GWD2-Q5 – Q8:
This passage is based on an article written in 2000.
The traditional model of employer-employee relations in the United States was a
“psychological contract” in which employees made long-term commitments to
organizations in exchange for long-term job security, training and development, and
internal opportunities for promotion. Beginning mainly with the recession in the early
1970’s, this paradigm began to unravel. Organizations began using extensive downsizing
and outsourcing to decrease the number of permanent employees in the workforce. Among
employees this situation has resulted in a decided shift in desire: in stead of working their
way up in an organization, many now prefer to work their way out. Entrepreneurship at
the small business administration are now the fastest-growing majors in business schools.
企業嘗試使用新的方式去降低成本,導致大家都想換工作,商學院更是掀起創業風潮
Several factors have generated movement from the old paradigm to the new one.
Organizations have had legitimate and pressing reasons to shift to a new paradigm of (11)
employer-employee relations. Large numbers of permanent employees make it difficult
for organizations to respond quickly to downturns in demand by decreasing payroll costs.
The enormous rights in wrongful discharge suites has created incentives for organizations
to use temporary, contract, and leased employees in order to distance themselves from
potential litigation problems. Moreover, top management is under increased pressure
from shareholders to generate higher and higher levels of return on investment in the
short run, resulting in declines in hiring, increases in layoffs, and shortage of funds for
employee development.
擁有眾多員工的企業根本面對員工被遺散的訴訟成本,都傾向使用短期且暫時的合約維持運作,目的還是降低員工成本
At the same time, a lack of forthrightness on the part of organizations has led to (20
increased cynicism among employees about management’s motivation and competence.
Employees are now working 15 percent more hours per week than they were 20 years ago,
but organizations acknowledge this fact only by running stress-management workshops
to help employees to cope. Sales people are being asked to increase sales at the same time
organizations have cut travel, phone, and advertising budgets. Employees could probably
cope effectively with changes in the psychological contract if organizations were more
forthright about how they were changing it. But the euphemistic jargon used by executives
to justify the changes they were implementing frequently backfires; rather than
engendering sympathy for management’s position, it sparks employees’ desire to be
free of the organization all together. In a recent study of employees’ attitudes about (30
management, 49 percent of the sample strongly agreed that “management will take
advantage of you if given the chance.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------