1975). Job enrichment efforts have proven somewhat successful in improving performance and attitude amongst employees. Job enrichment theories are analogous to why people enjoy games so much. M. Scott Meyer wrote in his book, Every Employee a Manager, that the key to job enrichment can be related to why people enjoy bowling. His answer sums of the seven characteristics of bowling: 1. The bowler has a visible goal, 2. he has a challenging but attainable goal, 3. he is working according to his own personally accepted standards, 4. he receives immediate feedback, 5. he has an opportunity to satisfy social needs, 6. he is an accepted member of a group, and 7. he can earn recognition. The one thing that job enrichment cannot do, however, is make the individual a better bowler. That is something that the player must earn himself. Studies by Hackman and Oldham,, and Earl Weeks have shown the effectiveness of job enrichment. Hackman and Oldham in their studies showed that by enhancing and changing a routine job through manipulation of their five implementing concepts (natural units of work, task combination, client relationships, feedback and vertical loading), improvements can be made in relation to productivity, quality, absenteeism, attitude, the elimination of unnecessary controls, and in the role of the supervisor. Weeks’ study of custodial employees at Texas Instruments was similar to that of Hackman and Oldham in that many factors were changed at once to achieve increases in productivity and quality. These studies do provide evidence that job enrichment is an affective tool when coupled with the theories of Herzberg and Maslow, but have limitations in the fact that job enrichment seeks to create an environment in which the needs of the employee are consistently being met instead of an environment in which an employee can "earn" the satisfaction of his or her needs (Miller 33). Again, this is a theory of motivation, like Herzberg an...
