Effects of industrialization on working schedules

Abstract

Recent increase in industrialization has resulted in attention being drawn to diversity of working schedules and their interrelation with content of work. The results of joint research revealed that adaptation to industrial jobs is made difficult because of urban conditions and modern work-control systems, such as workers in flexible-working-time systems who apparently favored regular daily working cycles. Long overtime work in smaller undertakings and the spread of shift systems are two important features of industrial work schedules, each being dominant among skilled and non-skilled jobs. Another important facet is the problem of intra-shift work-rest schedules significant for machine operations and vigilance tasks. It is suggested that phases of work that become intolerable are correlated with unnatural work rhythms. More emphasis should thus be laid on both phase-shifted work and non-self-governing work, the key factor being the relevance of attained data to real work in the whole course of schedules of work and rest.