Die invloed van skofwerk op die sisteembalans binne 'n chemiese onderneming

Abstract

If no contractual agreement exists between an employer and employee, the employee's working hours will be detennined by the task, rather than the clock. "Sunset and Sunrise" was used as the main criteria for determining working hours in contracts between employers and employees dated as far back as the middle ages. Limited rest periods were given to employees during these times and a average of 10,5 hours per day, six days a week, were worked. However, yearly working hours have been reduced by religious and other holidays and as a result no work was EXECUTED for a total of 90 - 100 days per year. This implied that a total of 2 750 - 3 000 hours per year were worked (Brown, 1984:487). During the Refonnation the number of religious holidays were reduced but during the Industrial Revolution the number of man hours worked was increased in order to obtain maximum output and a reduction in unit costs. A contributing factor to the above mentioned was the enormous growth in the accommodated population and therefore more people were available in the labour market. Shiftwork today has become an integral and important factor in many business sectors for the following reasons: * social factors, for example to provide for essential services; * technological factors, for example continuous production processes; * economical factors, for example the optimal use of invested capital. From the proceeding it can be deduced that shiftwork is an integral part of industrialization and its associated processes. In the present technological era, with all its inventions, it can be presumed that shiftwork will grow in intensity.

Many shiftwork related problems can be considered as a part of the workers' environment. These problems are on the one hand, caused by the non-congruent role of the shiftworker in the community, in terms of the time schedule that is followed by the rest of the community and on the other hand the working environment of the shiftworker which is often neglected by management. This could possibly be ascribed to the fact that due to shiftschedules there is less opportunity for interaction between management and the shiftworker. This often causes the shiftworker to find himself in an impoverished social environment that hinders the adaptation and effective functioning of the shiftwork in the social system. Social systems include a number of specific functions that must be accommodated in order to ensure the effective functioning and survival of the system. The main objective of this research was to determine whether shiftwork enables or obstructs Organization X to comply to the four functional prerequisites of a social system namely: * pattern maintenance and tension management; * goal achievement; * adaptation; * integration; The empirical results were obtained through structural questionnaires and unstructured interviews. The theoretical orientation focuses on a structured functional analysis of the Parsonic variation of the social system as a mobile equilibrium. Only relevant moments of the comprehensive theory were analyzed. To complement the theoretical orientation, a model of J. Hall, which consists of three dimensions namely participation, commitment and creativity, was used because it complements the social systems theory and provides further exploration of the stated problem. Only white male shiftworkers, employed by Organization X, were used in this study. Care was taken to ensure sufficient proportional representation of the shiftworker in the study. A total sample which consisted out of 200 persons were used in this study.

As previously stated the main objective of this research is to determine whether shiftwork enables or obstructs Organization X to comply to the four functional prerequisite of a social system. Any social action takes place between the dimensions of time and space. The two dimensions which are situated on the space axis are integration (internally) and adaptation (externally). On the time-axis pattern maintenance and tension management aswell as goal achievement are placed. Pattern maintenance and tension management, integration as well as the participation dimension of J. Halls theory represents socio-emotional or expressive behaviour, while adaptation, goal achievement, commitment and creativity represent instrumental or task functions. The results obtained from the research show that shiftwork, on micro as well as macro level, influenced the systems' balance. However, it was also found that the role which management plays in the creation of a climate in which the shiftworker may be willing to participate, feel committed and creative, is more significant than the influence of shiftwork on the system balance itself. The main problem areas could be defined as pattern maintenance and tension management, goal achievement and adaptation. In conclusion it can be stated that all the problems identified in this research may not be exclusively ascribed to micro factors such as management and the environment in Organization X. In any society which is characterized by change in the economic, political and social arenas, some people will experience insecurity, alienation and dissatisfaction.