Work Design: Why 'More' Is Not Always Better

“How would you fix this wobbly bridge?”

Professor Giverny De Boeck asked during her session at the Vlerick HR Day. 

“By adding an extra block to the shorter column,” I said, like many in the audience. 

“By the time you've found that block, you could also have removed one from the taller column,” the professor replied. 

With this LEGO metaphor, Prof. De Boeck (IÉSEG School of Management) illustrated the principle of additive bias: our tendency to solve problems by adding things. 

That tendency also shows up in how we design work. 

Why work design deserves more attention 

The way work is designed influences how people perform, learn, collaborate and experience their work. Research by Professor Sharon Parker and colleagues has shown that good work design creates meaningful and motivating work, benefiting both employees and organisations.

Yet we often talk more about engagement, burnout, productivity or wellbeing than about the design of work itself. Together with organisation design, it helps address underlying causes rather than simply treating the symptoms. 

Prof. Parker defines work design as: 

"The content and organising of tasks, activities, relationships and responsibilities within a job or role, or set of jobs and roles." 

In other words: what tasks and responsibilities belong to a role? How much autonomy does someone have? Who do they collaborate with? These choices affect performance, motivation and well-being. 

Beyond good job resources and bad job demands 

One useful lens for thinking about work design is the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model. It looks at two elements: job demands (which drain energy) and job resources (which give energy). 

• Job resources are not inherently positive. Autonomy, for example, can increase ownership, but too much of it can create ambiguity or make it harder to disconnect.
• Job demands are not inherently negative. The right level of challenge can stimulate learning, growth and motivation.  

As illustrated in the LEGO exercise, our instinct is to add. But adding resources is not always the answer. Nor is removing every demand. The goal is to find the right balance. 

What does good work look like? 

If more is not always better, how do you decide which job resources and job demands deserve attention? Prof. De Boeck introduced the SMART Work Design approach as a practical way to answer that question. 

In practice, good work combines four types of job resources: 

• Stimulating work (variety and challenge)
• Mastery (clarity and feedback)
• Agency (autonomy and control)
• Relational (social connection and support) 

And one important principle when it comes to job demands: 

• Tolerable demands (manageable workload and limited role conflict) 

How can organisations redesign work? 

Now we know what good work looks like, how do we make it happen? Two complementary approaches emerged during the session. 

• Top-down: Organisations can redesign work through strategic work redesign (structurally redesigning jobs at organisational level) or job carving (rearranging work to create more tailor-made roles).
• Bottom-up: Individuals and teams can shape work through job crafting (proactively adjusting aspects of their work to better fit their strengths and needs). 

A both-and perspective that touches many HR challenges. 

A personal note 

What makes this topic particularly relevant today is the changing labour market context. Long-term absence continues to reach record levels, while labour scarcity is expected to increase further as demographics shift.

In that context, work design, together with organisation design, is moving from important-but-not-urgent to crucial and immediate. We simply cannot afford poorly designed work anymore. 

Want to dive deeper? 

Watch the Beam Talk 

You can watch the recording of our recent Beam Talk on work design with Eva De Winter. 

Explore resources 

For additional evidence-based resources, visit the Centre for Transformative Work Design. 

Join a learning programme

Interested in a more structured learning journey? PUC-KU Leuven Continue offers a programme on work design taught by Eva De Winter and Prof. Geert Van Hootegem. Discover the programme.