How Heavy Is A Job?: A Critical Survey of Job Evaluation as a Payment Device.

With salaries subjected to scrutiny more than ever, it is increasingly important that the process by which they are determined be understood and justifiable. Both public and private organisations now routinely rely on so-called “job evaluation” as a means of constructing an appropriate pay-scale and as such it is ever more necessary that we appreciate how this system works and that we recognise its limits. Only with such an understanding of the way in which salaries are set can we hope to have a meaningful discussion of their economic function. This paper aims to expound the details of job evaluation both in theory and in practice, and critically assess its shortcomings. In Section 1 below we describe the job evaluation system and in Section 2 we briefly outline the history and the usage of the system in both the private and the public sector. In Section 3 we theoretically analyse the often unstated but nonetheless implicit assumptions made by practitioners of the art of job evaluation. Section 4 applies the analysis of Section 3 to review a particular and important case study, namely The Senior Salaries Review of the Welsh Assembly 2004. Section 5 concludes.

Does unemployment hurt less if there is more of it around? A panel analysis of life satisfaction in Germany and Switzerland

This article examines the existence of a habituation effect to unemployment: Does the subjective well-being of unemployed people decline less if unemployment is more widespread? The underlying idea is that unemployment hysteresis may operate through a sociological channel: if many people in the community lose their job and remain unemployed over an extended period, the psychological cost of being unemployed diminishes and the pressure to accept a new job declines. We analyze this question with individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2010) and the Swiss Household Panel (2000-2010). Our fixed-effects estimates show no evidence for a mitigating effect of high surrounding unemployment on the subjective well-being of the unemployed. Becoming unemployed hurts as much when regional unemployment is high as when it is low. Likewise, the strongly harmful impact of being unemployed on well-being does not wear off over time, nor do repeated episodes of unemployment make it any better. It thus appears doubtful that an unemployment shock becomes persistent because the unemployed become used to, and hence reasonably content with, being without a job.

Job Insecurity and the Timing of Parenthood: A Comparison between Eastern and Western Germany

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the economic deter- minants of fertility behavior by addressing the role of job insecurity in couples' intentions concerning parenthood and its timing. It starts from the hypothesis that cultural values moderate individuals' reactions to job insecurity and the way it is related to family formation. With a systematic thematic content analysis of a set of semi-structured interviews with childless men and women around the age of 30 in eastern and western Germany, we are able to show that there are substantial dif- ferences in the consequences of job insecurity on intentions to have a first child. In western Germany, a relatively secure job career is expected to precede family formation, and this sequence of transitions is rather rigid, whereas in eastern Germany job security and family formation are thought of and practiced as parallel investments. We suggest that the lack of convergence in family formation patterns between eastern and western Germany after the unification of the country in 1990 is partially related to different attitudes toward job insecurity in the two contexts.

Decreased well-being after job loss : testing omitted causes

Job loss is widely known to lead to a substantial decrease in workers' subjective well-being. Functionalist theories explain this fact by arguing that the fundamental needs that work fulfills are absent during unemployment. Recent evidence from longitudinal studies however contradicts this approach, showing that workers who find a new job do not fully regain their former level of well-being upon reemployment. Therefore other mechanisms must be at work. We suggest that changes in social or economic domains of workers' lives - triggered by job displacement - lead to the observed changes in well-being. Drawing on a unique data set from a survey of workers displaced by plant closure in Switzerland after the financial crisis of 2008, our analysis confirms the previous result that finding a job after displacement does not completely restore workers' pre-displacement level of well-being. The factors that best explain this outcome are changes in social domains, notably changes in workers' job - related social status and their relationships to friends. This result provides valuable insights about the long lasting scars job displacement leaves on workers' lives.

The Effect of occupational sex-composition on earnings: job-specialisation, sex-role attitudes and the division of domestic-labour in Spain

Important theoretical controversies remain unresolved in the literatire on occupational sex-segregation and the gender wage-gap. A useful way of summarising these controversies is viewing them as a debate between - cultural -socialisation. The paper discusses these theories in detail and carries out a preliminary test of the relative explanatory performance of some of their most consequential predictions. This is done by drawing on the Spanish sample of the second wave of the European Social Survey, ESS. The empirical analysis of ESS data illustrates the notable analytical pay-offs that can stem from using rich individual-level indicators, but also exemplifies the statistical llimitations generated by small sample size and high rates of non-response. Empirical results should, therefore, be taken as preliminary. They seem to suggest that the effect of occupational sex-segregation on wages could be explicable by workers' sex-role attitutes, their relative input in domestic production and the job-specific human capital requirements of their jobs. Of these three factors, job-specialisation seeems clearly the most important one.

The Ins and Outs of Unemployment: A Conditional Analysis

We analyze how unemployment, job finding and job separation rates react to neutral and investment-specific technology shocks. Neutral shocks increase unemployment and explain a substantial portion of unemployment volatility; investment-specific shocks expand employment and hours worked and mostly contribute to hours worked volatility. Movements in the job separation rates are responsible for the impact response of unemployment while job finding rates for movements along its adjustment path. Our evidence qualifies the conclusions by Hall (2005) and Shimer (2007) and warns against using search models with exogenous separation rates to analyze the effects of technology shocks.

The ins and outs of unemployment: An analysis conditional on technology shocks

We analyze how unemployment, job finding and job separation rates reactto neutral and investment-specific technology shocks. Neutral shocks increaseunemployment and explain a substantial portion of it volatility; investment-specificshocks expand employment and hours worked and contribute to hoursworked volatility. Movements in the job separation rates are responsible for theimpact response of unemployment while job finding rates for movements alongits adjustment path. The evidence warns against using models with exogenousseparation rates and challenges the conventional way of modelling technologyshocks in search and sticky price models.

Job dynamics, correlated shocks and wage profiles

We generalize the Mortensen-Pissarides (1994) model of the labor marketwith a more realistic structure for the stochastic process of theshocks to the worker-firm match. In this way we can acommodate theempirical observation that hazard rates of job termination decrease andaverage wages increase with job tenure. Besides being able to fit bettersome observables of the model, the changes we introduce are nontrivialfor the analysis of policies as well.

Production Flow Analysis - cases from manufacturing and service industry

Production flow analysis (PFA) is a well-established methodology used for transforming traditional functional layout into product-oriented layout. The method uses part routings to find natural clusters of workstations forming production cells able to complete parts and components swiftly with simplified material flow. Once implemented, the scheduling system is based on period batch control aiming to establish fixed planning, production and delivery cycles for the whole production unit. PFA is traditionally applied to job-shops with functional layouts, and after reorganization within groups lead times reduce, quality improves and motivation among personnel improves. Several papers have documented this, yet no research has studied its application to service operations management. This paper aims to show that PFA can well be applied not only to job-shop and assembly operations, but also to back-office and service processes with real cases. The cases clearly show that PFA reduces non-value adding operations, introduces flow by evening out bottlenecks and diminishes process variability, all of which contribute to efficient operations management.

Evaluation de la satisfaction des infirmiers(-ères): développement et validation d'un nouvel outil d'analyse [Evaluation of satisfaction of nurses: development and validation of a new analysis tool]

A new device for the analyses of nurses' satisfaction has been developed and validated on two types of general and intensive treatments at the University Hospital in Vaudois, Switzerland. A questionnaire has been elaborated for identifying the variables linked with characteristics of the nurse's work, as well as personal variables of the employer which could have an influence on the level of satisfaction. In identifying the sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, it has been possible to propose recommendations and corrective measures in order to improve the level of global satisfaction of the nursing team.

Does unemployment hurt less if there is more of it around? A panel analysis of life satisfaction in Germany and Switzerland

This paper examines the existence of a habituation effect to unemployment: Do theunemployed suffer less from job loss if unemployment is more widespread, if their ownunemployment lasts longer and if unemployment is a recurrent experience? Theunderlying idea is that unemployment hysteresis may operate through a sociologicalchannel: if many people in the community lose their job and remain unemployed over anextended period, the psychological cost of being unemployed diminishes and the pressureto accept a new job declines. We analyze this question with individual-level data from theGerman Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2009) and the Swiss Household Panel (2000-2009). We find no evidence for a mitigating effect of high surrounding unemployment onunemployed individuals' subjective well-being: Becoming unemployed hurts as muchwhen regional unemployment is high as when it is low. Likewise, the strongly harmfulimpact of being unemployed on well-being does not wear off over time, nor do repeatedepisodes of unemployment make it any better. It thus appears doubtful that anunemployment shock becomes persistent because the unemployed become used to, andhence reasonably content with, being without a job.

Job Satisfaction of Spanish University Graduates

This paper investigates the determinants of job satisfaction of university graduates in Spain. We base our analysis on Locke"s discrepancy theory [Locke (1969)] and decompose subjective evaluation of job characteristics into surplus and deficit levels. We also study the importance of overeducation and over-skilling on job satisfaction. We use REFLEX data, a survey of university graduates. We conclude that job satisfaction is mostly determined by the subjective evaluation of intrinsic job characteristics, with an asymmetric impact of surpluses and deficits. Over-skilling is much more important than over-education in explaining the job satisfaction of university graduates, although the latter is also significant.

The Feminization of Occupations and Change in Wages : a Panel Analysis of Britain, Germany, and Switzerland

In the past four decades, women have made major inroads into occupations previously dominated by men. This paper examines whether occupational feminization is accompanied by a decline in wages: Do workers suffer a wage penalty if they remain in, or move into, feminizing occupations? We analyze this question over the 1990s and 2000s in Britain, Germany, and Switzerland, using longitudinal panel data to estimate individual fixed effects for men and women. Moving from an entirely male to an entirely female occupation entails a loss in individual earnings of 13 percent in Britain, 7 percent in Switzerland, and 3 percent in Germany. The impact of occupational feminization on wages is not linear, but sets apart occupations holding more than 60 percent of women. Moving into such female occupations incurs a wage penalty. Contrary to the prevailing idea in economics, differences in productivity-human capital, job-specific skills, and time investment-do not fully explain the wage gap between male and female occupations. The wage penalty associated with working in a female occupation is also much larger where employer discretion is greater-in the private sector-than where wagesetting is guided by formal rules-the public sector. These findings suggest that wage disparities across male and female occupations are due to gender devaluation.

A multimethod examination of contributors to successful on-the-job learning for vocational students

Rapid changes in working life and competence requirements of different professions have increased interest in workplace learning. It is considered an effective way to learn and update professional skills by performing daily tasks in an authentic environment. Especially, ensuring a supply of skilled future workers is a crucial issue for firms facing tight competition and a shortage of competent employees due to the retirement of current professionals. In order to develop and make the most of workplace learning, it is important to focus on workplace learning environments and the individual characteristics of those participating in workplace learning. The literature has suggested various factors that influence adults' and professionals’ workplace learning of profession-related skills, but lacks empirical studies on contextual and individual-related factors that positively affect students' workplace learning. Workers with vocational education form a large group in modern firms. Therefore, elements of vocational students’ successful workplace learning during their studies, before starting their career paths, need to be examined. To fill this gap in the literature, this dissertation examines contributors to vocational students’ workplace learning in Finland, where students’ workplace learning is included in the vocational education and training system. The study is divided into two parts: the introduction, comprised of the overview of the relevant literature and the conclusion of the entire study, and five separate articles. Three of the articles utilize quantitative methods and two use qualitative methods to examine factors that contribute to vocational students’ workplace learning. The results show that, from the students’ perspective, attitudinal, motivational, and organizationrelated factors enhance the student’s development of professionalism during the on-the-job learning period. Specifically, the organization-related factors such as innovative climate, guidance, and interactions with seniors have a strong positive impact on the students’ perceived development of professional skills because, for example, the seniors’ guidance and provision of new viewpoints for the tasks helps the vocational students to gain autonomy at work performance. A multilevel analysis shows that of those factors enhancing workplace learning from the student perspective, innovative climate, knowledge transfer accuracy, and the students’ performance orientation were significantly related to the workplace instructors’ assessment regarding the students’ professional performance. Furthermore, support from senior colleagues and the students’ self-efficacy were both significantly associated with the formal grades measuring how well the students managed to learn necessary professional skills. In addition, the results suggest that the students’ on-the-job learning can be divided into three main phases, of which two require efforts from both the student and the on-the-job learning organization. The first phase includes the student’s application of basic professional skills, demonstration of potential in performing daily tasks, and orientation provided by the organization at the beginning of the on-the-job learning period. In the second phase, the student actively develops profession-related skills by performing daily tasks, thus learning a fluent working style while observing the seniors’ performance. The organization offers relevant tasks and follows the student’s development. The third level indicates a student who has reached the professional level described as a full occupation. The results suggest that constructing the vocational students’ successful on-the-job learning period requires feedback from seniors, opportunities to learn to manage entire work processes, self-efficacy on the part of the students, proactive behavior, and initiative in learning. The study contributes to research on workplace learning in three ways: firstly, it identifies the key individual- and organization-based factors that influence the vocational students’ successful on-the-job learning from their perspective and examines mutual relationships between these factors. Second, the study provides knowledge of how the factors related to the students’ view of successful workplace learning are associated with the workplace instructors’ perspective and the formal grades. Third, the present study finds elements needed to construct a successful on-the-job learning for the students.

Corporate Entrepreneurship in Healthcare Organizations: An explorative study of employees’ corporate entrepreneurial behavior, job satisfaction and turnover intention

The Finnish healthcare industry is currently facing significant challenges due to economic crises, aging population and major structural reforms, which have resulted in decreased job satisfaction and increased levels of turnover. This proposes that healthcare organizations need to come up with new, creative means to tackle these issues. Several researchers have argued that corporate entrepreneurship may be the necessary means to achieve this. As previous research has mainly focused on examining this concept from organizational perspective, this study looks at how it occurs on the level of individual employees. The purpose of this study is to examine how corporate entrepreneurship is manifested in individual behavior, and how this type of behavior is associated with the individual’s job satisfaction and turnover intention. Additionally, this study will examine the differences in corporate entrepreneurial behavior between private and public sector organizations, as previous research suggests that these two may be characterized differently. Data was collected with the help of a literature review as well as a survey study, which was sent out to a number of employees of four different healthcare organizations, out of which three were public and one was a private sector organization. Six distinct behavioral characteristics were recognized in previous research, which make up the measure for corporate entrepreneurial behavior. Principal components were formed from the different areas of the survey (corporate entrepreneurial behavior, job satisfaction, turnover intention), after which the association of these components were examined with linear regression analysis, which proved that corporate entrepreneurial behavior is positively correlated with both job satisfaction and intention to leave the organization. Differences between sectors were analyzed with analysis of variance and cross tabulation analysis, but neither of these suggested that any significant differences would occur. These results suggest that employees who behave entrepreneurially tend to be more satisfied with their jobs, but also consider leaving their current organizations more often than others. This may be due to the fact that healthcare organizations are not fertile for entrepreneurial behavior, which will drive entrepreneurial individuals looking for employers who may be more supportive of this type of behavior. With growing levels of dissatisfaction as well as little room for entrepreneurial behavior, the studied organizations may actually be in the process of losing those employees who have the ability and desire to behave in such manner, and who could very well be those who will eventually come up with solutions for the major challenges that these organizations are facing.