So, for now, just "cruise" around the course site, and get to know the direction that this course will take, and the issues it will explore. Read the assigned articles for this week.
I will write more in this blog later this week.
To get you thinking, here is a quote to reflect upon:
Decades of research establish the fact that three major human needs can be satisfied by gainful employment: 1) the need for the basic economic resources and security essential to lead good lives; 2) need to do meaningful work and the opportunity to grow and develop as a person; and 3) the need for supportive social relationships. (The New American Workplace (2006). J. O'Toole & E. Lawler)
Why do you work?
Chuck Piazza
Week 1, Part II: Taking a Look at the American Workplace--Some Current Trends
There is no doubt, the 21st century workplace will be vastly different than that of the late 1990s. Many researchers are trying to chart these changes, exploring the shifts taking place in the American workforce, and discussing how to address the challenges they pose.
Some conclusions raised by James O'Toole and Edward E. Lawler III in their 2006 book The New American Workplace are:
1. Insufficient creation of new jobs. As manufacturing jobs disappear, "new, higher-value-added, higher-paying service-sector jobs" should be appearing. The expected volume of such new jobs has not occurred.
2. Increased choice and risk. Workers today face a wider array of choices than ever before, choices concerning what career to pursue, how much and what form of education to obtain, where to work, how to mesh work with other aspects of life, when to change jobs and careers, how to make trade-offs among benefits, and when, or if, to retire.
3. Increased influence of competitive and economic drivers. The decisions employers make about the pay, benefits, and working conditions they offer are increasingly driven by competitive and financial considerations.
4. Increased tension between work and family life. Men and women in all categories of employment—front line, technical, managerial, and professional—cite a desire for greater balance between work and other aspects of life, particularly their family lives.
5. Mismatch between skills and business needs. The primary and secondary educational system in the US is failing to provide the skills millions of workers need to escape minimum-wage and dead-end employment.
6. Increased social stratification based largely on educational attainment. Related to the problems in education are signs of increasing workforce stratification, with clear winners and losers and decreasing economic mobility. In terms of real wages, executives and technically skilled workers have fared spectacularly in recent years, and college graduates, in general, have relatively fared well. Blue-collar workers, though, have significantly lagged behind their educated and white-collar peers.
7. Changing nature of careers. The traditional career path of completing one’s education and then working for a single organization until retirement is all but disappeared. Individuals expect to work for multiple employers, to move back and forth between work and education and between work and family responsibilities, and perhaps, never retire.
8. Reduction in community commitment. New employment contracts and the high rate of employee turnover have reduced the opportunity for workers to satisfy their needs for belonging to supportive workplace communities.
9. Shortcoming of the healthcare system. The major public policy issue related to work in America today is the nation’s long-standing and unaddressed healthcare crisis. While many workers have no healthcare, concerns abouth health insurance coverage limit the mobility of workers and create dysfunctional tension between labor and management.
10. The boomer demographic imperative. Depending on public and private choices that must be made soon, in the near future there may be (a) a shortage of skilled workers, (b) a shortage of for older workers who cannot afford to retire, (c) a rapid decline in the demand for goods and services as boomers retire with insufficient incomes, (d) steady economic growth as boomers continue to make economic contributions well into their 70s and 80s, (e) the end of retirement as we know it, (f) a demand for increased immigration, or (g) all, some, or none the above.
11. Unrealized opportunities to make more effective use of human capital. Current workplace practices, such as the use of contingent and part-time workers, preferences for younger over older workers, underfunding of training, growing gaps between the salaries and benefits of executives and average employees, and a 24/7 working environment, appear to be having negative effects on worker turnover, motivation, loyalty, and job satisfaction. Yet there exist a number of underutilized workplace “best practices”: flexible working hours, company-sponsored tuition reimbursement, benefit for part-timers, employee participation in decision-making and profit sharing, the redesigning of jobs to make them challenging, and the providing of on-the-job developmental opportunities.
So, in light of your professional experience:
- How do you understand or interprete these findings?
- Which to you agree with? Why?
- What workforce trends do you see? What are the causes of these trends? What are the ramification of these trends?
I'm interested in your insights.
Chuck Piazza
