quarter) is the first of four lectures of Operations Quadrivium (hereinafter, the Quadrivium):

• The Quarter is designed to introduce its learners to enterprise discovery, or, in other words, to concepts related to obtaining data needed to administer the enterprise effort; and
• The Quadrivium examines concepts of administering various types of enterprises known as enterprise administration as a whole.

The Quadrivium is the first of seven modules of Septem Artes Administrativi, which is a course designed to introduce its learners to general concepts in business administration, management, and organizational behavior.

Outline

The predecessor lecture is Stakeholder Engagement Quarter.

Concepts

• Swarming. Mutual work of team members with appropriate skills work together to complete a task that a team member is having trouble completing on his or her own.
• Self organization. The principle that those closest to the work best know how to do the work, so set clear goals and boundaries and let them make all tactical and implementation decisions, cf. emergence, empiricism.
• Emergence. The principle that the best designs, and the best ways of working come about over time through doing the work, rather than being defined in advance, cf. empiricism, self organization.
• Empiricism. The principle of "inspect and adapt" which allows teams or individuals to try something out and learn from the experience by conscious reflection and change, cf. emergence, self organization.
• Open workplace. Workplace with few physical barriers and enclosures.
• Staff authority. Positions with some authority that have been created to support, assist, and advise those holding line authority.
• Task conflict. Conflict over content and goals of the work.
• Task conflict. A conflict over content and goals of the work.
• Telecommuting. Working remotely at least 2 days a week on a computer that is linked to the employer office.
• Workforce diversity. The concept that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics.
• Workforce diversity. The ways in which people in an organization are different from and similar to one another.
• Work specialization. Dividing work activities into separate job tasks.
• Work specialization. The degree to which tasks in an organization are subdivided into separate jobs.
• Autonomy. The degree to which a job provides substantial freedom and discretion to the individual in scheduling the work and in determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out.
• Autonomy. The degree to which a job provides substantial freedom, independence, and discretion to the individual in scheduling work and determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out.
• Cross-functional team. A work team composed of individuals from various functional specialties.
• Cross-functional team. A work team composed of individuals from various functional specialties.
• Cross-functional team. A work team of employees from about the same hierarchical level, but from different work areas, who come together to accomplish a task.
• Compressed workweek. A workweek where employees work longer hours per day but fewer days per week.
• Downsizing. The planned elimination of jobs in an organization.
• Affirmative action. Organizational programs that enhance the status of members of protected groups.
• Decentralization. The degree to which lower-level employees provide input or actually make decisions.
• Centralization. The degree to which decision making is concentrated at upper levels of the organization.
• Centralization. The degree to which decision making is concentrated at a single point in an organization.
• Employee empowerment. Giving employees more authority (power) to make decisions.
• Chain of command. The line of authority extending from upper organizational levels to the lowest levels, which clarifies who reports to whom.
• Chain of command. The unbroken line of authority that extends from the top of the organization to the lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom.
• Formalization. How standardized an organization's jobs are and the extent to which employee behavior is guided by rules and procedures.
• Formalization. The degree to which jobs within an organization are standardized.
• High-involvement work practice. Work practice designed to elicit greater input or involvement from workers.
• High-performance work practice. Work practice that leads to both high individual and high organizational performance.
• Human resource planning. Ensuring that the organization has the right number and kinds of capable people in the right places and at the right times.
• Interpersonal justice. The degree to which employees are treated with dignity and respect.
• Job analysis. An assessment that defines jobs and the behaviors necessary to perform them.
• Job characteristics model. A framework for analyzing and designing jobs that identifies five primary core job dimensions, their interrelationships, and their impact on outcomes.
• Job characteristics model. A model that proposes that any job can be described in terms of five core job dimensions: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback.
• Job depth. The degree of control employees have over their work.
• Job description. A written statement that describes a job.
• Job design. The way tasks are combined to form complete jobs.
• Job design. The way the elements in a job are organized.
• Job engagement. The investment of an employee's physical, cognitive, and emotional energies into job performance.
• Job enlargement. The horizontal expansion of a job by increasing job scope.
• Job enrichment. The vertical expansion of a job by adding planning and evaluating responsibilities.
• Job involvement. The degree to which a person identifies with a job, actively participates in it, and considers performance important to self-worth.
• Job involvement. The degree to which an employee identifies with her or his job, actively participates in it, and considers her or his job performance to be important self-worth.
• Job rotation. The periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another.
• Job score. The number of different tasks required in a job and the frequency with which those tasks are repeated.
• Job sharing. An arrangement that allows two or more individuals to split a traditional 40-hour-a-week job.
• Job sharing. The practice of having two or more people split a full-time job.
• Job specification. A written statement of the minimum qualifications a person must possess to perform a given job successfully.
• Labor union. An organization that represents workers and seeks to protect their interests through collective bargaining.
• Line authority. Authority that entitles a manager to direct the work of an employee.
• Mental model. Team members' knowledge and beliefs about how the work gets done by the team.
• Mentoring. A process whereby an experienced organizational member (a mentor) provides advice and guidance to a less experiences member (a protégé).
• Multiteam system. A collection of two or more interdependent teams that share a superordinate goal; a team of teams.
• Participative management. A process in which subordinates share a significant degree of decision-making power with their immediate superiors.
• Personality-job fit theory. A theory that identifies six personality types and proposes that the fit between personality type and occupational environment determines satisfaction and turnover.
• Person-organization fit. A theory that people are attracted to and selected by organizations that match their values, and leave when there is not compatibility.
• Problem-solving team. A work team of 5 to 12 employees from the same department who meet for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment.
• Problem-solving team. A work team from the same department of functional area that's involved in efforts to improve work activities or solve specific problems.
• Proactive perspective of work design. An approach to job design in which employees take the initiative to change how their work is performed.
• Reflexivity. A team characteristic of reflecting on and adjusting the master plan when necessary.
• Self-managed work team. A work team of 10 to 15 people who take on responsibilities of their former supervisors.
• Self-managed work team. A type of work team that operates without a manager and is responsible for a complete work process or segment.
• Virtual team. A work team that use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal.
• Virtual team. A type of work team that uses technology to link physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal.
• Relational job design. Constructing jobs so employees see the positive difference they can make in the lives of others directly through their network.
• Relational perspective of work design. An approach to job design that focuses on how people's tasks and jobs are increasingly based on social relationships.
• Responsibility. The obligation of expectation to perform any assigned duties.
• Skill-based pay. A pay system that rewards employees for the job skills they can demonstrate.
• Variable pay. A pay system in which an individual's compensation is contingent on performance.
• Variable-pay program. A pay plan that bases a portion of an employee's pay on some individual and/or organizational measure of performance.
• Merit-based pay plan. A pay plan based on performance appraisal ratings.
• Pay-for-performance program. Variable compensation plans that pay employees on the basis of some performance measure.
• Piece-rate pay plan. A pay plan in which workers are paid a fixed sum for each unit of production completed.
• Work team. A group whose individual efforts result in performance that is greater than the sum of the individual inputs.
• Work team. A group whose members work intensely on a specific, common goal using their positive synergy, individual and mutual accountability, and complementary skills.

Roles

1. Mentor. A senior employee who sponsors and supports a less-experienced employee, called a protégé.
2. Board representative. An employee who sits on a company's board of directors and represents the interests of the firm's employees.
3. Contingent worker. A temporary, freelance, or contract worker whose employment is contingent on demand for her or his services.

Practices

The successor lecture is Leadership Quarter.