Impact of Precarious Work on Employee Safety and Sustainability

The assignment discusses how precarious work is increasing in modern companies due to flexibility and competitiveness needs. This leads to negative effects on employee safety, performance, and sustainability. The document also highlights initiatives implemented by companies to promote equality and improve working conditions for all employees.

Sociological Imagination

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1. In what ways is work characterised by precariousness and instability........................................1
Types of precariousness work.....................................................................................................2
Prevalence of precariousness work.............................................................................................3
Impact of precarious work..........................................................................................................5
Effect of instability......................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Today, the sociological imagination is an important concept for society welfare. They
describe the deep understanding methods of historical process and their outcomes. This concept
works to shift from one perspective to another. If any of adverse situation occurs then the person
find their solutions and moved away. If the persons lack the imagination power of this concept
then they can render the people very apathetic. If the concept of sociological imagination is not
used then the image of character spoils (Young, 2011). There are many person which are
existence in social problems such as some are so poor and unemployed they are not given any
employment opportunity, some are so poor in health, some are different kind of family problems
such a drink too much alcohol, to commit crime. When we hear these problems we think that
these are their own problems. Sometime these are drive them into personnel trouble and public
issues. Personnel troubles are those affect persons whereas public issues are those affects the
culture and society of public. This report include the definition of precarious work, identify the
areas that are most affected and mention some consequences to person health and for well being.
1. In what ways is work characterised by precariousness and instability.
Precarious work is the type of employment which is provided with lower security and
salary. This is type of work which does not even supports the basic needs of households. Most of
the women are engaged in this type of jobs. The precariousness work involves work from home,
part time jobs etc. This creates instability in organisational functions (Agnew and Duncan, 2014).
The relations of employee and employer are also not maintained in this type of tasks. But today
companies are involved in motivating the precariousness work as this provides companies easy
termination and re-leaving from the responsibility with employee. The organisation are engaged
in employing the person with development of contractual agreement and engaged in providing
temporary jobs to the person. This is known as precarious work in business environment.
Government is continuously engaged in restricting this kind of action in the commercial
environment in order to bring stability in the working surrounding and stability on relationship
between the employment provider and employee itself. This activities of business can be defined
as that individual is completing all the duties of permanent jobs abut they are not getting any
rights of permanent task in the organization workplace. These type of jobs involves exploitation
of the individual capabilities and their physical strength. This kind of occupation involving hiring
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the person for dangerous task and along with this is paid with lower wages for their duties
(Uprichard, 2012). Like the workers in mines, and other constructional worker are exploited by
the companies and paid wages low even not able to support their household lives effectively. The
women are also engaged in this type of precociousness task as the companies are offering them
work from home and flexible working hours but these employees are less paid. So, the
government is highly demotivating these activities in working environment.
The precarious work bring instability in the organisational functioning and the career
growth of an employee also. These types of employee are not having right to participate in any
type of union and and not receiving any kind of social benefits. There is not any defined policies
in the company norms that protects the right of temporary employee. These are provided with
lower wages and also have lower security elements in the job. The company can terminate the
candidate any time without any prior notification. They are not unionised as they are not
permanent in the organisation (Simpson and Elias, 2011). The person is given large amount of
workload which increases stress level of individual and affects mental heath of employee. This is
also not provided with any compensation for medical help from the organisation. Most of the
women, minorities, migrant, refugee and the poor people are engaged in this kind of
precariousnesses work in working environment. The employee engaged in accomplishing
precariousness job responsibility are also not given any kind of respect in workplace by the
permanent employee and ill-treated workforces. The companies are engaged in developing new
recruitment policies in relation competing the task from the outsourcing candidate which are
engaged in doing work from the precariousness work. The companies are outsourcing the task as
this reduces the cost of employment and lowers the number of permanent job vacancies in
workplace. The outsourcing private companies are recruiting the temporary or part time
employee for completing their work through lower wages employment and these worker are
known as independent contactors or short term employment.
Types of precariousness work.
Precariousness work can be of many types depending upon the working hours,
responsibilities, task and certainty of job (Pickersgill and Van Keulen, 2011). The various types
of employee which are to be consider as precariousness work are defined as follow:
Self Employment- This is also considered as the preciousness work as most of the self
employed are mostly entrepreneur. These person are engaged in making profit through the sale
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of workers and engaged in limited number of client communication. The person is also have to
work continuously.
Part time- This kind of job is also an precarious job. This type of jobs are differentiated
from others on the basis of time of duty. The full time job involves more working hours with
higher salary. While the part time jobs are less paid jobs.
Temporary- This job responsibility is also considered as precariousness work as this not
provide any certainty and security to jobs (Lazar, 2011). This creates higher instability in the
career of individual as well as the continuity in working of organisation. These type of jobs can
be contractual.
Telecommuting- This is the type of occupation in which the uncertainty in job is found at
highest level. These types of jobs are temporary job from employee as well as employer side.
Telecommuting is the jobs which involves processing the task through calls and
telecommunications.
On-call work- The on call jobs are the task that are assigned through calls. The individual
call him for providing their responsibility when ever required otherwise the employee is free
from the duties. This job is also an precariousness work which is paid through lower wages.
Home based work- This is the task which can be accomplished through working from
home. Most of the women employee are engaged in this type of precarious work and have to
compromise with lower wages. This is the work which does not have any security and can be
terminated any time.
Prevalence of precariousness work.
The term precarious work is important which are used at the European and international
level. This term depend on the country culture, regions, religions, and social structure of labour
market and political system (Beer and Burrows, 2010). The term precarious has proposed four
dimension such as temporary it means less time of certainty over the employment, shortage of
working hours and shifts, their pay, health and safety. There is problem for insufficiency to pay
and salary progression.
According to International labour organisation, precarious work mean that the employers
of company are shifted their risk and responsibilities to employees of organisation. They worked
both for formal and informal nation and its features to be various objective to be met. Precarious
job is to be defined as there is no certainty to the employment duration, disguised and ambiguous
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relationship of employment. In European countries, precious work is defines as to combine the
low level job , poor worker are appointed to control the work, in workplaces there is increasing
value of discrimination and unemployment rate. Low quality job refers to low productivity job
where the employees are work to produce low productivity which are negative effect of
company reputation (Orton-Johnson and Prior, 2013). There are increase in number of temporary
workers are recruited in organisation it includes on the basis of part time contract, subcontractors
and on call contactors.
Precarious or non standard employment is more common in many sectors. These sectors
are hotels and restaurants, education department, health care, and constructions and agriculture
sectors. The large number of young and female workers are worked in hotel and restaurants,
educations and retail sector which are considered as high level precarious employment.
Sometime this precarious and non standard employment are created the unfavourable
conditions which are harmful for society living. These mainly relate to insecurity of job. The
increased pressure of work and job insecurity, both are unfavourable effect on worker health and
safety. These temporary workers are doing their work in most hazardous situation, poor
conditions, less training provided to this workers. There is negative relationship between the job
insecurity and increased pressure of work which have impact on organisation success. There are
group of workers who are not secured of proper system of social protection act. A low income
people have influence the unemployment subsidies and workers right (Penfold-Mounce, Beer
and Burrows, 2011). These work also pressurise the people to pay rent, obtain bank credit
number and many other factors. There are some initiatives to manage and prevent the precarious
work and instability. Various number of methods taken to prevent and manage the precarious
work. Those who are employed in organisation are to be deal all the task in better way. It is
necessary to have the honest communication between the superior and supervisor. To remove the
feeling of job insecurity various methods are taken such as there must good interpersonal skill
relate to work and provision are made to support the society, this will helpful for workers
motivation. These work are also related to various psychological factors such as workload, job
content, work schedule, work pace, organisational culture. They also work for promoting a good
working environment of organisation and as well as to manage and maintain the precarious
work.
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Various policies and procedures on safety and health purpose want to addressing
challenging imposed in precarious employment (Bleicher, 2014). To improving the employment
opportunity and remove the gap between the skill and knowledge and lean different
opportunities. They generate the training and development session for unemployed persons to fill
their gaps. So the labour market reform mainly works on create the better opportunity of jobs,
protect the vulnerable group of people and reducing the precarious work in UK. The equality of
all genders is the major investment which are helpful in continuous learning.
Impact of precarious work.
This job is affecting various functioning of organisation and society and also affects
career development of individual person. The precariousness work is also affected by
sociological imagination and their values (Bauman, 2010). This kind of work negatively impact
on the individual physical health as this is not even able to fulfil household needs efficiently and
affects physiological and mental heath of employee to large extent.
Consequences for individual worker- Individual worker is affected by the precariousness
work largely. Due to uncertainty in jobs the worker is not able to perform task effectively. Lower
level of wages also dissatisfy the person. Precariousness work involves high level workload
which increases stress level of individual and negative impact the health of individual. The
worker is not satisfied and happy from the job as there is no security in job and lack of dignity
while accomplishing their job responsibility workplace.
Consequences for organisation- Organisation functioning is also affected by the
precarious work as this bring dissatisfaction in the employee which affects the quality of
operations and also affects the profitability of firm to large extent. The organisation is also
affected by higher turnover are as the perform has to invest in training and development
programme for the newly hired temporary employees (Atkinson, 2014). So, precariousnesses job
affects the business profitability and operation largely.
Consequences for society- The precarious work is having huge importance in the society
welfare. As these jobs involved in increasing stress level of individual. This is affects the social
life of an person to large extent. Due to higher unemployment and uncertainty brings increase in
the retirement rate of individual comes faster and this leads to the inability to accomplish their
family responsibility effectively and ultimately affects the social believes and values. The
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dissatisfaction in life brings crime in society and people are involved in enable to maintain good
relationship in social lives.
Effect of instability.
Insatiability in the functions largely affects the growth of organisation to large extent.
The insatiability in the working of organisation also affects the industry development and
workers lives, investors and external micro environment largely. Stability bring higher efficiency
in the performance if the affecting aspects of company. Some of the impact of instability in
functions are defined as follows:
Company health: Insatiability in the employment brings largely affects the good working
health of company. The profitability of firm is largely suffers form the higher employee turnover.
The precarious work brings increased insatiability in functions as there is continuous entry of
new employee and organisation is enable to maintain an stable working environment in firm
shows affects health of business to large extent.
Workers: The instability in jobs bring dissatisfaction in working of an individual which
negatively influences the profitability of firm as the performance of an employee is decreased.
Lower wages in precariousness work also affects the motivational level workers in workplace
which decreases the performance level of individual.
Customers: Due to unaffected company health and the performance of workers and the
customers also get disturbed various of bad quality of products and services from business. The
customers behaviours is influenced by the precarious work in the workplace (CLARK, 2011).
The consumers dissatisfied for the inconsistency in performance of organisation because of
changing workplace in business environment.
Suppliers: The suppliers is affected by the precarious work. As the companies are
engaged in allotting their manufacturing work to most of the outsourcing company. These
company are engaged on providing precarious job to employee (Examples of Sociological
Imagination. 2017). This affects the suppliers to large extent and the outsourcing company is
accomplish the organisation work at lower cost which affects the profitability of supplier large
extent.
Investors: The investors for any business organisation is largely affected by the
development of precariousness work in the commercial environment. The investors are not able
to manage their funds effectively as the company is facing higher experiencers in training and
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development of employee. The investors probability is also affected by maintaining the through
higher investment in because of increased expenses in maintaining the retirement of employee.
CONCLUSION
Today the companies are more flexible in competitive environment. New form of
employment are increasing such as temporary work, part time-work and on call working the
precarious work is increasing then it will negative effect of employee safety and health. They
also impact on the performance and sustainability of organisational work can adverse impact on
equality, solidarity and social cohesion. There are many initiatives which have been implemented
in company such as to establish the good working condition for all employees. Their basic goal
and objective are to promote the equal opportunity for all workers, improving the quality of data
and information particularly they relate it to temporary employment, quasi self employment.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Agnew, J.A. and Duncan, J.S. eds., 2014. The power of place (RLE Social & Cultural
Geography): Bringing together geographical and sociological imaginations. Routledge.
Atkinson, P., 2014. The ethnographic imagination: Textual constructions of reality. Routledge.
Bauman, Z., 2010. Towards a Critical Sociology (Routledge Revivals): An Essay on
Commonsense and Imagination. Routledge.
Beer, D. and Burrows, R., 2010. The sociological imagination as popular culture. In New Social
Connections (pp. 233-252). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Bleicher, J., 2014. The Hermeneutic Imagination (RLE Social Theory): Outline of a Positive
Critique of Scientism and Sociology. Routledge.
CLARK, J., 2011. Engaging Students' Minds and Emotions: Using Multiple Strategies to Teach
About Suicide. Sociological imagination. 47(2). pp.17-20.
Lazar, A., 2011. Transnational migration studies. Reframing sociological imagination and
research. Journal of comparative research in Anthropology and Sociology. 2(2). p.69.
Orton-Johnson, K. and Prior, N. eds., 2013. Digital sociology: Critical perspectives. Springer.
Penfold-Mounce, R., Beer, D. and Burrows, R., 2011. The wire as social science-
fiction?. Sociology. 45(1). pp.152-167.
Pickersgill, M. and Van Keulen, I. eds., 2011. Sociological reflections on the
neurosciences (Vol. 13). Emerald Group Publishing.
Simpson, J.M. and Elias, V.L., 2011. Choices and chances: The sociology role-playing game—
The sociological imagination in practice. Teaching Sociology. 39(1). pp.42-56.
Uprichard, E., 2012. Being stuck in (live) time: The sticky sociological imagination. The
Sociological Review. 60(1_suppl). pp.124-138.
Young, J., 2011. The criminological imagination. Polity Press, Cambridge.
Online
Examples of Sociological Imagination. 2017. [Online]. Available
through:<http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-sociological-
imagination.html>. [Accessed on 26th July 2017].
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