Common working conditions hurting workers, businesses

Washington(ANI): A new research has found that increase in professional business practices such as outsourcing, hiring temporary workers and focusing on project-based teams is having a detrimental effect on workers and likely poses long-term problems for employers.

For their study, North Carolina State University researchers examined data on working conditions, workplace relationships and worker behaviour of professional employees over the past 80 years.

The researchers found that, over that period, employers have increasingly implemented measures that they feel will improve worker productivity and profits.

"We found that, while these measures have succeeded in increasing performance pressure, there have also been unintended consequences," says Dr. Martha Crowley, an assistant professor of sociology at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the research.

They also found that these business practices have led people to withdraw loyalty from their employers and also that employees are no longer as committed to their employers' goals.

"People are still doing their jobs and many are putting in a lot of hours, but they are not doing the things they would do if they were passionate about their work, " Crowley says.

The paper also addresses the deterioration of working conditions in the manual employment sector.

The paper, "Neo-Taylorism at Work: Occupational Change in the Post-Fordist Era," was co-authored by Daniel Tope of Florida State University and Lindsey Chamberlain and Randy Hodson of Ohio State University.

The research was done using data collected under a grant from the National Science Foundation. The paper will be published in the August issue of Social Problems.

NC State's Department of Sociology and Anthropology is a joint department of the university's College of Humanities and Social Sciences and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.