Job control (workplace)
{{short description|Employment concept}}
Job control is a person's ability to influence what happens in their work environment, in particular to influence matters that are relevant to their personal goals. Job control may include control over work tasks, control over the work pace and physical movement, control over the social and technical environment, and freedom from supervision.
Workplace autonomy has been seen as a specialized form of the more general concept of control.{{cite web|last=Ganster|first=Daniel|url=http://www.ilo.org/iloenc/part-v/psychosocial-and-organizational-factors/factors-intrinsic-to-the-job/item/18-autonomy-and-control|archive-url=https://archive.today/20150313063429/http://www.ilo.org/iloenc/part-v/psychosocial-and-organizational-factors/factors-intrinsic-to-the-job/item/18-autonomy-and-control|url-status=dead|archive-date=2015-03-13|title=Autonomy and Control|publisher=ILO|access-date=2015-03-12}} Workplace autonomy is the freedom of a person to determine what he or she does at work, and how.
Association with other factors
For Georges Friedmann, the quality of work depends on the employees' skills and on their capacity to control decision-making at work.{{cite journal|url=http://www.llakes.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/31.-Gallie.pdf|last=Gallie|first=Duncan|title=Skills, Job Control and the Quality of Work: The Evidence from Britain, Geary Lecture 2012|journal=The Economic and Social Review|volume=43|issue=3, Autumn|year=2012|pages=325–341|access-date=2015-03-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170206021959/http://www.llakes.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/31.-Gallie.pdf|archive-date=2017-02-06|url-status=dead}}
Robert Blauner found that job control is closely linked with occupational prestige and job satisfaction.{{cite book|last=Hollowell|first=Peter G|title=Lorry Driver Ils 154|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SfREAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA86|date=8 October 2013|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-136-25290-7|pages=85–86}}{{cite book|last=Dunkerley|first=David|title=The Foreman|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SjkNekNgt5cC&pg=PA69|date=2 May 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-93217-6|pages=69}} Job satisfaction and job control tend to be higher for managerial and professional workers than for unskilled workers.
A meta-analysis of 1986 found an association of high levels of perceived control with "high levels of job satisfaction […], commitment, involvement, performance and motivation, and low levels of physical symptoms, emotional distress, role stress, absenteeism, intent to turnover, and turnover".{{cite journal|last=Spector|first=Paul E.|title=Perceived Control by Employees: A Meta-Analysis of Studies Concerning Autonomy and Participation at Work|journal=Human Relations|date=1986|volume=39|issue=11|pages=1005–1016|doi=10.1177/001872678603901104|s2cid=146394154 |doi-access=free}} Similarly, within the job demands–resources model it is assumed that resources such as job control counterbalance job strain and to contribute to motivation. In support of this approach, results of a 2003 study suggest that "as job demands increase, high job control is needed to limit fatigue, whereas either high job control or high job social support is needed to enhance intrinsic work motivation".{{cite journal|last1=van Yperen|first1=Nico W.|last2=Hagedoorn|first2=Mariët|title=Do high job demands increase intrinsic motivation or fatigue or both? The role of job control and social support|journal=Academy of Management Journal|date=2003|volume=46|issue=3|pages=339–348|doi=10.2307/30040627|jstor=30040627|citeseerx=10.1.1.524.6182}}
Increasing job control is an intervention shown to help counteract exhaustion and cynicism in the workplace, which are two symptoms of occupational burnout.{{cite journal | last1 = Hatinen | first1 = M. | last2 = Kinnunen | first2 = U. | last3 = Pekkonen | first3 = M. | last4 = Kalimo | first4 = R. | year = 2007 | title = Comparing two burnout interventions: Perceived job control mediates decreases in burnout | journal = International Journal of Stress Management | volume = 14 | issue = 3| pages = 227–248 | doi=10.1037/1072-5245.14.3.227}}
Job control has also been linked to the meaningfulness and the manageability components of salutogenesis.{{cite book|author1=Georg F. Bauer|author2=Gregor J. Jenny|title=Salutogenic organizations and change: The concepts behind organizational health intervention research|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yRBAAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA81|date=1 July 2013|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-94-007-6470-5|pages=81|access-date=2 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403031510/https://books.google.com/books?id=yRBAAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA81|archive-date=3 April 2017|url-status=live}}
See also
- {{section link|Profession|Status and prestige}}
- {{section link|Empowerment|In workplace management}}
- Balanced job complex
- Employee engagement
- Employee monitoring
- Equality of autonomy
- Flexibility (personality)#Work environment
- Occupational health psychology#Demand-control-support model
- {{section link|Occupational stress|Status}}
- {{section link|Quality of working life|Measurement}}
- Responsible autonomy
- Workers' control
- Workers' self-management
- Workplace democracy