What differentiates good from bad jobs? What are the current trends in ‘job quality’? What HRM practices or other factors produce ‘good jobs’?
Introduction
With the development of the society, the demands of jobs have been increased and there are more and more different kinds of jobs in order to satisfy different needs in each industry. Therefore, this essay will combine the differences between good jobs and bad jobs, it will also explain the current trends in ‘job quality’ and HRM practices or other factors which produce ‘good jobs’.
Differences between good and bad jobs
A ‘good’ job is defined as a job which has a positive impact on its’ holders wellbeing.
Also, the quality of different jobs is diverse. According to job quality, people have a drastic debate and no consensus on what job quality is. The job quality is a nebulous concept which can be viewed from many perspectives and disciplines and with varying emphases.In labor economics, job quality was traditionally understood as being represented by the wage level, while some sociological or industrial relations studies, it was related to working conditions, for example, working hours, autonomy.As Clark notes ‘Job quality may usefully be thought of as depending upon both job values (how much workers care about different job outcomes) and the job outcomes themselves’ (2005: 377).
When people are considered about job, they will focus on the job satisfaction. The job characteristics model which is described by Hackman and Oldham identifies 5 core job characteristics that they thought would be associated with job satisfaction.From all of these, high autonomy and task significance can represent a good job.
Firstly, autonomy is the extent to which the job allows job-holders to exercise choice and discretion in their work. In other words, it is the degree to which a person has the freedom to decide how to perform his or her tasks. (Parker and Wall, 1998) As an example, a teacher who is required to follow a predetermined textbook and covering a given list of topics, has low autonomy which means a bad job because the teacher has no choice but to follow the leader. On the other hand, a teacher who are free to choose textbooks and to design the course content has high autonomy which represents a good job.
Then, task significance refers to the extent to which the job allows job-holders to exercise choice and discretion in their work, which means whether a person’s substantially affects other people’s work, health or well-being. Cleaners clean the floors in a hospital, which can help patients get better and they may see their role as essential part in the hospital. When they feel their tasks are significant, employees will believe that they have a positive impact on the environment, which leads their feelings of self-worth are boosted. In my opinion, when people think their own jobs are important and they will think their jobs are good jobs.
Last but not least, people believe high wage is equal to high job quality. In other words, a good job like manager, senior engineer will be paid more than a bad job like cleanser, sales person. Most people think that a good job should be paid higher. According to Daron, he found that firms open too few high-wage and too many low-wage jobs. Some people think that a good job should low stress and high satisfaction but some jobs in Japan are not like this. For example, lean production was a ‘high involvement’ form of work organization that emerged in Toyota in Japan in the 1960s. It became seen as the alleged ‘future of work’ in the 1990s by a best selling book called The Machine that Changed the World by the MIT International Program on the Motor Vehicle Industry. The Japanese had discovered a new way to work in the auto industry. This way of working was supremely productive and delivered high quality work, which is used by ‘tightening’ the production process and removing all ‘buffers’ between stages of production. According to Kaeasek and Theorell job demands model, high job demands do not necessarily make a job stressful- but it is the high demands combined with the lack of autonomy to meet them that does. The employees in Japan have high stress but the productivity is extremely high. Therefore, part of the outcome was that workers in Japan suffered serious stress induced conditions, including Karoshi.
Current Trends about Job Quality in Australia
Next part of this essay will talk about current trends about job quality in Australia. The employees in Australia never suffer stress from working because there are many public holidays like Easter in Australia. And not only students but also employees don’t need to have classes and to go working even most shopping mall are closed in these public holidays. However, every shopping mall is open in all public holidays in china because most people will go shopping and it is a business opportunity for them so there are more sales activities. At the same time, shopping malls are closed after 7 pm except Thursday when the shopping malls don’t close until 9 pm. While the shopping malls in China close after 10 pm. To sum up, employees’ working hours in Australia are less than that in China.
Then, the wage of workers in Australia and China will be compared.The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Average Weekly Earnings survey is designed to measure the level of average earnings in Australia at a point in time.In the twelve months to November 2014, Trend series Full-Time Adult Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings increased 2.7% to $1,476.30.The Full-Time Adult Average Weekly Total Earnings in November 2014 were $1,539.40, a rise of 2.7% from the same time last year. However, the average yearly wage was ¥52388 in 2014 in China, which means the average weekly wage was ¥1007. Therefore the wage in Australia is more higher than that in China.
Factors produce ‘good jobs’
There are various aspects of HRM that affect trends in the quality of job in Sweden.
Australian Workplace Productivity Agency 2013. Quality of Work Research Project Report, Curtin University http://www.awpa.gov.au/publications/Documents/MS4%20Report%20Final%20311013.pdf
