Question

TURNOVER AND MORALE PROBLEMS AT TSA
Next time you go through security on your way through the airport, smile and say thank you to the screeners who help you send your bags through screening and wave you through the scanner. Low morale runs rampant through the screeners that work at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and odds are that the screener you smile at is thinking about quitting.
Screening officers are leaving the TSA at a rate higher than they can be replaced, causing a shortage of screening officers that in turn causes staffing problems, security problems, and long lines for travelers. Turnover is approximately 8 percent for full‐time screeners and over 20 percent for the TSA's part‐time staff compared to 6 percent for all other federal workers. The TSA was recently ranked nearly last among all federal agencies in a job satisfaction survey.26 According to one screener, “Every now and then, we get thanked by the public, but for the most part, it's a pretty thankless job.”
Among the reasons cited for the high turnover are low pay, difficult working conditions and being denied the full rights given to other federal workers. Although TSA workers have been represented by a union since 2011, screening officers don't have many of the same protections of other federal workers like the ability to appeal disciplinary actions to a third‐party board. The TSA isn't bound by the FLSA and raises are based only on performance and promotions, resulting in TSA workers with five to ten years of experience possibly making the same salary as a new hire. The TSA's pay‐for‐performance system, called Performance Accountability and Standards System (PASS), is widely viewed by employees as unfair and discriminatory to older workers, minorities, and women.

1.Which elements of job design would be most effective in improving the morale of the screeners? In what ways can well‐designed jobs improve employee morale?

Answer 1

The morale can be enhanced by working on task significance and task identity like elements . Payment and compensation should be based on significant of job roles and their fulfillments as screeners are doing the same. Fair and non discriminatory rules should be involved in job design process.

Employees when receive work recognition at workplace then it will offer them a sense of job satisfaction. There should be a stipulated time frame as per which screeners should be offered a permanent employment with increased benefits. There should be a team of employees who might offers best measures and possible solutions to existing concerns of screeners. In this way, their concerns can be resolved. A regular feedback system might helps in improving the morale level of employees. Top management must regularly interact to screeners and achieve sophisticated standards of job design elements.