CONTEMPORARY WORK

Characteristics of Work and Employment in Contemporary Times



[Name of the Institute]Characteristics of Work and Employment in Contemporary Times

Introduction

The modernization of time in terms of thinking, attitudes, behaviors, living style, communication and technology has changed people's perspective towards working styles as well. Traditionally, bosses used to direct and guide the way to achieve goals and objectives, and employees were supposed to follow these instructions strictly. But today, the entire work culture has changed throughout the world. Today, employees are required to obtain information necessary to complete the task from respective authority line and co-workers. All the tasks assigned to employees are managed solely by employees without interruption of bosses. Employees are encouraged to share ideas to improvise task or project performance freely. Employees are required to formulate groups and work together to attain desired group objectives. Logical explanations are more preferred than theoretical application. (Volti, R. 2011, p. 273 -283).

Discussion

Employees at all levels are given equal importance and opportunities to grow and learn maximum from managers and fellow workers. Managers and employees both mutually design and agree upon objectives to be achieved. Employees have right to speak up for their rights. All deadlines are fairly negotiated between employees and employers. The procedure of assessing the employees' performance is just and based upon detailed information gathered from managers, peers and sub ordinates in order to reach any decision. All the questions and queries from employees are considered as dedication and interest of employee in task by managers. Human resource department and managers particularly take care of employees' interests and problems in order to retain them for a long time.

However, there are several disadvantages too associated with cotemporary work style such as violence at workplace, cross cultural differences at workplace, ethical and legal issues occurred at workplace, issues pertaining to sexual harassment, managing conflicts of interest and managing stress. Some of the key characteristics of contemporary work environment have been discussed below:

Diversified workplace is one of the key features of today's work environment. It is comprised of males, females possessing different cultures, races, languages, ages, traditions, religions and values. This working staff could be normal or abnormal in terms of physical appearance. It implies that these people should be employed and provided with equal work opportunities across all units of organization. This feature was first appeared in USA by the end of implementation of Equal Work act 1963 (Thompson. P. & Warhurst, C., 1998, p. 61-74). The law imposed the requirement of distributing equal salary for same work among all employees despite of differences in terms of sex or culture. In addition, the civil right movement in 1964 focused on reduction in discrimination by employers in terms of race or color. It has enormous benefits in todays work culture as it spreads the comprehension of global market practices among all employees (Hakim, C., 2004, p. 199-212).

According to a survey, a diversified organization is able to enjoy higher productivity, performance and profits as compare to undiversified firms. It can also prove to ...