Employees are being injured by modern ways of working Essay

It is true that employees are being injured by modern ways of working and are having their character corroded. According to Sennate, a person should be able to adapt himself to changing circumstances and resist to tension. Sennett states that routine is an evil of the old capitalism, and that in recent times, the workplace has been made "flexible" by means of the restructuring of time (flex time, part time jobs, increased use of swing and graveyard type shifts, etc.). However, in practical and in today's society, the practices of flexibility focus mainly on the forces that bend people. Today, "Flexible capitalism" describes the goal of most modern companies, to be able to continuously change to fit the market. Companies no longer provide job descriptions or long term contracts, but rather an opportunity to compete in a winner-takes-all market. This possibility seeks to reinvent institutions so that the present becomes discontinuous from the past. It is believed that loose networks are more open to reinvention than pyramidal hierarchies of Fordism. Team works and networks are trying to achieve greater efficiency where at the same time workers motivation can drop sharply. Specific techniques were found for reinventing the institutions such as software programs which standardise operational procedures, delayering and so on. The worker is like a bird flying from team to team, trying to adapt himself to a variety of circumstances.
Sennett goes on to talk about reengineering. Reengineering has caused many people to lose their jobs. Those who were in favour of this idea associated it with efficiency 'doing more with less'. Reengineering is a flop, as companies becomes dysfunctional, business plans are discarded, benefits are only short termed, and eventually, the organisation loses its discretion. Studies from the American Management Association have shown that downsizing has led to bad effects such as low profits and declining worker productivity. On flexible specialisation of production, this possibility tries to quickly get more varied products to the market, searching for temporary and not permanent market niches. It is focused on islands of specialised production requiring quick decision. It fits well to the small work group, the team work. . In this concept, competing firms work together. Flexible specialisation is expected to provide flexible jobs, open communication networks, innovations and can adapt to changes whereas the Fordist regime is said to be inflexible, authoritarian and rigid.The possibility of concentration of power, without centralisation of power, gives people in the low ranks of the organisation more control over their own activities. It creates a sense of false personal freedom. The work is reorganised into fragments and node. The worker positions oneself in a work of possibilities with fewer responsibilities. Rather than paralysing oneself in a particular job with a lot of responsibilities, he works on many different fronts at the same time. He is part of the team, often irresponsible for his own mistakes which can be attributed to the team. The personal qualities of being a good worker are harder to define.