Contemporary Work In Australia

If the workplace of today could be characterized by a single theme, it would most likely focus on the continual presence of change. Dramatic changes in technology, the marketplace and the workforce have compelled organizations to re-evaluate not only the competitiveness of their products, but also the core ways in which work is performed. It is out of this pursuit for continued survival that organizations have been faced with the notion of varying work-schedules beyond the traditional hours of nine to five. This paper will explore the societal and business changes that have led to a proliferation in flexible work patterns. This paper will also address the benefits and disadvantages of flexible work patterns for

In order to create Australia’s image as a working man’s paradise, workers gained rights to speak. The first of these issues to be discussed are the hours of work. The balanced working time of eight-hour day movement was introduced in the mid 19th century. It was conducted by trade unions for the right of shorter working hours suitable Australia’s harsh climate. This fairer working condition of eight-hour day has succeeded by the end of the century, when the government introduced fairer laws in the late 1890s which attempted to reduce working hours and give workers Saturday afternoon off. This achievement established a national standard that was aspired by the rest of the world and formed the basis of Australia’s reputation as a ‘working man’s paradise’.

It is important to note, that in the inter-war period, modernism existed mostly outside official cultural institutions in Australia. Women turned up to be a crucial force of its extension. According to the historian Bernard Smith: “Indeed, the contribution of women to post-impressionism in Australia appears to have been corporately greater than that of men (Smith, 1962, p. 198). The reason of it was a rising of the feminists’ movements in Australia and establishment of the United Association of Women in Sydney. The women’s movements began in the late 1880 and 1890s and reached the highest point in1906 and 1914 (Peers, 2011, pp. 3-7). Thus, when in the 1920s the Australian art felt the first signs of atrophy

The beginning of the twentieth century represented an expatriate era in the Australian art. For instance, such artists as Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton found their place in the London’s Royal Academy of Arts. However, the majority of these expatriate painters returned to Australia after the First World War. Consequently, the European avant-garde gave an inspiration for the Australian modernist’s movement. The most significant point of a new art direction was a rejection of the traditional representation of the world. The innovators followed the new European trends and started to experiment with various stylistic and technological innovations. Thus, the forms and styles went beyond the content and subject matter

The lengthy recession meant that employers could not afford to keep permanent staff and now they are understandably concerned about committing to full or even part-time contracts. Rodgers, E, (2013). The greater use of zero hours contracts is taking place against a background of falling real wages, high levels of workplace fear regarding redundancy, and unfair treatment for a significant minority, this

ratification whereby the Convention will come into force and have a binding effect on the state. Upon the ratification of the Convention, a state will officially be subjected to the ILO’s supervisory system and will have a legal obligation to implement the Convention in its national law and practice.

There are many indigenous styles of art these consist of rock painting, dot painting, rock engravings, bark painting, carvings, sculptures, weaving and string art.

According to a news article from The Age (2015), it reported that Australian job market have seen the rise of men working in roles that have been traditionally considered ‘women’s work’, such as Ballet, a team of Ballet dancers in Melbourne’s Southbank is composed by 30 males and 38 females. It is no surprise that the identities and statuses of young people in Australia are more complex contemporarily, unlike the past that young people may have the fixed role on the society and the gender implications in the workplace. According to the data from Australian Bureau of Statistics (2015), it showed that men make up about 10 per cent of nurse in Australia, male student account for 16 per cent of student at Sydney Nursing School. Welch (2007)

Human Resources (“HR”) departments have begun bracing for a labor environment characterized by temporary jobs, one dominated, for example, by the independent contractor. Accordingly, the workplace policy landscape is shifting to keep up with what has now come to be known in modern buzzword parlance as a “gig economy”. However, while it is certainly in a company’s best interest to make itself aware of workplace trends, it is ineffective for a company to always try to position itself at the forefront of these trends. Trends, after all, do not represent permanence; instead, they merely illustrate the direction in which something moves for an often-finite

Precarious or atypical labour can be highlighted as the non-standard employment that is poorly paid and insecure (Walton, 1990). It does not give job holders a stable life or income. Without any definite background, they are unable to plan for the future and can only live a life of questions. Precarious employment is not the same as unemployment as described by Hatt (1997), “ … unemployment as occurring when persons capable of and willing to work are not currently in paid employment”. These workers are also denied employee rights which permanent job holders are entitled to. Some features of precarious work are low wages, unstable job hours, no pension, no job security and lack of health concern by relevant authorities (Knights, Thompson, Smitha and Willmott, 1999).

Decent work is defined as a job that has employment opportunities in a productive job with adequate earnings, a decent work in time with stability and job security that also provides a safe work environment where people can combine work, family and personal life (International Labour Organization, 2012). This definition is quite idealistic yet it paints a picture of the kind of decent work that would be ideal in society. However, these guidelines were put in place very recently after a long period of very significant change. As capitalist ideologies and beliefs started to perpetrate through society the introduction of class struggles has caused the world to become much more consumerist as western society became a “Realm of Consumption” (Otis, 2012). This has meant that work has had to become much more regimented in order to provide fast

Nevertheless, there has been evidence to represent a breakdown in ILMs, reducing prospects for employees at the lower end to progress internally. Grimshaw et al (2002) illustrates how possibilities for ‘moving up’ in the labour market have been eroded throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s due to de-layering of employees. Delayering involves removing levels of the hierarchy from the organisational structure (Riley,2014), this meant a transformation of the internal job ladder appeared where job positions within the middle of the hierarchy were usually removed (Grimshaw et al,2002). This resulted in some employees, usually at the bottom of the hierarchy losing their jobs altogether. Nevertheless the main effect of delayering is the rupture of ‘natural skills progression’ which means it is harder to move from lower positions to managerial positions due to a bigger gap between positions (Grimeshaw et al,2002). The breakdown of ILM also causes deskilling of workers which came from the theory of Fordism, this theory says businesses should aim to achieve higher productivity by standardizing the output and breaking work into small deskilled tasks. The concept of deskilling was put forward by Braverman in the 1970s, he said that ‘there is an inevitable tendency towards deskilling of work as capitalists search for profits in the competitive market’ (Noon&Blyton,2013). Thus this results in lowering prospects for improving pay at the lower end as employers

Human resources professionals who have sole HR responsibilities for their organization are faced with 10 trends affecting HRM. Thus, planning for and adapting to these changes in the workplace becomes an integral part of the HR professional’s job. The video highlights ten (10) trend affecting human resources management, one such being Greater (Job) Mobility. According to the Video, “You may find that more of your employees are willing to take short term assignments uptown or relocate to other facilities. Employees are also more willing to switch jobs within a company in order to build the resumes” ("10 Workplace Trends that Will Affect HR," n.d.). Job mobility involves movements between employers (job-to-job mobility); between occupations and steps on the career ladder (occupational mobility); between different types of contracts; and in and out of employment (employment mobility).

Even in the occupations not known for intense, dirty or risky work tasks, there is a growing sense in which ‘normal’ workplaces are becoming ‘extreme’, especially in relation to work intensity, long-hours cultures and the normalizing of extreme work behaviours and cultures (Granter, McCann and Boyle, 2015); like the work of a shopkeeper at Apple, when a new product is launched

Casual employees are probably the most flexible of the three groups. Their working hours may be arranged in a non-regular pattern and usually paid by the hour. Many organisations keep a file of casual employees they can contact when required.