A Degree for Meter Readers?
Case Study Essay
The major issue that will negatively affect South Adelaide Electric Company (SAE) and needs to be resolved immediately would be the job design. Without proper job design, organisations are not able to fill up vacancies for specific jobs, which will eventually affect the company’ operations either directly or indirectly. In this article, Judy is having difficulty in filling 37 meter readers’ positions regardless the company is paying $30 per hour for the job. Granting it is a high salary for unskilled work, not all employees are willing to work in this position1.
Based on a research done by Campbell, McAllister and Eley, employees’ job satisfaction is influenced by intrinsic motivation, such as pleasure, interest, challenge at work and etc. Although some may argue that extrinsic rewards are more important, it does not apply when employees’ salary rises above subsistence level; instead, the intrinsic rewards of work would be perceived to be more important than their income. According to the article and ONET OnLine, the tasks for meter readers are mainly to read and record the consumption of steam, gas, electricity or water from the meter, which the nature of the job itself is simple and repetitive. Hence, it is concluded that this job would lead to employee boredom due to the routine job task and eventually, leads to job dissatisfaction.
As meter reader will be demotivated over time, the organisation will have to decrease turnover and increase job retention by recruiting the right employee for the job. Personally, I agree more with Judy’s decision in hiring meter reader with qualifications of high school diploma as the skill they required to have in this particular job is common level of sensemaking and to distinguish whether or not the meter is tampered1. In 2008, Fine and Nevo proposed the concept of cognitive