Work Organization in a Post-Industrial Economy - Coursework Example

WORK ORGANIZATION IN A POST-INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Work Organization in a Post-industrial Economy Introduction Work in the post-industrial economy according to Hunter (2005, p.113) has intensely transformed the aspect of the working hours as well as how work structure is organised. As mentioned by Franklin and Blyton (2013, p.231), paid work is becoming more and more dominant in the lives of the people, and this is a long way from the rise in leisure that was anticipated from the technological revolution since scores of workers are currently working more intensively and longer hours as compared before. It appears that challenges impacting the integration of workers’ outside life and paid work, currently acknowledged as ‘work-life balance’, have become the key issue between trade unions and employers in the current working environment. The dominant predicament obscuring the time between leisure as well as work, according to Griffin (2013) is the increased working hours in the present international marketplace that operates twenty four hours. Furthermore, distance, time and space have been compressed by IT, spatial, and temporal boundaries between personal life as well as paid work, which becoming more imaginary. Whereas such phenomena can generate novel opportunities as well as widen prospects for the highly skilled and most educated knowledge workforces, enabling them to work where and when they desire, novel problems as well crop up (Griffin, 2013). Post-industrial economy resulted in the end of natural working hours, and led to introduction of unequal employment patterns long working hours as well as brutalised the labour experience. It consequently, deprived employees of their dignity and autonomy, making them live to work instead of working to live. For this reason the essay analyse the working longer hours as a key aspects of work organisation that was attributed to Post-industrial economy. Body During industrialisation, the middle class materialized who included skilled employees, accountants, clerks, managers, among others. The middle class had the needed money for both surviving and buying leisure goods, and as a result, they lived contentedly. Majority shifted away from the capitals since they believed the slum was unpleasant and unhygienic, which consequently, resulted to the beginning of outskirts, or neighbourhoods that were socially isolated. Still, most of the people working in the industrialized areas subsisted in appalling, cruel conditions due to poor salaries; so, they had to work for more hours to meet their daily needs (Goloboy, 2008, p.51). The memoirs clearly indicate that pre-industrial Australia had not enough work, and for this reason, people were not fully employed all through the year. So, they had adequate leisure time; however, most families were living uncomfortable life due to lack of income. As mentioned by Griffin (2013), the lack of reliable employment as well compelled workforces to remain in their positions, which to majority was unbecoming or completely manipulative. However, this drastically changed during the industrialization since there was lots of work in the factories that required healthy and strong workers. In this case, there were more jobs in constructing the factories, and working in already built factories. As stated by Mills et al. (2006, p.77), the industrial employees required homes and food, and so they had to work more hours to get paid. Scholars such as Haber (1992, p.20) have pointed out clearly that increase in working hours was attributed to industrialisation, and in the contemporary economy working for longer hours has been related to worsening living standards. A few workers benefited from industrialisation, but certainly not all employees got better salaries or valued the new conditions of working. Still, majority established that industrialization highlighted the difference between plenty and poverty. As stated by Burke and Cooper (2008, p.80), maintaining strong employment relations within the organisation is essential to the success of the organisation. Therefore, healthy employment relations are needed for both human satisfaction as well as high productivity. As defined by Gill (2008, p.99), employee relations concerns evading and solving problems regarding employs that can materialise from the work scenario influence such as long working hours. Long working hours negatively impact employment relation since it results in unsafe and unhealthy work environment, wherein in employees are motivated only by money. According to MSG (2010), employee relations can be traced back during the industrial revolution that generated the contemporary employment relationship through breeding of large-scale industrial organisations as well as free labour markets with lots of remunerated employees. While society was struggling with massive social and economic changes, problems within the labour market arose. Besides that, long working hours, poor remuneration, repetitious and unsafe work, as well as obnoxious managerial practices resulted in violent strikes, high employee turnover, as well as the risk of instability within the society. Employee relation has largely been impacted by the verity that full-time jobs working hours are progressively increasing. Certainly it is the existence of lack of employment that facilitates companies in the contemporary business world to demand employees to work for longer hours because if the refuse they can be easily replaced by those willing to work for many hours for the same pay. In the 1980s, Beder (2001, p.42) posits that the overtime resulted in nearly 10,000 job loss in the steel industry as well as more than 80,000 in the auto industry. Comparable situations also took place in the mining industry. According to Beder (2001, p.42), 43% of full-time Australian workers work for long hours and 65% are not paid for the extra hours they work. Salaried individuals are always vulnerable to demands of the employer for longer hours bearing in mind working for long hours result in increased fatigue instead of productivity, and consequently poor employment relations. Besides that working for longer hours result in inadequate time for personal life outside working environment, and this social cost results in restrained relationship between senior employees and junior staff (Bittman & Rice, 2002, p.5). Numerous studies such as Weston et al. (2004), have analysed the effect of long working hours on health and welfare, and predictably established that long working hours lead to serious adverse consequences high risk of mental and physical health disorders, hardship in balancing family and work life, and poor employment relationship. Besides that, Weston et al. (2004, p.4) established that long working hours resulted in decline in job satisfaction, especially for the full-time employees. Besides that, long working hours may heavily restrict or prevent employees from take part in various social activities such as voluntary services and support provision for members of extended family, may challenge the opportunities of women for full-time employment, as well as may stop partners from cooperatively taking part in remunerated work (Bittman & Rice, 2002, p.6). Because of work arrangements, where bread winners are working more hours to meet their family daily needs in the present unstable financial system, it has resulted in the social networks decline, whereby employees value their workplace more than socialising with people around the community (Weston et al., 2004, p.4). Most of workers in Australia working more hours are contended even when they know it impacts their family relations and their wellbeing. To sum up, industrialisation forced people to work for many hours so as to meet their daily needs, but this has changed in the contemporary working environment where employees are forced to work for long hours or risk being replaced by individuals seeking employment. This leads to a fragile relationship between employers and employees, who feel misused and manipulated. In recommendation, it is imperative to acknowledge that a systematic and planned approach to managing and accessing the risks of long working hours can improve the safety as well as health of the employees. Organisations must reduce the issues related to long working hours and this may consequently; financially benefit both the society and business through: lowering absenteeism as well as sickness; reducing incidents of lost-time; lessening the risk of accidents associated with fatigue; and also improving work efficiency and lowering labour turnover. Evidently, successful risk management related to long working hours needs full-time commitment from the organisation’s top management. So the top management, being the main decision makers in the organisation must take part in the modification or development of working arrangements, which stipulates the standard working hours in line with the federal government proposals. In addition, government together with trade unions should develop clear procedures and policies for management of working arrangements, which highlights the possible risks of working for longer hours. To ensure effective employment relationship, employers should balance the safety and health needs of the employees by applying the guidelines of good practices when modifying or designing working hours. Conclusion In conclusion, it has been argued that work in the post-industrial economy has tremendously transformed from work in the past eras. Post-industrialisation created the need for continuous development of production methods that needs workers to change jobs from time to time. As argued in the essay, longer working hours was mainly attributed by poverty during the industrialisation period, but trends since 1980s such as increased rate of unemployment has left employees with no choice but to work form longer hours or they risk losing their job. Furthermore, employers are forcing employees to work for longer hours, and this to some extent is negatively impacting the employment relationship leading to poor productivity and satisfaction. References Beder, S., 2001. Working Long Hours. Engineers Australia, p.42. Bittman, M. & Rice, J.M., 2002. he Spectre of Overwork: An Analysis of Trends Between 1974 and. 1997 Using Australian Time-Use Diaries. Labour & Industry, vol. 12, no. 3, pp.5-25. Burke, R.J. & Cooper, C.L., 2008. The Long Work Hours Culture: Causes, Consequences and Choices. London: Emerald Group Publishing. Franklin, A. & Blyton, P., 2013. Researching Sustainability: A Guide to Social Science Methods, Practice and Engagement. New York: Routledge. Gill, A.S., 2008. The role of trust in employee‐manager relationship. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 20, no. 1, pp.98 - 103. Goloboy, J.L., 2008. Industrial Revolution: People and Perspectives. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. Griffin, E., 2013. Why Workers Welcomed Long Hours of Industrial Revolution. [Online] Available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-03-19/why-workers-welcomed-long-hours-of-industrial-revolution [Accessed 24 April 2015]. Haber, S.H., 1992. Assessing the Obstacles to Industrialisation: The Mexican Economy. Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 24, no. 1, pp.1-32. Hunter, J., 2005. Women and the Labour Market in Japan's Industrialising Economy: The Textile Industry before the Pacific War. New York: Routledge. Mills, A.J., Mills, J.C.H., Bratton, J. & Forshaw, C., 2006. Organizational Behaviour in a Global Context. Toronto : University of Toronto Press. MSG, 2010. Employee Relations - Importance and Ways of Improving Employee Relations. [Online] Available at: http://www.managementstudyguide.com/employee-relations.htm [Accessed 24 April 2015]. Weston, R., Gray, M., Qu, L. & Stanton, D., 2004. The impact of long working hours on employed fathers and their families. Research paper. Australian Institute of Family Studies. Read More