The Changing Nature of Work and Organizations - Customer Service Skills - Coursework Example

The Changing Nature of Work and Organizations “Customer Service Skills” Professor (Tutor) The Name of the School (University) The City and State Date The Changing Nature of Work and Organizations “Customer Service Skills” The world is experiencing increased changes in work and organizations as the post-industrial era continues to develop. One of the main changes in Australia is the decline of manufacturing jobs and an increase in the service sector jobs (Frijters & Gregory 2006, p. 210). This has been characterized by what can be referred to as customer service skills. Businesses are increasingly turning to emotional jobs where the emotional approach of providing the service is considered part of the service. Individuals with the ability to control their own and other’s feelings is viewed as a core competency for emotional employees in the international effort for competitive advantage by calm, excitement, deference, and even persuasion (Colic-Peisker & Tilbury 2006, p. 205). The following paper aims at using evidence to discuss the statement: The quality of work in the 21st century is getting progressively better for Australian workers. This statement or question seeks to argue that the quality of work in terms of social issues, work-life balance, employment, development, and compensation among others has improved in the current century for Australian employees. This means that employees in Australia are enjoying their work or the labor market than in earlier centuries. This paper disagrees with the statement that; the quality of work in the 21st century is getting progressively better for Australian workers. The essay will focus underemployment, immigrant workers in the service sector, unions, policies, and employment regulation to illustrate that the quality of work has not improve in Australia. Numerous changes have occurred in Australia work or labor context including increased rise of service sector jobs, reduced working hours, and growth in non-standard and precarious forms of work among others. Nonetheless, these changes are attributed to numerous factors including increased global migration, globalization, gaps in the labor market, and employer preferences. Nonetheless, these factors and changes have not illustrated any improvement in the quality of work to support that the quality of work has become better for Australian workers. The first major point concentrates on the “age of migration” that has increasingly played an integral role in the quality of work in Australia (Frijters & Gregory (006, p. 219). Australia has increasingly enjoyed natural resources for the past two centuries. However, based on the reduction in global prices, the financial crisis, and other contributing factor, the labor market has shifted to casual labor or the service sector jobs. The growth of non-standard and precarious and nonstandard forms of employment has increasingly risen in Australia as the whole labor market changes relatively. Colic-Peisker & Tilbury (2006, p. 218) argue that in the case of Australia, there lie two distinct sectors where one labor population enjoys the benefits of quality work while the others find themselves in the disadvantaged side. Colic-Peisker & Tilbury (2006, p. 203) study three immigrant refugee groups including Africans, Yugoslavians, and Middle Easterners and concluded that they are concentrated in the niche labor markets that involve customer service skills such as care of the aged, cleaning, taxi driving, and meat processing. These jobs are characterized by low wages that Australian local workers avoid. The main theory behind migration in labor market between countries is based on unified institutional, economic flows, and inter-cultural flow between sending and receiving nations as well as recognized international economic and cultural barriers. As immigrants increasingly join the labor market, they experience different barriers including lack of determining their educational achievements, discrimination based on cultural and racial differences by employers, the ethnic-path approach to integration, and lack of conventional social networks. When immigrants come to Australia they seek jobs that are in the service sector where basic skills are the only requirements. These basic skills include emotional intelligence such as caring for the elderly, cleaning, and social work. Nonetheless, Australia has no formal or informal policies or channels where immigrants specifically refugees under humanitarian assistance, are screened for higher education to enable them secure jobs in the primary labor market (Colic-Peisker & Tilbury 2006, p. 212). Nonetheless, based on the lack of skills in Australia, the need fill gaps in the rich resource country is huge. Chinese and UK immigrants have numerous projects in the country where Australians are not considered based on their semi-skills (Bahn & Cameron 2013, p.40). Rather, such organizations focus on their own people from the local labor markets who have the necessary skills that are not available in Australia. For instance, the UK runs a project that requires special skilled helicopter pilots to maneuver them over oil rigs, where such skills can only be obtained in France or the UK (Bahn & Cameron 2013, p.40). This means that an Australian would require additional time in training to be certified for such a position in his own home country. This illustrates Australia’s weakened nature in term of global skills competition. These findings can be reinforced through Bahn & Cameron (2013, p.39) explanation of the shifting paradigms in the labor market. According to Bahn & Cameron (2013, p.39) Australia has always valued the need to offer first priority to Australian workers first. This is even applied when industries begin to fail as importing immigrant employees would be received as negative. Most of the Australian public believes that the government will preserve their job even as industries cripple such as the decline in the manufacturing industry. This has led to an increase of in-ward focused mindset of semi-skilled employees in Australia. Bahn & Cameron (2013, p.39) suggests that this evidence is supported by the reluctance of Australian employees residing in the Eastern side to move to Western Australia and exploit employment in the resource each areas. This is based on several influences such as family and work life balance. Nonetheless, immigrant workers seek jobs outside their countries, while refugees have no other choice. Moreover, Australian workers are also reluctant to consider non-standard forms of work such as taxi driving or cleaning. Nonetheless, based on the numerous barriers and lack of formal labor market policies, refugees lack a way of illustrating their educational achievements to be competitive in the Australian labor market (Colic-Peisker & Tilbury 2006, p. 213). This tends to illustrate Australia as lacking the proper structures to offer better quality of work where even refugees can enjoy equal or better labor incentives such as quality pay, work-life balance, and effective employment. The second major issue lies in the changing nature of work that has seen increased underemployment of workers. In the post-industrial era, Australia has witnessed increased declines in its manufacturing industry where the blue-collar jobs received a rapid decline. This illustrated a shift in the working hours. Organizations also downsized in the wake the financial crisis and economic challenges witnessed over the two centuries (Gupta 2013, p. 4). The reduction of fulltime jobs has been characterized by the measure taken by organizations to keep expense low during trying economic times. Moreover, with the reduction of fulltime jobs, part time jobs have increased illustrating increased competition that may be affected by geographical, skills, or labor policy factors. This has seen the reduction of working hours by about ten percent. Nonetheless, Gupta (2013, p. 4) study in terms of underemployment illustrates that people are willing to work for more hours but lack the employment to do so. The study illustrates that the underemployment rates relate to unemployment rates where unemployment rates have reduced with apparent high underemployment rates. This can be translated in the context of people working more than one job to meet their underemployment statuses. Nonetheless, the implications of underemployment are wide and vast. Moreover, the issue of underemployment does not only affect skilled workers from Australia, but also immigrants. Refugees and immigrants from Africa and Asia countries also face underemployment where they lack a proper way of demonstrating their skills or accessing primary labor markets (Colic-Peisker & Tilbury 2006, p. 217). The existence of underemployment means that people have skills that they cannot capitalize on based on the labor market barriers and nature. This places the quality of work at stake illustrating increased dissatisfaction from employees. Furthermore, it also bears on the labor force quality and competitiveness of Australia. Both immigrant and local workers in Australia have to compete for part time jobs to address their underemployment. However, this is hampered by geographical differences of employment availability, types of available employment in relation to skills, and the ability of organizations to meet the work-life balance needs for employees. The prevalence of underemployment has also been found have an effect on the health of immigrants. A study by Kostenko (2012, p. 649) concluded that underemployment due to social assimilations among immigrants leads skills-mismatch when securing jobs that may affect their mental health. Without any considerable social and economic policy integration, immigrant’s workers seeking to work in Australia may be at risk of mental health illustrating the poor quality of work or nature even in the service sectors. Based on the idea of underemployment, it is evident that the quality of work has not improved. Simply put, the quality of work has shifted into a complex paradigm where policies and organizations are not prepared to improve the quality of work from a comprehensive perspective. Moreover, it also illustrates increased lack of improvement in quality of work as Australia is characterized by wide-ranging labor underutilization (Campbell 2008, p. 160). The idea of underemployment can offer another perspective on how the quality of work has not improved for Australian workers. This is in terms of how organizational, the government, and institutions have handled the issue of labor relations. The first common explanation is based on the economic trends Australia has witnessed in the previous centuries. Australia’s economic success over the previous centuries has unfolded in different natures that all focus on the conclusion that quality of work has not yet improved even in the twenty first century. First, the main issues surround the government’s employment policies. Australian employment policies have been inspired through neoliberalism and aggressively followed by the preceding Coalition government. This weakened protective employment laws that stimulated organizations to evade labor regulations and standards, thus helping develop fragment conditions and wages. According to Frijters & Gregory, (2006, p. 213) this step or trend had severe negative effects on the quality of many occupations in Australia both part and full time. The steps to regain the path towards effective employment standards have been challenging. This has resulted in increased cultural tendencies where people in the service skilled labor sector are easily replaced in their part time jobs due to lack of non-marketable skills. In terms of refugees and immigrant workers involved in the service industry, employee seek out the best ethnic groups to create networks where they manipulate or use their higher stakes to induce poor quality work elements such as poor pay and poor work-life balance (Colic-Peisker & Tilbury 2006, p. 219). The issues has also affected Australian workers who lack the ability to balance their work and life with the increased lack of fulltime employment and increased part-time jobs. Overall, due to poor policy regulations, the competition for work has increased, which gives employers the ultimate power to implement poor working standards and regulations. The idea is further complicated for immigrant employees who lack equal employment privileges in regulations. In the cleaning and retail industry, which is occupied by more immigrant workers has no relevant or prescribed minimum working hours or pay under law. Although some laws are provided such as entitlement to leave days, more of the power lies on employers who can easily effect fragmentations in such protective laws. The service sector is likely to experience higher rates of underemployed than other sectors, but the lack of skills and constricted employees and trade unions can exhibit extensive underemployment. The second idea focuses on unions that are viewed as a positive side of the Australian labor market. Nonetheless, this is not the idea. Australia has illustrated increased growth in terms of employment and the labor market during its many years of economic boom. However, the issue of trade unions and employee unions has not seen that much improvement. Based on Yarrington, Townsend & Brown (2007, p.23) research that interviewed managers and people in leadership position, there have been no good relationships between unions and organizations. This lies in significant internal aspects including communication, trust, employee voice, and respect for the regulations of relationships (Yarrington, Townsend & Brown 2007, p.124). Overall, most unions have had numerous cases of lack of trust or misunderstanding where respect for engagement is an issue. Moreover, employee voice has also had a negative turn as most people turn to odd jobs while other lack the ability to voice their grievances or ideas. This illustrates the bureaucratic nature of the unions in terms of ensuring increased quality work. Bargaining for increased work-life balance initiatives is no longer reserved for HR managers, but unions where increased lack of communication becomes a barrier in making effective improvements. Additionally, the service industry where customer service skills are applied lack the option for unions illustrating the depressing nature of such sectors. With organizations having influence in unions, employees remain disadvantage in most aspects of work related factors. This does not illustrate any significant improvement in the quality of work especially in the twentieth frost century. In conclusion, the paper has offered increased evidence on the quality of work where no significant improvements can be seen. With the changes and shifts occurring in organizations and work, Australia has lagged behind in terms of balancing or regulating the labor market to enhance the quality of work. Employees both immigrants and Australians are required to work for lesser hours when they are skilled and willing to work for more hours. The issues of underemployment poses increased reduction of quality of work for immigrant workers who are the foundation of the customer service skills sector. People from other countries looking for jobs in Australia either through a visa or humanitarian assistance face numerous obstacles such as discrimination in terms of culture and race, social and institutional weaknesses, and lack of skills-review. This has seen a rise in the service skill sector where people are compelled to work in non-standard forms of work even when they possess higher education or primary labor market skills. Moreover, such forms of work are under poor and weak regulations leading to fragmentation of labor standards. This means that the issues of underpayment, poor working conditions, and employee rights are on the rise. With the lack of proper policies and reduced initiatives to counter such issues, the quality of work does not seem to improve. Even Australians who have to bear with the challenge of underemployment lack support due to limited skills and weak unions that result in poor competitiveness in the local and global labor market. The fact that Australia does not recognize numerous service sector industry or the customer service skills sector where no standards or measures are implemented to help immigrants in accessing quality employment, illustrates that the quality of work has not improved. Moreover, the reduction of full-time jobs and poor work-life balance approaches illustrates that Australian workers still face challenges in their occupations. The solution may not be easy to enhance the quality of work, but requires increased collaboration between all stakeholders to identify gaps in skills, regulation, and policies for quality of work to improve. (Word Count 2541) References Bahn, S, & Cameron, R 2013, 'Sourcing Specialised Skilled Labour in the Global Arena: A Change in the Way We View Work in Australia?', Australian Bulletin Of Labour, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 19-41. Campbell, I 2008, 'Pressing towards Full Employment? The Persistence Of Underemployment In Australia', Journal Of Australian Political Economy, vol. 61, pp. 156-180. Colic-Peisker, V & Tilbury, F 2006, “Employment niches for recent refugees: Segmented labour market in twenty-first century Australia”, Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 19 no.2, 203-229. Frijters, P, & Gregory, R 2006, 'From Golden Age To Golden Age: Australia's ‘Great Leap Forward’?', Economic Record, vol. 82, no. 257, pp. 207-224. Gupta, D A 2013, “Structural Changes in Australian Labor Market: 21st Century”, International Journal of BRIC Business Research (IJBBR), vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1-6. Kostenko, W 2012, 'Australian migration policy change: selecting winners and making losers', Applied Economics Letters, vol. 19, no. 7, pp. 641-644. Yarrington, L M Townsend, K J & Brown, K A 2007, Models of Engagement: Union Management Relations for the 21st Century. Read More