ORDER INSTRUCTIONS: Exploring Job Design, Staffing, and Christian Worldview PEER RESPONSE 1_DB 750
Develop a response to the post below highlighted in yellow. Peer responses must include meaningful and substantive contributions to the discussion, and ideally provoke and challenge the thinking of your colleagues. The reply must be no less than 250 words.
• The response should NOT be a critique of the student’s post, nor should you acknowledge if they responded to the question. The purpose is to add value to the post in an effort to continue the conversation;
• The response must demonstrate a substantive discussion;
• Narrative prose only please – no bullet points, numbered lists, or tables.
• Must use 7th Edition APA
Include a references section, and be sure to have in-text citations for the following sources:
• At least 1 citation from Valentine: Human Resource Management.
• At least 1 citation from Keller: Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work.
• At least 1 citation from a related scholarly journal.
Original Task:
How does Hardy’s (Chapter 3) conceptualization of vocation and the “divine economy” specifically connect with at least 2 salient job design and employee engagement/retention constructs outlined by Valentine (Chapters 4-5)? Discuss at least 2 related HR-practice implications for strategically recruiting and selecting employees (Valentine Chapters 6-7).
Watch: Recruiting Trends with SHRM’s Tony Lee at SHRM19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJTNZV1BGWg
PEER RESPONSE (RL):
Umamaheswari and Jayasree’s (2016) research found that organizational commitment influences employee retention. Commitment is a broad term when applied to a business and its employees. Commitment to the employee, commitment to the core values of the organization, and commitment to the industry all apply to employee retention. Valentine et al. (2017) discuss job enrichment and job enlargement as factors that contribute to employee satisfaction by giving the employee a sense of involvement and ownership of their role within the organization. Job enhancement involves adding depth to the job while job enlargement includes adding additional tasks to the job to reduce monotony (Valentine et al. 2017). Hardy (1990) asks the question regarding Christians who are stuck in a job that provides no sense of vocation. Hardy (1990) is asking this question about the revelation that when Christians choose a vocation, they should attempt to follow God’s will in their life. Landing in these seemingly dead-end jobs may be God’s will to teach the Christian something or to allow them to choose to change their circumstances. Jesus’s time on the earth included a period of learning, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” Luke 2:52 (ESV) Christians should strive to learn and improve themselves and God may place a Christian in a dead-end job to show them the value of an education. The book of Proverbs is filled with good advice that would serve Christians well if heeded. Solomon wrote this piece of advice in Proverbs 13, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” Proverbs 12:20 (ESV) Therefore, Christians should strive to improve themselves by pushing themselves into companionship with the wise and to challenge themselves to grow and become better every day. Finding challenges in one’s vocation is important because that is how humans grow, job enhancement and job enrichment are ways that an employee can be challenged.
The year 2020 was a challenging year by any standard. The pandemic, politics, social unrest, and the dramatic shift in the workplace were all challenges the world faced. In March 2020, the place of work changed for many workers. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 17% of American workers worked remotely, at the height of the pandemic that number had risen to 44% (Mlitz 2021). Valentine et al. (2017) say that flexible work arrangements and telework are part of job design. The COVID-19 pandemic renamed these terms to simply remote work, calling the works remote workers. Before the pandemic, remote work existed but on a limited basis as it contained a stigma in some areas of the business world. Unanswered questions swirled about worker productivity and trust that the workers would work while at home. There were also unanswered questions about whether some jobs could be done from home. March 2020 answered many of the questions virtually overnight. Suddenly the office moved home but so did the television news studio, the radio DJ booth, the yoga instructor, the schoolteacher, and the CEO. The pandemic became a social experiment on working from home and many of the myths were debunked as the workforce adapted and thrived. Allen et al. (2020) research found that remote working intertwined both work and non-work roles. YouTube and TikTok came alive with videos capturing business executives corralling children during meetings and newscasters with dogs and cats strolling into camera view. These were funny but they were a reality at the same time. Allen et al. (2020) found that boundary management was essential to the success of remote work. Designated work areas and working times became important aspects that the remote worker, the family, and the managers had to come to terms with quickly. The occasional work from home while sitting at the kitchen table was replaced with the need for designated office space and a designated time. While working on-site most workers had a defined schedule but at home, those lines blurred and the need for a sense of balance became a keen priority (Allen et al. 2020). Perseverance was the key to success in 2020 and Christians must preserver because the world is always watching how a Christian approaches difficult circumstances. Paul and Timothy told the church at Corinth “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 (ESV).
References
Allen, T. D., Merlo, K., Lawrence, R. C., Slutsky, J., & Gray, C. E. (2020, November 28). Boundary management and work-nonwork balance while working from home. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70(1), 60-84. doi:ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1111/apps.12300.
Hardy, L. (1990). The fabric of this world. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Mlitz, K. (2021, April 9). Remote work frequency before and after COVID-19 in the United States 2020. In Statista. Retrieved June 14, 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1122987/change-in-remote-work-trends-after-covid-in-usa/.
Umamaheswari, S., & Jayasree, K. (2016). Workforce retention: Role of work environment, organizational commitment, supervisor support, and training & development in ceramic sanitary ware industries in India. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, 9(3), 612-633. doi:10.3926/jiem.1885.
Valentine, S. R., Meglich, P. A., Mathes, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2017). Human resource management (16th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage.
