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Workplace and workforce 2000+ -the future of our work environment
1Lehrstuhl und Seminar für Allgemeine Betriebswirtschaftslehre, Personalwesen und Arbeitswissenschaft, Universität Mannheim, Germany. oechsler@personal.bwl.uni-mannheim.de
International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health
|September 1, 2000
Summary
Future work trends like flexibilization, decentralization, and globalization will create job insecurity and stress for many employees. These changes also impact the workplace, potentially leading to alienation and new challenges for occupational health professionals.
Area of Science:
- Organizational Psychology
- Human Resource Management
- Sociology of Work
Background:
- Research explores evolving work structures and their impact on employees and employment relations.
- The University of Mannheim's Human Resource Department investigates future work design.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the effects of future work structures on employees and employment relations.
- To identify emerging challenges in the workplace and for occupational health.
Main Methods:
- Trend extrapolation and simulation.
- Delphi research methodology.
- Analysis of workplace and workforce trends over the past decade.
Main Results:
- Flexibilization leads to core full-time employment and a larger group with precarious, part-time, or limited-term contracts, increasing employment risks and stress.
- Information technologies may dissolve social structures, leading to virtual companies, suppressed social interaction, and alienation.
- Decentralization increases employee responsibility for business processes, creating new stress factors.
- Globalization intensifies competition, fostering competitive attitudes and replacing traditional management appraisals with internal market mechanisms.
Conclusions:
- Psychosocial problems stemming from these work changes present new challenges for occupational health professionals.
- The human side of enterprise is increasingly substituted by market evaluations and competitive attitudes.
- Future work environments may experience reduced social interaction and increased employee stress due to technological and organizational shifts.