Newsweek asks the question, Are we done
with the 40 Hour Week? http://www.msnbc.com/news/949259.asp?0cv=CB20
"For one thing, employers nowadays
frequently find it easier to add hours to workers' schedules than to hire,
train and provide benefits to a new employee. Employees, meanwhile, rely on
comp time, employer flexibility and technology to remold their schedules in
ways never envisioned in the past. A globally connected economy has made "9 to
5" little more than the name of a 1980 film. With the economy ever more
service-oriented, the line has blurred between the average wage-earning,
coveralled Joe and his salaried, tie-wearing boss. Not only is Jane likely off
the factory floor, but it's hard to tell whether her collar is blue or
white.
All these changes have targeted two
competing visions of the American workplace. In one, you do your 40 and leave.
In the other, hours matter less; responsibility lies with the worker; company
goals and the bottom line are what count.
That split used to be clear and class-based
- unions duking it out with management. But a huge and growing middle class,
and the changing nature of the economy, have thrown old definitions into
disarray. "The social contract is
shifting," says Susan Meisinger, president and CEO of the Society for Human
Resource Management: "For the jobs that fall into the category of knowledge
worker, I think the lines are much
blurrier."
... Some companies still put workers and
managers in different camps, but human-resource executives have argued for
years that shared corporate goals are what's truly important. "There are some
companies that are what I would describe as Neanderthal," Meisinger says,
"because they don't see the value of getting everybody on the same
page.
...According to his data, taken from Labor
Dept. statistics, workers say they put in 42.7 hours a week in 1979 and 42.6
in 2002, and the percentage who worked exactly 40 hours a week rose slightly.
Moreover, he argues, a perceived trend away from hourly wages to salaries
simply hasn't happened. In a 2000 paper titled "12 Million Salaried Workers
Are Missing," he noted that perceived trends toward a skilled, salaried
workforce - more educated workers and skilled ocupations, fewer manufacturing
jobs and union labor - weren't supported by hard numbers.
Hamermesh admits his findings are
"mindboggling," contrary to every expected trend. Some of the perception of
more work, he posits, may come from those who already worked beyond 40 hours
spending even more time at their desks. In other words, not everyone is
working more, just those who already were.
Yet the composition of those would-be
workaholics has changed. Many blue-collar jobs have morphed into the
white-collar world, particularly in the information economy. For those folks,
and their bosses, office walls often don't hem in the job. High-tech tethers
to the workplace - pagers, e-mail, take-home laptops - extend work weeks. It's
no longer enough to just tally up your hours at the office. Many employers now
assume work can be done anytime,
anyplace."
and JUST IN TIME for Labor Day, this
teaser;
Coming
Soon
Aug 26 Tethered by a high tech
leash
Aug 27 Overworked and
suing
Aug 28 The dark side of
productivity
Aug 29 Laid back in
Europe
Sept 1
Burnout
