Summaries
Teamwork and the quality of working life in
the home care sector
This article contributes to the discussion on teamwork in the home care sector by measu ring the quality of working life in two organi sations for home care. One of these introduced the concept of teamwork. In this organization, teams of workers in identical jobs are responsi ble for the care for clients in a certain region. With the help of the so-called WEBA method for judging job content in terms of quality of working life, three similar jobs in both organi zations are compared. The results show that the quality of working life in the team-based organisation is not better than in the traditio nal organisation, but the jobs are more com plete and challenging due to extra tasks and responsibilities. However, these extra tasks also cause higher workloads.
Does job satisfaction reflect job
adaptation?
Work sociologists and psychologists generally accept the notion that job satisfaction merely reflects job adaptation. This notion has impor tant consequences for the usefulness of job sa tisfaction as an indicator for the quality of work. The adaptation thesis states that people who are more adapted to their work will be more satisfied with their work. But is this no tion empirically well founded? In short, we found no evidence sustaining the adaptation thesis. Contrary to expectations, people who occupy a working position for a longer time seemed to be less satisfied with their job. Peo ple did not seem to adapt the standards of eva luation to their work, thus not allowing adap
tation of standards of evaluation. And job sa tisfaction is more likely to be influenced by the conditions of work itself than by other perso nal factors such as work orientations.
Working with computers: who benefits?
This article reviews the use of ICT among Dutch workers and the impact of ICT on the quality of their working life. In response to the call for a further specification of the implicati ons of ICT for work, health and well-being, the concept ICT has been translated into con crete applications. Next to VDU work, the at tention is focused on communication via inter net and e-mail and the use of the fax and the mobile phone. Almost two third of the Dutch working population nowadays works with a computer and almost half of them uses inter net or e-mail for a serious amount of time. Es pecially administrative and commercial per sonnel and professionals are leaders in the field of computer use. The authors consider the use of computers as a mixed blessing. If used for a limited period of the working day it means en richment to the job, if used for almost all of the day it is a risk for body and mind. VDU workers have a relatively good salary but are less satis fied with their job than are non VDU workers. The possibility to use internet or e-mail increa ses job satisfaction and the salary of VDU wor kers.
When is active labour market policy
effective?
In an international perspective, active labour market policy has become more important to
Summaries
reduce the amount of unemployed and inac tive persons and to improve the functioning of the labour market. Evaluation literature gives information about the effectiveness of active labour market policy. However, we still know little about the circu m stan ces in which this policy is the most effective. Knowledge of the conditions which influence the effectiveness of activating policy is important to be able to im prove its effectiveness.
In this article we describe what factors in what way influence the effectiveness of active measures. Two important factors that are de
scribed are the design of labour market pro grammes [for example with regard to the target group, scale and duration of the programme) and institutional factors (as the generosity of social benefits, legal minimum wage and regu lation of the labour market). So, regarding to the latter, the type of welfare state is of great re levance. The emphasis on active labour market policy, the kind of labour market problems and the possibilities to enhance the effectiveness of labour market policy vary according to the type of welfare state.
