Quality of Working Life

Comparing the Perceptions of Professionals and Clerical Sales and Service Workers

By Sue Bearfield

A survey to examine the attitudes of employees towards their working life.

To do this, respondents were asked their views on 16 quality of working life measures in relation to their current main job. First, they were asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree) with the following statements:

• My current pay is fair and reasonable compared to what others doing similar work are paid

• I am concerned that I will lose my job in the next 12 months

• Harassment, discrimination or bullying is a problem at my workplace

• Overall I trust senior management at my workplace

• In general the work I do is not very interesting

• People at my workplace get on together quite well

• My immediate manager (supervisor) recognises the efforts I put in at work

• Management at my workplace keeps me informed about what is going on.

Respondents were then asked for their level of satisfaction or otherwise (very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, neutral, satisfied or very satisfied) with these statements:

• Your promotion prospects in your job over the next two years

• The amount of control you have over the way you do your work

• The standards of health and safety where you work

• The balance between the time you spend working and the time spent with family and friends

• How you are treated by your immediate manager (supervisor)

• The amount of work you have to do

• The opportunities you have in your current job for developing your skills

• The amount of pressure you feel under at work.

Finally, respondents were asked two open-ended questions relating to the quality of their working life: which factors make work a positive experience for them and what would changes would improve the quality of their working life.

The analysis in this paper centres on two occupational groups: professionals and intermediate clerical, sales and service workers. Not only are they the two largest occupational groups in the Australian workforce with each comprising about 18 per cent of the labour force, they are also experiencing the most rapid growth.

(Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training (ACIRRT) Working Paper 86 September 2003)