Following protests and reform, the 1970s brought change to the workplace. But how has today’s working environment evolved over the last 50 years?
The civil rights movement gave women the courage to voice dissatisfaction on the role they played in society. Women began to shed their homemaker image and traditional workplace equality increased the female workforce. However their pay, treatment and ability to climb the corporate ladder were far from that of their male co-workers. Although men have had consistently higher unemployment rates for the past 40 years, women now dominate the care and leisure sectors and the number of women in managerial jobs in the UK is higher than the EU average. However, female graduates tend to choose lower skilled occupations compared to male graduates.
Formal health and safety training went mainstream in the 1950s but until the 70s were not part of basic workplace training. Today workplace safety is prioritised. Offices are stocked with a wealth of safety equipment and all new starters learn safety procedures before the basics of the role.
Following recession and inflation rate increases during the 1970s, income security acts were passed to ensure employees received the pension benefits they were entitled to. In 2012, the Government set up auto-enrolment pensions in 2012. Automatic payments made by an enrolled employee are matched by their employer and topped up by the Government every month to ensure sufficient funds for retirement, if the employee will ever be able to retire…
Baby boomers flooded the workforce well into the 1980s. At the same time, retirement amongst men aged 55 and over dramatically increased, leaving the workplace dominated be young people. Today the rising cost of living is forcing over 50s to continue working way past the retirement age meaning there are fewer openings for new staff. Lack of available positions has created a “jobless generation” of 16 to 24 year olds unable to get their foot on the career ladder.
As work complexity increases, as do workforces and the technology they use. Employees are encouraged to work together rather than independently and combine ideas in order to make the company as competitive as possible. However as a company grows, the workforce can decrease should the company favour a “lean” business structure. The “lean” structure – a method of streamlining processes – was introduced by Toyota in the 1970s and at the time applied only to their production lines. As the structure became more popular, businesses saw the cost and time advantages of a streamlined workforce, removing the most costly aspects in favour of technology or smaller teams. A smaller workforce allows for companies to adapt quicker to market changes.
The popularity of the open plan office and decline of boxy individual work spaces contributes to the workplace being a more social environment thus increasing employee morale and therefore productivity. However this does not consider busy schedules and the use of technology as video conferences and emailing someone sat meters away are the norm. Larger, open plan working environments mean more distractions, interruptions and increased noise levels, although nothing compared that that of 1970s factory workers!
Business growth requires more man hours and a longer working day for an average employee. Despite more time at work, today’s workers have access to more daylight (thanks to open plan working environments) and overall a better quality of life.
The modern workplace is a time pressured environment with displayed stats and results and the constant pressure to do better. Companies do take into consideration the increased stress levels of today’s workers by offering amenities for relaxation and stress reduction, but are losing employee confidence in job security as the term “job for life” no longer exists in 2014.
