Measuring quality of employment: intrinsic nature of work

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Measuring quality of employment intrinsic
nature of work

• 1st Meeting of the Working Group on the
  Measurement of Quality of Employment
• INSEE, Paris, June 2008
• Greet Vermeylen and Maija Lyly-Yrjanainen
• European Foundation for the Improvement of Living
  and Working Conditions (Eurofound)

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Challenge

• Develop indicators for this dimension
• Example was given
• we might not toil in low pay, long hours, unsafe
  conditions if we knew that the work we do was of
  significant influence (e.g. military work)
• -gt Meaningful work?
• -gt Link with job motivation

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.

• (For some)
• Work is about a daily search for meaning as well
  as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash,
  for astonishment rather than torpor, in short for
  a sort of life rather than a Monday to Friday
  sort of thing
• (Studs Terkel, Working, 1970)

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European Union intrinsic job quality (2001)

• Transitions between employment and non-employment
  or within employment by pay level (ECHP, key
  indicator)
• Transitions between non-employment and employment
  and within employment by contract (ECHP, context
  indicator)
• Satisfaction with type of work in present job
  (ECHP, context indicator)

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A search for inspiration in the literature Job
characteristics model of work motivation (Hackman
and Oldman, taken from Furnham)
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Experienced meaningfulness of the work

• Skill variety
• Learning new things and applying your new ideas
• learning new things
• apply own ideas in work
• Multiskilling
• Monotonous work
• Task identity
• opportunity to do what you do best
• opportunity to learn and grow at work
• skills match
• Task significance
• feeling of work well done
• feeling of doing useful work

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Skill varietyDoes your job involve learning new
things?
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Are you able to apply your own ideas in your
work?
9
Skills duties match
10
Multitasking, multiskilling
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Task identityDo you have at work the
opportunity to do what you do best?
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Do you have opportunities to learn and grow at
work ?
13
Task significanceDoes your job give you the
feeling of work well done?
14
Do you have the feeling of doing useful work?
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Experienced responsibility for outcomes of the
work

• Autonomy
• choose or change order of tasks
• choose or change methods of work
• choose or change speed of work

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Experienced responsibility for the outcomes of
the work Job autonomy
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Knowledge of the actual results of the work

• Feedback
• discussion with boss about work performance
• formal assessment of work performance
• discussing work-related problems with boss

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Knowledge about results of work feedback
discussion with boss, formal assessment etc
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Outcomes

• Satisfaction with work
• satisfaction with working conditions

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Outcomes satisfaction with working conditions
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How to move forward?

• 1 general indicator
• job satisfaction (outcome of work motivation)
• Combination of indicators on meaningfulness of
  work and experienced responsibility for the
  outcomes of the work
• Skill variety eg multitasking
• Task significance eg work well done or useful
  work
• Responsibility for the work autonomy
• Knowledge on results/performance/results not at
  this stage ?

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Thank you

• Email gve_at_eurofound.europa.eu