One of the most interesting approaches to corporate relocation incentives is the Quality of Working Life (QWL) program, which is a systems approach to job design and a promising development in the broad area of job enrichment. QWL has received tremendous support from a number of sources. Managers have regarded it as a promising means of dealing with stagnating productivity, especially in the United States.

Workers and union representatives have also seen it as a means of improving working conditions and productivity and as a means of justifying higher pay. Research and analysis of motivation point to the importance of making jobs challenging and meaningful. Job enrichment includes factor such as challenge, achievement recognition and responsibility.

Job enrichment should be distinguished from job enlargement. Job enlargement is about variegating a job to divert the boredom associated with performing repetitive operations. It means enlarging the scope of the job by adding similar tasks without enhancing responsibility. In job enrichment, the attempt is to build into jobs a higher sense of challenge and achievement. A job may be enriched by variety. But it also may be enriched by giving workers more freedom in deciding about such things as work methods, sequence and pace or the acceptance or rejection of materials.

Also encourage participation of subordinates and interaction between workers. Give workers a feeling of personal responsibility for their tasks. Taking steps to make sure that worker can see how their tasks contribute to a finished product and the welfare of an enterprise. Finally, give people feedback on their job performance; preferably before their supervisors get it.

But there are certain limitations as well of job enrichment. One of these is technology. With specialized machinery and assembly line techniques, it may not be possible to make all jobs very meaningful. Another limitation is cost. There is also some question as to whether workers really want job enrichment, especially of the kind that changes the basic content of their jobs.