Management Practice Insights
DOI: 10.59571/mpi.v3i1.3
Year: 2025, Volume: 3, Issue: 1, Pages: 13-18
Original Article
Sushmita Srivastava 1, Ritu Tiwari 2, Satwinder Singh 2
1 Associate Professor in Organisation & Leadership Studies department at SPJIMR.
2 Students from SPJIMR's Post Graduate Programme in Management Class of 2024.
Correspondance
[email protected]
Received Date:23 August 2024, Accepted Date:14 February 2025, Published Date:31 March 2025
Problem of Practice:
Future of work is undergoing rapid transformation due to global disruptions such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the aging workforce and the impact of climate change. There is an urgent need to address resulting challenges such as employee burnout and talent shortages. A recent article by Sharon Parker and Caroline Knight talks about the SMART model of work design as a potential solution. The SMART model aims to optimize different aspects of job design to enhance employee well-being and performance. We examine the principles of the SMART work design and compare it to traditional models to understand how to balance meaningful work with productive performance in the digital age. This essay proposes a structured approach to SMART work design that can help business leaders, particularly CHROs, while taking key design-related organizational decisions.
1 Sharon K. Parker and Caroline Knight, “The SMART Model of Work Design: A Higher Order Structure to Help See the Wood from the Trees,” Human Resource Management 63, no. 2 (2024): 265–91, https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22200.
2 Asana, “Burnout Statistics You Should Know to Keep Employees Engaged,” 2024, https://resources.asana.com/americasanatomy-of-work-burnout-ebook.html.
3 Kara Dennison, SPHR, CPRW EC, “Gallup Says $8.8 Trillion Is The True Cost Of Low Employee Engagement,” Forbes, July 16, 2024, https://www.forbes.com/sites/karadennison/2024/07/16/gallu p-says-88-trillion-is-the-true-cost-of-low-employeeengagement/.
4 Centre for Transformative Work Design, “SMART Work Design,” Work Design Research (blog), accessed February 12, 2025, https://www.transformativeworkdesign.com/smartwork/agency.
5 Sharon Parker, “Thrive at Work Case Study: SWANS,” accessed February 12, 2025, https://www.thriveatwork.org.au/resources/thrive-at-workcase-study-swans/.
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10 Centre for Transformative Work Design, “Stimulating Work Characteristics,” Work Design Research, accessed February 12, 2025, https://www.transformativeworkdesign.com/smartwork/stimulating.
11 David A. Garvin, “How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management,” Harvard Business Review, December 1, 2013, https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-google-sold-its-engineers-onmanagement.
12 Centre for Transformative Work Design, “Relational Work Characteristics.”
13 Barbara Ciach, “Why Do People Leave Their Jobs?,” LinkedIn (blog), 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/barbaraciach_careerchange-jobsatisfaction-employeeengagementactivity-7242852198550786048-oT3e.
14 Bill George, “Why Boeing's Problems with the 737 MAX Began More Than 25 Years Ago | Working Knowledge,” Harvard Business School, January 24, 2024, https://www.library.hbs.edu/workingknowledge/why-boeings-problems-with-737-max-began-morethan-25-years-ago.
15 ET Online, “BYJU's Work Culture: Employees Allege That BYJU's Fosters a Toxic Work Culture and Unresolved Grievances; Opt to Speak out against It - The Economic Times,” Economic Times, July 27, 2023, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/newupdates/byjus-employee-speaks-out-against-alleged-toxicwork-culture-and-unresolved-grievances-in-viralvideo/articleshow/102074383.cms?from=mdr.
© 2025 Published by SPJIMR. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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