Study on elements of job design to develop high-performance workforce in the Thai garment industry

The aim of this study was investing the elements of job design in developing the high-performance workforce in the Thai garment industry. Relevant literature and theories were reviewed, along with discussing with experts in the Thai garment industry, to review the conceptual framework and factors obtained from the study. This study is part of the main study that the researcher is currently doing. The results from this study led to the conceptual framework and indicated that the elements of job design include (1) job rotation, (2) job enlargement, and (3) job enrichment. A good job design must be appropriate for each employee by taking into account their health, ability, and working environment, encouraging employees to make their own decisions in the field of their work, promoting employees’ work expertise, and having a flexible and suitable work schedule. In addition, job design can also affect employee involvement because it has both positive and negative impacts on the interaction between employees and the organization. The results from this study will be used to expand the development of additional framework concepts for use in a population study in order to collect data and expand research results in the future.


Introduction
*Working under the change in internal and external factors can affect business development in all activities, such as marketing and production. For production, there must be developed in every dimension ranging from the beginning to the delivery of goods. Although there is a focus on using machinery instead of workers as many as possible, the functions requiring human labor must adjust or improve procedures and forms of operations, including the integration of collaboration and coexistence skills.
As employees are required to work together, working as a group or team is very important in developing the teamwork capability of the groups of personnel in order to bring efficiency and success of work in the organization. Nowadays, modern organizations thus need to focus on their people to work as a team rather than working alone because the management for the success of the organization depends on the work of all levels of labor. In addition, resources, such as people, money, raw materials, and machinery, must be managed as much value as possible because the management of these resources requires human resources as a mechanism to drive. As a result, human capital is a top priority of successful organizations.
For high competitiveness, the businesses in today's age use appropriate strategies, such as lowcost, differentiation, or focus strategies (Porter, 1980). Every business of every size must adapt itself. A problem of businesses of all sizes has low capital. In addition, aside from a problem of higher production costs, the businesses focusing on labor, such as textile businesses in Thailand with many supply chains, especially many businesses of readymade garment tailoring, also face the competition with cheaper Chinese products and tax measures.
The garment industry tends to have a slower growth rate, and the market has been saturated. The textile exports continue to face risks from economic situations of the partner countries as well as a slowdown in orders from major partner countries that turn to imports from countries receiving a privilege from the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). For the trend of the garment industry in 2020, it is expected that the upstream textile sector will continue to expand while the garment sector does not have a significant factor to expand much because it is in the capital-intensive industry and is heavily dependent on imports. Fiber industry can be divided into two types according to the production processes, i.e., natural fiber industry imports all raw materials at 83.5 percent of the production costs and synthetic fiber industry relies on imported raw materials at 58.6 percent of the production costs. Other risk factors include labor ability, higher wages than competing countries, and fluctuation in the price of cotton as the main raw materials for this industry. In addition, GSP disqualification from the European Union makes buyers in certain countries, such as Germany and France, begin importing products from Thailand's major competitors, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. Moreover, some business operators are low-quality textile manufacturers due to the use of outdated machinery as well as no use of technology and innovation in their production, which results in a disadvantage in the competitiveness.
From the above-mentioned information, the development of business potential in this industry is, therefore, important to the economy at both the micro and macro levels. However, due to the limitations of businesses that have low working capital resources and less effective labor resources, including problems in business administration of entrepreneurs and executives, it is important to promote capabilities of human resources because they are valuable, rare, difficult to imitation with high cost, and irreplaceable (Barney, 1991). Personnel development is important in order to enhance them to have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for their work (Sahoo et al., 2010;Karim and Rehman, 2012) by using the concept of contemporary development called highperformance workforce management (HPWM).
High-performance workforce management in the labor group consists of many elements, such as good job design that is suitable for each step of work, coordination, involvement, and good working relationship that creates both happiness to work and enhancement of employee capabilities (Saifullah et al., 2015;Nguyen et al., 2019). These are all important factors in making an organization more efficient, which will lead to short-term and long-term competitive advantages, create various innovations, and step into market leadership (Handy, 1993;Spreitzer, 1995;Karim and Rehman, 2012;Khan et al., 2014). In addition to a good interaction from working environment and surrounding people, promoting employees at the operational level to dedicate their body and mind to work can be successful if the fairness of competency-based compensation is taken into account in order to build morale and encourage workers to create higher knowledge and ability to work. Therefore, considering their ability, expertise, and experience by driving from the organization and the employees themselves is the main point of human resource management.
Various high-performance organizations, or called "excellence organizations" by some scholars, have applied such concept to search for an effective management style that can prevent and resolve various situations they must face under rapid and unpredictable environmental changes. In particular, human resource development by improving the efficiency of employees is very important to create long-term competitive advantages because skills, abilities, potential, and loyalty to the organizations are something that cannot be copied and transferred to other organizations. Human resources are, therefore, an important factor in building the organization's capacity (Faems et al., 2005), but entrepreneurs are often worried about the economy and thus overlook what affects the true potentials of human resources. It can be said that companies in the Thai garment industry can maintain their business with high competitiveness if they rely on the management of highly knowledgeable and skilled labor both in terms of quality and quantity (Uyar and Deniz, 2012).
From the background and importance of the problem mentioned above, the researcher as an entrepreneur in the garment industry chose to study the "Elements of Job Design to Develop High-Performance Workforce in the Thai Garment Industry" under the concept of job design with employee involvement as a mediator factor to have a high-performance workforce. The results of this study will be used to support entrepreneurs in this industry to survive their business.
The objective of this research is to get the conceptual framework of elements of job design to develop a high-performance workforce in the Thai garment industry and to know the elements of job design to develop a high-performance workforce in the Thai garment industry.

Literature review
According to the review of theories related to this research, the relation of relevant theoretical contents can be considered in four parts, i.e., A) Thai garment industry; B) Job design; C) Employee involvement; D) High-performance workforce.

Thai garment industry
The garment industry is an industry that produces ready-made garments production, and it is a downstream industry that is labor-intensive and does not require high investment and complicated production technologies. It can create relatively high value-added products, but production depends on the design, raw material quality, and labor quality. In the past, Thailand used the advantage of low labor wages by producing according to international purchase orders and exporting in the name of foreign goods. However, the effect of higher wages caused foreign employers to move their production bases to countries with cheaper wages, such as China and Vietnam. Therefore, Thailand urgently needs to develop product design to create products with Thai brand names as well as to develop faster and more accurate production technologies, such as CAD (Computer-Aided Design) and CAM (Computer-Aided Manufacturing), to help prepare the work, reduce the loss of raw materials, and make readymade garment production easier and faster. Table 1 shows a number of manufacturers and employees in the garment factories. As of August 2018, there were 4,109 entrepreneurs in the garment industry, and most of which were small producers with no more than 50 workers. For the garment industry situation in 2019, the entrepreneurs expected to grow well are those using technologies in their production or those with online marketing making it easier for both domestic and foreign consumers to access the products. Manufacturers using fibers with special properties in the production of clothes, such as sportswear and underwear, for export are expected to continue growing well. However, manufacturers of clothes, especially textiles made from natural fibers, may face relatively high competition from neighboring countries.
Risk factors for the garment industry are as follows: 1. There is a lack of skilled labor as most workers do not receive training, and practicing in the textiles directly coupled with the entry and exit of the labor force is at a high level resulting in lack of expertise. 2. Wages are higher than in some competing countries, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, resulting in high production costs and hindering competition. 3. There are low production efficiency and lack of product model development as some operators still use outdated machinery that wastes raw materials and has high maintenance costs. They also lack the ability to design and do not have their own brand names. 4. There is a lack of research and development of innovation to increase production efficiency and a variety of products.
An example of companies as a high-performance organization in the garment industry is Sabina Public Company Limited or SABINA, the number one Thai manufacturer and distributor of women's lingerie in the country with many distribution channels throughout the country as well as neighboring countries in the ASEAN Economic Community, especially CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam), including other regions of the world. In addition, it is also a manufacturer and distributor of lingerie according to the orders of customers who are lingerie distributors in other countries (OEM).
An important issue in the development of HPO's potential in the garment industry is a limitation in terms of knowledge, funding sources, and ability to manage their own business to be able to create higher added-value and working efficiency in order to support the overall economic development. Because HPOs in the garment industry in Thailand usually start as a household business, it is necessary to develop highly efficient operation management in the labor force so that it is able to produce quality products and retain the labor in the system by promoting the management of human resources to have the capabilities because they are valuable, rare, difficult to imitation with high cost, and irreplaceable. Personnel development is important in enhancing them to have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to perform their work, which is the development of employee capabilities (Sahoo et al., 2010;Karim and Rehman, 2012) by using the concept of contemporary development called high work performance practice (HWPP), which will lead to both short and long-term competitive advantages, create innovations, and become a leader in the market (Karim and Rehman, 2012;Khan et al., 2014).

Job design
There are many types of work, but this study chose job design because the garment industry has to work step by step to make the work meet the efficiency required by consumers. Job design is suitable for work in each step with good coordination, involvement, and a task-oriented relationship that can create both happiness to work and benefits as expected. This is the reason for choosing to study on this topic.
Job design means to define the work outline that consists of the duties and responsibilities of each person by specifying the qualifications of the persons suitable for their work duties. In addition, the design details are also linked to the working methods and relationships in each part of the work, procedures, and interaction between personnel working together by focusing on achieving the targets under resource constraints. In addition to effective work, employee relations during and after working must be positive and motivational for employees to continue working along with the development of their knowledge to support their work better. The goal of job design is to prioritize and divide work, reduce obstacles that result in a loss of organizational resources, and minimize dissatisfaction in working groups with adverse conditions, such as by eliminating stress, fatigue, and boredom with repeated work and creating security.
A good job design requires knowledge and understanding of the essence of the work and can determine the most effective working methods from the available resources. Generally, there are many job design techniques, including job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment, autonomous workgroups, and high-performance job design. In addition, there is a concept of job reengineering under the participation and review of work results by the teams (Aroosiya and Ali, 2014).
Elements of job design: Job design can be defined as "requirements of the methods and relationships of the work to meet the technological and organizational needs as same as the social and personal requirements of the jobholders. "Job design is the responsibility of the organizations (Aroosiya and Ali, 2014) and should begin with the analysis of job requirements, specification of supporting factors, and creation of motivation in various areas, such as independence, responsibility, discretion, and selfcontrol of the workers. According to Isiavwe et al. (2015), job design must consider job specifications, operational components, and relationships in various parts of work and technologies to meet the needs of the organizations without conflicting with the social and personal requirements of the workers. In addition, the criteria that should be considered together with the job design are increasing skills and expertise and reducing working, learning, and training times to get the most effective jobs. Typically, job design includes.

Job rotation
Job rotation is a system that allows employees to rotate from one job to another as predetermined in order for the job rotation process to be efficient and employees not being rotated in inappropriate positions. According to Kopec et al. (2011), the following four factors should be considered: 1. Gender of employees; 2. Physical needs of job positions; 3. Knowledge, skills, and abilities of employees; 4. Needs and time required for other operations.
Therefore, job rotation has many advantages, such as increasing productivity, providing training opportunities, increasing employee retention, and supporting the career advancement of employees (Cheng and Ma, 2013). At the same time, employees get better insights into the operations of their organizations (Aroosiya and Ali, 2014). In addition, job rotation seems to promote employee learning and increase employee motivation and human capital accumulation along with leading to reduced boredom and absenteeism of employees, including people with disabilities into work that is suitable to their abilities and skills (Asensio-Cuesta et al., 2012), and finally increasing problem-solving skills of employees. Moreover, two other factors that may drive corporate decisions for job rotation are organizational restructuring and periodic change in employee assignments.
Job rotation is to help ease the burden of heavy work or distribute the workloads to be perfectly done while the workers do not feel too tired from working due to inappropriate management of the division of tasks. According to Hsieh and Chao (2004), job rotation has a positive impact on work. The first study was done in early 1950 with some debates that job rotation might be used in the way of repetitive work or mass production in that decade. However, there are still some barriers in using the job rotation process, such as the bargaining power of the labor union, job rotation to other jobs that have similar risks, and lack of knowledge and skills of employees for certain jobs (Cheng and Ma, 2013). Another factor that hinders job rotation is gender at work. According to Eamurai et al. (2019), some jobs accept men only. Therefore, job rotation is more difficult and not suitable for certain jobs.

Job enlargement
Job enlargement is job modification by adding more jobs and sometimes combining the same or different tasks together depending on suitability. The basic aim of job enlargement is to stimulate the interest of employees at different job levels as well as to design jobs that increase the capacity of employees to achieve the desired results of the organizations (Aroosiya and Ali, 2014). Job enlargement is divided into 2 ways: 1. Horizontal job enlargement means the level of work with many missions, which can be done by adding jobs to existing ones that can be completed by employees with the same skill levels. The overall goal of horizontal job enlargement is to reduce the specificity and boredom of work, which can finally lead to the development of new employee skills. 2. Vertical job enlargement means the level of power in deciding what to do. The goal of this technique is to increase the status and needs of the employees while providing the opportunity for them to participate in organization planning and work control.

Job enrichment
Job enrichment means developing challenging work practices and encouraging employees to see the value so that they work better. Moreover, job enrichment is to add value to a job that has the same level or value as the job currently assigned to the employees (Aroosiya and Ali, 2014). The key characteristic that plays an important role in this job enrichment in the perceptual dimension is the belief that the work requires the ability of the workers. Practices of job enrichment vary according to various factors, such as job characteristics, worker levels, and organizational culture (Ayub and Rafif, 2011). In addition, job enrichment must also consider giving employees more freedom to work.
From the above-mentioned information, it can be concluded that the main goal of the job design is to increase the ability of the work, which will lead to the organization's goals and also create job satisfaction. Job design has two main objectives, i.e., to meet the organization's requirements for increased productivity with efficiency and to meet the needs of each employee in terms of both challenges and productivity. A good job design must link between the job characteristics and the balance between individual lives.
Job design is the starting point of creating a successful job making the workers satisfied with their work as well as being part of creating work motivation. It also affects employee involvement because it has both positive and negative effects on work relationships, on the interaction between the employees, and on the organization (Siqueira and Padovam, 2008;Carmeli et al., 2010;Rao and Shetty, 2017).
According to Siqueira and Padovam (2008), work patterns can affect employee involvement, which is an important factor that makes employees in the organization more determined to work because of their participation in working will make employees at the level of leader or worker feel that they are important. Employee involvement means having a joint role from planning, defining roles and duties, and receiving empowerment in the workplace, including good working relationships that still remain even after the completion of work. Also, according to Carmeli et al. (2010), working styles that affect employee participation are an important thing to make employees have determination in working. Employee involvement makes employees feel that they are important. Therefore, job design is equivalent to creating employee involvement at the same time (creating a good relationship and trust with each other).

Employee involvement
Employee involvement is that employees have a role in participating in various activities in their organization by using their knowledge and skills and building a good relationship with their organization. Many scholars defined the meaning of employee involvement (Alston and Vize, 2010). A good employee involvement must be that employees have a value in working together, they can work together in multiple roles, they are involved in the planning and decision-making of the work together, and they are allocated resources to promote equal collaboration. The company should empower employees to develop their operations to increase work efficiency as well as allow employees to recommend solutions to work problems for their supervisors or executives (Sofijanova and Zabijakin-Chatleska, 2013; Al Naggar and Saad, 2019).

Importance of employee involvement
According to Okhato and Wanyoike (2015), the importance of involvement is about providing the opportunity for many groups of people to participate in the operations. To make quality involvement, participants must know how to exercise their power and be able to control the activity in order to create effective work. The importance of involvement serves as a process for people to participate in the management of community problems, which results in development, co-thinking, decisions, and solving community problems in appropriate ways to achieve their goals. Therefore, involvement is very important in the development of the quality of the organizations because when people get involved, there is not much resistance to concepts and operations. In addition, involvement helps reduce conflicts and stress from work and allows people to jointly consider and solve problems arising from work in order to focus on the goals and accept the changes. Moreover, with a commitment to create success for their organization, the personnel will feel satisfied with the results and feel self-worth, belonging, and bonding with their organization. The end result is a quality organization (Weldy, 2009;Appelbaum et al., 2000;Boxall and Purcell, 2000;Rich et al., 2010;Schaufeli and Bakker, 2001).
According to Dymock and McCarthy (2006) examining the perception of employee involvement in the development of innovations in the mediumsized manufacturing industries by using knowledge management as a competitive strategy, the results indicated that employees are aware and understand the knowledge to be used in various activities in the production and that employee involvement in terms of knowledge search can result in effective work. In addition, according to Weldy (2009) investigating the learning of people in the organization in the dimension of the relationship between the trainees and the trainers in the transfer of knowledge, the involvement by both trainees and trainers can create good relationship and atmosphere during training and obtain the achievement of knowledge that can be effectively applied, including getting highperformance workforce.

High-performance workforce
A high-performance workforce means highly efficient employees who are highly skilled in their work and can work very well. When we hear people talk about creating highly effective employees, what comes to our mind is to find people who are highly effective and able to work unbelievably, but that is not all because teamwork is also important. The most effective team is the one in which everyone works together effectively for a common goal. In addition, the ability of employees is also important in the creation of a high-performance workforce and stable business growth. In other words, the highperformance workforce is workers who can use their own knowledge and ability to get quality work.
The high-performance workforce management system was extensively studied over the past decade, and academics defined its meaning. According to Sarikwal and Gupta (2013), a high-performance workforce management system means human resource operations ranging from recruitment, selection, and determination of compensation and performance management system. Participation and training help increase the potential and motivation for the employees and reduce quality employee turnover. Similarly, according to Barnes (2012), a high-performance workforce management system is a group of operations consisting of participation in work, training, and compensation. It can affect the work efficiency of employees. According to Karatepe (2013), the high-performance workforce management system is a system consisting of a group of human resource operations that are perfect and lead to competitiveness. In conclusion, a group of human resource operations should be seamlessly integrated, consistent with internal management, and suitable for business environments with the aim of creating the potential for the employees to achieve the organization's goals.
The high-performance workforce of the employees can be concretely done if it is systematically prepared. That is to say, and organizations must have a clear definition of the management of employees with high efficiency and competency of their own personnel. A competency assessment form for the organization personnel should be created along with organizing employee development activities and programs to increase the capacity of the organizations (Ramsay et al., 2000;Ashton and Sung, 2002;Tamkin, 2004;Kalleberg et al., 2006;Purcell, 1999;Patel and Conklin, 2012;Saragih et al., 2017).

Research methodology
This study began with a literature review from relevant databases and in-depth interviews with top executives or entrepreneurs in the garment industry companies. Empirical evidence indicated that there is an administration that can create a highperformance workforce or fifteen HPOs (garment companies). These 15 companies have at least 5 years of working experience and (1) continuously good performance, (2) an import and export of products to foreign countries, and (3) evidence in business perception with outstanding production development. They are located in Bangkok, Thailand, and range from medium-to large-sized companies with 100 employees and higher. We developed an interview form consisting of topics and open-ended questions used in interviews. There were also small group discussions with experts in the Thai garment industry to check, test, improve or edit the interview form so that HPOs (garment companies) use it effectively in order to know the elements of job design to develop the high-performance workforce in the Thai garment industry.

Data collection
This research began with literature review from relevant databases and in-depth interviews with senior executives or entrepreneurs in fifteen companies with empirical evidence indicating that there is an administration that can create highperformance workforce as well as with experience in working at least 5 years in the garment industry and (1) continuously good performance, (2) an import and export of products to foreign countries, and (3) evidence in business perception with outstanding product development. They are located in Bangkok, Thailand, and range from medium-to large-sized companies with 100 employees and higher.

Data analysis
According to the literature review and in-depth interviews, we analyzed the data by considering the elements of work design that can be summarized in Table 2.  Job enrichment -Addition of value to a job that has the same level or value as the job currently assigned to the employees -Addition of value to a job that has the higher-level or value as the job currently assigned to the employees Aroosiya and Ali (2014) Ayub and Rafif (2011)

Results
The results of the study and literature review, as mentioned above and from data collected from indepth interviews, can be synthesized as the conceptual framework in this research. The elements of job design to develop a high-performance workforce in the Thai garment industry consists of job rotation, job enlargement, and job enrichment, as shown in Fig. 1.  Fig. 1: Research design framework These elements can affect the involvement of employees in the garment industry. The results from literature reviews and in-depth interviews about job design can be summarized in Table 2.

Discussion
According to the literature review and in-depth interviews in this research, it was found that the elements of job design include (1) job rotation, (2) job enlargement, and (3) job enrichment, which can result in the employee involvement in the garment industry.
Therefore, in the next study, the researcher will use the conceptual framework obtained from this study to investigate population groups, collect data from samples in the Thai garment industry, and conduct an analysis to obtain research results that can be expanded as a policy to lead to the development of the high-performance workforce in the Thai garment industry.

Job rotation
Job rotation allows employees to rotate from one job to another as predetermined, including both rotations of work positions and rotation of working forms, by taking into account the gender of employees, physical needs of job positions, knowledge, skills, and abilities of employees, and needs and time required for other operations (Kopec et al., 2011).
Benefits of job rotation include (Cheng and Ma, 2013;Aroosiya and Ali, 2014;Asensio-Cuesta et al., 2012) productivity, training opportunities, employee retention, and career advancement of employees. They can get better insights in organization operations along with promoting their learning, motivation, and accumulation of human capital and reducing employee boredom and absenteeism. In addition, employee problems and workloads can be alleviated or distributed so they can work seamlessly and more efficiently.

Job enlargement
Job enlargement is job modification by adding more jobs and sometimes combining the same or different tasks together depending on suitability. The basic aim of job enlargement is to stimulate the interest of employees at different job levels as well as to design jobs that increase the capacity of employees to achieve the desired results of the organizations (Aroosiya and Ali, 2014). Job enlargement is divided into 2 ways: 1. Horizontal job enlargement means the level of work with many missions, which can be done by adding jobs to existing ones that can be completed by employees with the same skill levels. The overall goal of horizontal job enlargement is to reduce the specificity and boredom of work, which can finally lead to the development of new employee skills. 2. Vertical job enlargement means the level of power in deciding what to do. The goal of this technique is to increase the status and needs of the employees while providing the opportunity for them to participate in organization planning and work control.

Job enrichment
Job enrichment is to add value to a job that has the same level or value as or higher level or value than the job currently assigned to the employees (Aroosiya and Ali, 2014). The key characteristic that plays an important role in this job enrichment in the perceptual dimension is the belief that the work requires the ability of the workers. Practices of job enrichment vary according to various factors, such as job characteristics, worker levels, and organizational culture (Ayub and Rafif, 2011). In addition, job enrichment must also consider giving employees more freedom to work.
A good job design must be appropriate for each individual employee by taking into account their ability and working environment. It must encourage employees to make their own decisions in the field of their work and promote their work expertise. In addition, employee health must also be considered. Work schedules should be flexible, while jobs should be appropriately shared. Job design can affect employee involvement because it has both positive and negative effects on work relationships, on the interaction between the employees, and on the organization (Siqueira and Padovam, 2008;Carmeli et al., 2010). In the perspective of the garment industry, when employees know that they are well capable of managing fabric stock, they, therefore, want to offer their opinions and participate in suggesting ways to reduce stock-related costs to their supervisors or teammates in order to use the spaces usefully and reduce the amount of inventory that still meets the needs of customers. These are all good for organizations. When the things offered or participated by the employees are successful, they will then receive compensation, promotion, or other benefit, and their team members will also have participation and commitment to work well with each other and want to work together again. For job design in the garment industry, some garment factories have implemented the job enlargement by combining jobs together without walking around and wasting working time. For example, employees with similar duties or functions work together in the same area, and they sometimes rotated to other jobs, making them not getting bored. If job design is standardized, employees will not feel bored with doing the same work repeatedly because their positions are frequently changed along with allowing them to learn and apply knowledge to benefit their organizations.
This research has some limitations on the industry studied. That is to say, if other industries are investigated, the context must be adjusted as appropriate. The results of this study can be adapted to other industries, which must be consistent with the social environment, as well as can be further studied to find the elements that affect the development of highly effective labor in industries driven by expertise and skills. In addition, they can also be applied to businesses of other sizes, such as small and medium-sized businesses, and to other similar industries, such as the textile industry. Based on this research the following items are suggested: 1. The conceptual framework derived from this research can be additionally studied to find the factors that affect the development of a highperformance workforce in the industries that are driven by expertise. 2. The results of this study can be applied to businesses of other sizes, such as small and medium-sized businesses, including nearby or other industries, such as the textile industry.