Long Hours, Insecurity and Low Morale
1. Read the text.
Managers are unhappy about continued change and restructuring in British organisations, which is leading to long working hours, job insecurity and low morale.
That is one of the main findings of a survey published today by the Institute of Management and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. It aims to follow changes in the quality of working life in corporate Britain over the next five years. This first annual survey found that eighty two per cent of UK managers regularly worked more than forty hours a week. Thirty eight per cent worked more than fifty hours a week, and forty one percent said they regularly took work home at weekends.
Workplaces in the 1990s are in a state of constant change. Sixty one per cent of managers said their organisations carried out a change programme in the past 12 months. The most common forms of change were: cost reduction, redundancies, culture change and performance improvement. Sixty five per cent of respondents felt that employee morale and job security had decreased, while fifty per cent agreed that motivation and loyalty had been negatively affected.
However, reactions varied according to management level: seventy nine per cent junior and seventy per cent of middle managers thought morale in particular had suffered, compared with sixty per cent of senior managers and only twenty one per cent of chief executives and managing directors.
Poor internal communication was one of the key reasons for manager’s insecurity. Sixty per cent of junior and middle managers felt they were not kept informed about the future strategies in their organisations. Moreover, forty per cent of junior managers said senior executives were poor communicators.
When asked to indicate how satisfied they were with aspects of their job, managers rated the relationship with their other managers and their boss highest (eighty per cent and sixty four percent were satisfied). Workload and recognition for performance were the two aspects causing most dissatisfaction: thirty six per cent of managers thought their workload was too heavy and thirty three per cent did not think their work was recognised.
Managers at all levels were concerned about not having sufficient time to get work done (sixty four per cent), lack of resources to do the job effectively (45 percent), and information overload (forty two per cent). Sixty three per cent said they felt guilty about taking time off when sick.
Another significant finding was that reconstructing had left organisations with a mix of skills that were badly suited to their needs. The survey concluded: “Change management has not generally had its intended consequences, while headcount reduction has negatively affected morale and feelings about job security.”
By Andrew Bolger
from the Financial Times
2. Make a question and give your answer.
Imagine the questions containing the words below that managers were asked.
Write them down correctly and answer them.
For example:
0) hours \ week \ work – How many hours a week do you work?
1) Guilty \ time off work \ sick
2) Enough resources \ do \ work given to you
3) Take work home \ weekends
4) Most common forms \ change
5) Your organisation \ programme \ past 12 months
6) Morale \ motivation \ decreased
7) Motivation \ loyalty \ affected
8) Senior executives \ communicators
9) Recognition \ performance
10) Enough time \ do \ work given to you
3. What do these figures refer to in the text?
| 1. 1990s
2. 12 3. 50 4. 38 5. 41 6. 40 7. 60 8. 79 9. 82 10. 21 | 11. 63
12. 65 13. 74 14. 36 15. 61 16. 33 17. 80 18. 64 19. 45 20. 42 |
4. Are these statements true or false? Find it out and correct the false ones.
1) Most managers feel they do not have the resources to do their work effectively.
2) Most managers think their work is recognised.
3) Most managers think relations with their bosses are good.
4) More than half of junior managers think that senior managers are bad communicators.
5) More senior managers than junior managers think that morale is worse now than before.
6) Most managers take work home at weekends.
5. Choose the correct alternative:
1) Change management has
a) been a total disaster.
a) been a total success.
b) not had the effects that were intended.
2) Following restructuring changes, organisations
a) have people with too many skills.
b) have people with the wrong combination of skills.
c) have too many people without skills.
3) Reducing the number of people working in some organisations
a) has had no effect on morale.
b) has improved morale.
c) has made morale worse.
6. Find all the irregular verbs in the text and compose sentences of your own using them.
7.
a) Match the words to build new word combinations:
| 1. senior | a. life |
| 2.future | b. improvement |
| 3. cost | c. security |
| 4. internal | d. finding |
| 5. to follow | e. work home |
| 6. change | f. morale |
| 7. job | g. communication |
| 8. working | h. insecurity |
| 9. performance | i. survey |
| 10. to take | j. negatively |
| 11. main | k. manager |
| 12. employee | l. programme |
| 13. annual | m. strategy |
| 14. to affect | n. reduction |
| 15. job | o. changes |
b) Make a snowball story where every student of a group composes one sentence using one word combination.
8. Match these words to their definitions:
| WORDS: | DEFINITIONS: |
| 1. workload | a. when companies are recognised |
| 2. restructuring | b. the amount of work you have to do |
| 3. redundancies | c. the number of people working in an organisation |
| 4. recognition | d. the feeling that other people value what you do |
| 5. motivation | e. when people lose their jobs |
| 6. morale | f. the feeling that you might lose your job |
| 7. loyalty | g. certain changes introduced by the management to perfect the work of the company |
| 8. job insecurity | h. the general feeling of confidence in an organisation |
| 9. headcount | i. the feeling that you belong in an organisation and that you want to do the best you can for it |
9. Jumbled Words
Put the letters in the correct order so that you can read those words. Then make one sentence including all these words in it.
1) EEETIXVUC
2) TADOCUEH
3) DONTICRUE
4) UURLTEC
5) YTRAGEST
Key:
Ex. 7.1-k; 2-m; 3-n; 4-g; 5-o; 6-l; 7-c; 8-a; 9-b; 10-e; 11-d; 12-f; 13-i; 14-j; 15-h.
Ex. 8.
1-b; 2-g; 3-e; 4-a; 5-d; 6-h; 7-i; 8-f; 9-c.
Ex. 9.
1. executive
2. headcount
3. reduction
4. culture
5. strategy