Is a comfort zone actually bad? What’s wrong with it? Are we then implying that we should always seek an “uncomfortable” zone at work? And does it mean we should look for a new job in our search for an uncomfortable zone?
The concept of a comfort zone apparently earned its bad reputation because it is the politically correct reason for job seekers to give their potential new employers when applying to a job. This applies to anyone who’d rather not say that they are not happy in their current job, are looking for better compensation, or both, as well as many other genuine aims and concerns. Over time, comfort zone has become equated with the “lack of an work environment that enables professional growth”.
Since it is just a figure of speech, is it possible to find professional growth in a comfort zone? Yes, very much so!
Companies set out various strategies to help their employees grow professionally while retaining them. They do this by redesigning various aspects of the scope and depth of an employee’s role. In doing so, such companies aim to upskill their employees while keeping them motivated and interested.
There are three ways a company can redesign employees’ jobs: enrichment, enlargement and rotation. These help employees to prepare not only for unpredictable circumstances, but also to acquire additional skills and new knowledge.
Job enrichment
Through job enrichment, an employee is asked to expand their job vertically to include tasks that were previously done by their supervisor. This includes planning, controlling and making important decisions. By empowering the employee with more vertical responsibilities, the company prepares them to take up higher positions in the future.
For example, an employee who was responsible for writing the standard operating procedure (SOP) may also be tasked with presenting the SOP to the relevant business units and soliciting feedback from end users, which was formerly done by their supervisor.
Job enlargement
Job enlargement is a strategy for upskilling employees by adding horizontal tasks, and aims to increase workforce flexibility while reducing the monotony that accumulates over time.
A sales executive’s role, for example, can be expanded to include conducting market research and training newcomers.
Job rotation
Job rotation is a strategy to move employees through different assignments in order to expose them to various verticals in the company. This is largely done as part of the company's succession plan to develop an internal pool of talents who can take over when an employee in a senior role retires or leaves the company.
The strategy is commonly implemented in the banking industry, where an employee is rotated through the relationship management, risk analysis and operations departments. The idea is for the employee to gain a holistic understanding of all the interconnected jobs required to provide banking services.
Key differences
Job enrichment means a vertical expansion of duties, responsibilities and authority, whereas job enlargement involves a horizontal extension of a position’s scope of activities. The major difference between these two is essentially between quality and quantity.
While job enrichment means improving the quality of a job such that employees are more satisfied and fulfilled, job enlargement merely increases the quantitative scope of a job by adding new tasks.
Job rotation is different from both job enrichment and job enlargement because the employee is moved across different roles. By rotating employees through different jobs, a company trains their employees to be more rounded and proficient in more than one area of its business.
Targeted design
The two areas below should be kept in mind when deciding to implement job enrichment, enlargement or rotation:
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