The modern working life : its impact on employee attitudes, performance and health
"Many tasks in modern working life require personal initiatives, ingenuity, flexibility and adaptability. The reverse of the medal might be uncertainty about the employer’s or the clients’ expectations. Thus it is often difficult to foresee how the results of one’s endeavours will be assessed....
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Institution: | ETUI-European Trade Union Institute |
| Format: | TEXT |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Stockholm
2002
NIWL |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19295120124910133029-The-modern-working-life-its-im.htm |
| Summary: | "Many tasks in modern working life require personal initiatives, ingenuity, flexibility and adaptability. The reverse of the medal might be uncertainty about the employer’s or the clients’ expectations. Thus it is often difficult to foresee how the results of one’s endeavours will be assessed. In many cases it might also be difficult to estimate the effort and time that will be needed to reach a certain end.
Even worse, if time and other resources are too short, conflicts between quantitative and qualitative expectations might arise. Thus serious mismatch between demands and expectations on one hand and available time and other resources on the other would constitute risk situations, posing a threat to the health and well-being of the employees. Working speed is a frequent problem and new health effects, like stress disorders and burnout, are increasing, but so are stress-related physical accidents and psychosomatic disorders. It has been shown, for example by the European surveys of working conditions, that working situations have not generally improved. Old problems, like heavy loads, painful working positions and exposure to noise show no decreasing tendencies. Combinations of physically trying work and imperfect work organisation constitute high-risk situations. Thus, musculo-skeletal strain injuries, which are a dominant health problem in Europe, can be considered not only as physical disorders but also as manifestations of psychological stress.
In Sweden, a tradition of influence, participation and co-determination at work has evolved throughout much of the 20 th century and also become legally manifest mainly through the Co-Determination Act and several treaties based on this act. In reality, though, the possibility to exert an influence on one’s own work might be illusive for reasons described above. During the 1990s, new types of work organization have emerged and their effects upon the health of workers have not been sufficiently explored. What looks like a flexible work organisation might in reality imply an intensification of work, especially in combination with ill-defined performance expectations. " |
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| Physical Description: | 42 p. Paper |