The Human Job - an article from Mondcivitan Bridge by Willhelm Haller

In a recent article entitled "The Job Blahs: Who wants to work? " published by the American magazine Newsweek, reference was made to a report which indicated that nearly half of the American workers are dissatisfied with their jobs and suggested that something had better be done to make work more attractive, interesting and meaningful. According to this report, the work force in America is changing with more and more workers growing restless because of "dull, repetitive, seemingly meaningless tasks, offering little challenge or autonomy"

In their book "Where have all the robots gone", cited in the same article, scientists Sheppard and Herrick reported an in-depth study of 400 male union workers and concluded that one-third of them-particularly the young ones-were alienated from their jobs and could not be assuaged with the typical rewards of more money, shorter hours or longer vacations. They went on to assert "Worker dissatisfaction metamorphosed 'from a hobby horse of the "tender minded" to a fire-breathing dragon because workers began to translate their feelings of dissatisfaction into alienated behaviour. Turnover rates are climbing. Absenteeism has increased as much as 100% in the past ten years in the automobile industry. Workers talk back to their bosses. They no longer accept the authoritarian way of doing things".

There can be little doubt that this report reflects the situation not only of the United States but of any highly industrialized country, even if the degree of just how serious the problems are may vary from country to country. More and more often strikes, high employee turnover and absenteeism not only reflect problems of poor pay but of unsatisfactory working conditions and poor management-labour relations, anywhere in the western world.

This is of course alarming news not only for any company boss who realises the importance of the economical well-being of any society. The question is only "what is being done about it?"

Under the headline "job enrichment" all sorts of programmes and plans are being worked out and tried, all designed to make the employee happier and more satisfied with what he is doing. Some no doubt "will be doomed and some will succeed but the basic attitude with which employee and management approach the problem will most probably make all the difference.

Wherever the employee is still looked upon as a living piece of equipment usable and disposable as the situation requires, a job enrichment programme obviously is nothing more than better fodder and a more beautiful cage for the beast. But the beast no doubt, will take little time to realise this. The worker realising he is still being used, still manipulated, still nothing more than a cost factor-like materials and equipment, will soon resume being bored, frustrated and rebellious.

Unless management realises that the total work force is a community of human beings and not a number of employees who accept a job for a certain price which is primarily determined by the weight (the power) they can bring to bear at the bargaining table-any programme to solve the problems will only scratch the surface.

AUTHORITARIAN MANAGEMENT HAS NO FUTURE. THE OLD HIERARCHY PYRAMID MUST GO.

Cooperative management with little or no hierarchy will take over with the manager being the servant of the organisation rather than its master. New forms of organisation will have to emerge, fluid rather than rigidly structured with the formation of mostly self-administrating teams and groups as the major functional bodies of the future. Employee participation in decision-making, profits and even capital will become a must. The workable limits of all these concepts must of course, be calculated. It would, for example, be stupid to ask the operator of a lathe to participate in the decision on whether or not to use a computer in the bookkeeping department or to enter the South African market, but he must be asked if a new lathe should be bought or whether the workshop he works in should be reshaped.

Who is going to work this all out? The problems are pressing and most of the answers exist only in theory. Unfortunately the unions from their historical role still put and quite often have to put their emphasis only on higher pay and additional material benefits. They have however, largely failed to use their funds to create model enterprises demonstrating how these problems can be solved without losing economic viability. Too often, when they appear as employers, they behave as much like old-fashioned capitalists as any of their adversaries!

The employers on the other hand still consider highest possible profits their basic aim, an attitude which forces them to spend as little as possible on payroll and improved working conditions to get the highest possible output. Since personnel is primarily a cost factor, the question of social responsibility hardly comes up and the complex mixture of needs and abilities of the employee finds only lopsided consideration. The yardstick of input and output in terms of cash, certainly is a very crude tool to measure what is happening in our offices and factories.

Some might suggest that these problems are primarily problems of the capitalistic Western society. However, anybody with some knowledge of the situation in the Communist East knows only too well that the lot of the average worker in the East is certainly no more attractive than the lot of his colleague in the West. The stifling hand of the bureaucratic establishment of the state-run economies of the East leaves little or no room for freedom and self-determination for the worker and his economic situation is not very favourable either. The implications of what we propose are, however, reaching further than the area which is covered by our quest for humanisation of work.

As Ota Sik, Czechoslovakia's most eminent economist (in exile) recently pointed out, "the inflationary spiral is the product of three developments which have taken place since the last war. The labour market has grown tight and the trade unions extremely powerful, which has resulted in rapidly growing wages. At the same time, consumption grew apace, thus encouraging price increases. And finally, the governments have been under increasing pressure for more and more services, so that taxes had to go up." One of the most important steps to solve the problem, in Sik's view is "to give the workers a share in the profits and in the decision-making process of their enterprises, so that they lose their present obsession with ever-increasing wages. . . "

No doubt, Sik is right. To break the inflationary spiral, the emphasis has to shift from wage increases to profit sharing. If an employee can bank on substantial income through profit sharing the basic wage loses its overwhelming and overall importance. And if both labour and management learn to cooperate as partners and work together towards a common goal rather than fight each other, a motivational surge can flow through the companies and the economy, producing much better results than hitherto.

There are quite a number of encouraging tests and experiments going on in various fields but what we are lacking is a concentrated effort to solve these problems in the largest possible context. Here is our Challenge.

A lot of work has to be done, both in theory and even more in experimental practice. But the outlines of the new structures are already visible at least for those who try to look into the future with an effort to humanise work to make our offices and factories more liveable places, without losing their economic viability. Places where the dignity of man is being restored, where he is trusted and not policed and where opportunities are offered to grow and accept responsibility. The concept of flexible working hours which free the worker from the tyranny of the clock has proved by its success that trust is honoured and responsibility, if delegated properly, is readily accepted and competently handled. This is a hopeful sign and encourages us to continue on the road outlined herein.

Willhelm Haller 1973

Willhelm (Willi) Haller is recognised as the leading authority on flexible working hours technique and has been acclaimed as the man most responsible for making it a practical reality. Up to recent times he has been managing director of Hengstler-Flextime Gmbh and has been responsible for the design and installation of this equipment in a large number of companies throughout the Western World. He has now left Hengstler to form a new Mondcivitan enterprise which will endeavour to take his concepts much further. Already, over two million workers are experiencing the joys of flexible working hours in varying degrees of implementation.

Combined with Haller's other ideas we could be witnessing the beginning of the biggest change in industry and commerce since the Industrial Revolutions. For the worker drudging away on the shop floor it could bring a new sense of worth and a greater feeling of purpose. . .

Article from 'The Mondcivitan Bridge' 1973