Certified nursing assistants (CNAs) perform an important role in the long-term care system because they provide the majority of paid care to nursing facility residents. Unfortunately, annual CNA turnover often exceeds 100 percent nationally. Many factors account for this, including stressful working conditions, low pay, and limited benefits. The…

Work practices in the meat-processing industry have changed in recent years. The industry has moved away from workers dressing a whole carcass towards a chain-based system, with each worker performing a single task along a moving production line. The nature of the meat-processing workforce has also changed. It is no longer dominated by seasonal…

Human resources development must be oriented toward the achievement of all objectives of organizational performance: Quality, efficiency, societal impact, employee impact. Three fundamental phases in developing a work design strategy (for improving organizational effectiveness) are explained. (BM)

Job design or redesign (intended to create a more meaningful working environment that meets the needs of people as well as the organization) is discussed in terms of job rotation, work simplification, job enlargement, job enrichment, and other concepts relating to successfully redesigning other's jobs as part of effective management. (TA)

Discusses job discretion (the degree of worker autonomy) and the American "work ethic" in a historical context and in regard to the current shift from a manufacturing economy to one based on information services and new technologies. (ML)

After pointing out possible prejudicial consequences of job restructuring both for occupational and economic interests of workers and for the structure and activities of the trade union movement, various trade union reactions and attitudes to work humanization are analyzed. Available from: ILO Publications, International Labour Office, CH-1211,…

The study, conducted in a large manufacturing firm, examined employee background and occupational characteristics and their relationship to the degree of resistance to a job enrichment program. Educational background, age, and kind of task performed were important determinants. Occupational characteristics were also relevant factors. (MW)

Critics call computerized innovations and other changes in the workplace examples of the employers'"dumbing down" of jobs for illiterate workers. Others disagree and say the changes free workers from routine, monotonous tasks and permit them to learn more complex procedures and to take on more responsibility. Findings of a survey of business…

The report analyzes health, education, and welfare problems from the perspective of work which plays a powerful role in the psychological, social, and economic aspects determining for many the quality of life. Work problems create repercussions in other parts of the social system. Documentary evidence on which the report is based consists of…

The report describes the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS), an instrument designed to measure the following classes of variables: (1) objective job characteristics, particularly the degree to which jobs are designed so that they enhance work motivation and job satisfaction; (2) personnel affective reactions of individuals to their jobs and work setting;…

This study assesses the consequences of the continuing and rapid introduction of information and telecommunications technologies in offices. The report of the study contains 12 chapters. After a brief look at the context of office automation from the perspective of history, the first chapter highlights some expectations about the technologies and…

Automated office technologies, such as office automation systems, management information systems, teleconferencing, message systems, and robotics, are providing momentum for the trend towards the "paperless office" by allowing new means of carrying out office tasks and aiding in the management of time, data, and messages. The success of these…

The world of work is composed of contradictory conditions which schooling tries to mediate through a reproductive process. The present organization of production based on wage-labor is inherently self-contradictory in that the interests of management and labor are directly opposed. School prepares individuals to deal with the types of peer…