How design engineers spend their time: Job content and task satisfaction

This research examined the full range of tasks and activities that design engineers perform, how their working time is distributed among these, and how these issues influence their satisfaction with their work. Seventy-eight design engineers each carried a personal digital assistant (PDA) for twenty working days. Once every hour, they entered data into their PDAs concerning their current work tasks and satisfaction levels, using a work sampling approach. Work tasks were explored from multiple perspectives, yielding highly extensive and detailed results. A key finding was that design engineers' work involves considerable technical engineering work (62.92% of time) and socially collaborative work (40.37% of time). The results were discussed in terms of their implications for academic theory and organizational practice.

► This research examined the time design engineers of different seniority levels spent performing each of over 100 work tasks. ► Broadly, some work was technical (62.92% of time), some social (40.37%), and some computer-based (49.66%). ► Design engineers' satisfaction ratings of each work task were also obtained. ► Overall, technical work was rated as more satisfying than non-technical work.