[Humanizing the work place - concepts of work psychology]

Recent research on central life interests shows that the position of work within the hierarchy of values is actually changing. One of the reasons is the increasing gap between school and vocational education on one hand and the level of qualification of many work activities on the other hand. Work psychology concepts of humanization of work intend to overcome this gap by different forms of autonomy oriented work organization. Therefore it is necessary to add to the traditional criteria of evaluation and measures of work organization the criteria of personality development. This implicates on one side the deduction of the author's principles of differential and dynamic work organization from this criteria, on the other side it requests the distinction between corrective, preventive and prospective strategies of work organization. In addition, trends of autonomy oriented work organization are thought to consider also the options of decentralization and delegation of decision which have been made possible by recent developments in technology, at the same time as they can include stress-reducing and personality developing elements.