We explain what job specialization is, its characteristics and examples. Also, its history and what its advantages are.
What is job specialization?
Job specialization or job specialization consists of assign each of the activities involved in a production process to different people or work groups determined, so that each person does a different job, and thus take advantage of the available resources and talents.
When a company applies work specialization methods, what it does is put each task in the hands of the most appropriate professionals to perform it, that is, those who have been trained or have the experience and who, therefore, have better profit margins. performance. Thus, job specialization is the opposite model of job generalization, in which each employee performs a series of tasks, often coinciding, and the workload is distributed equally.
The specialization of work, on the other hand, proposes the professional and labor training of each individual so that they occupy a specific and unique role in the production chain, in order to save efforts and obtain better results. This, in addition, often involves the need to train personnel, that is, to teach them how to best perform the specialized functions they will be facing.
History of work specialization
The notion of labor specialization is typical of the world of industrialization and mass production models. Its direct antecedent is part of the work of one of the most important thinkers of classical economics, the Scottish Adam Smith (1723-1790), who proposed the division of labor that is, the distribution of a productive activity between different people in a group according to their talents, abilities and knowledge.
Smith, however, affirms that this process is inherent to industries since their appearance in the Neolithic period. Thus, it gave rise to agrarian societies and allowed that while some dedicated themselves to producing common food, others dedicated themselves to pursuing knowledge.
The specialization of work It is also key to the ideas of the American Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915), whose thought created the taylorismthat is, the rational organization of work with the purpose of maximizing utility levels. Taylorism was a true revolution in industrial organization, comparable only to what it brought then Fordism: the systematization of work in different consecutive stages.
Features of job specialization
The job specialization has the following characteristics:
- It consists of assigning each worker the same portion of the production circuit so that you learn to execute it as best as possible and focus on it.
- Workers who are dedicated to these specific roles are known as “specialists” and tend to receive higher salaries since their work cannot be carried out with the same margin of efficiency by others.
- Proposes a simplification of the production process since it is addressed in clearly delimited parts that each specialist deals with.
- Requires specialized training whether through formal education or the accumulation of experience.
Advantages of job specialization
Among the main advantages of job specialization are:
- Work is optimized since efforts are not duplicated and time is saved by being able to attend to different stages of the production process at the same time.
- Workers learn to do a specific task very well instead of knowing how to do many in a mediocre way. Furthermore, by reaching an important level of specialization, added value is added to your work.
- Maximize productive efficiency saves costs and saves time, since each part does its work independently, although connected to the rest.
- Simplifies the production process which reduces the rate of errors and losses.
Examples of job specialization
As an example, we can think of job specialization in:
- The services of outsourcing or outsourcing. These are entire companies dedicated to a very specific and specialized aspect of the production chain or organizational management. These provide services to other larger companies to resolve very specific issues, through a team of workers specialized in the matter.
- The specialization of hospital workers. In a clinical medical center there are different types of professionals, adapted to the specific areas of the organization. For example, radiology, psychiatric, and emergency room nurses share basic training, but specialize in different areas of the hospital.
Continue with: Effectiveness, efficiency and productivity
References
- “Division of labor” on Wikipedia.
- “What is job specialization?” on VISA (Mexico).
- What is job specialization?” at Euroinnova.
- “Division of labor” in The Encyclopaedia Britannica.
