1. Career paths aren’t what they used to be;
2. He worked his way up from
3. The new management have delayered the company,
4. We used to do printing in-house,
5. Workers are afraid their organizations will be downsized
a) and they will be replaced by temporary workers.
b) companies won’t take care of us for life any more.
c) but now we outsource it.
d) factory worker to factory manager.
e) reducing five management levels to three.
Carla used to work for an Italian magazine publishing company. She talks about how she lost her job. Choose the correct form of the words in brackets to complete the text.
Edizione Fenice is a big magazine publishing company, and a very nice company to work for. I was director of a magazine called Casa e Giardino.
Then, Fenice was bought by an international publishing group. We had to have regular performance (1)……. (review/reviews/reviewer) with one of the new managers. After a few; months they started laying staff (2)…….. (off/on/out). Our own journalists were put on temporary (3)………….. (contracts/contractual/contracting) or replaced by (4)……………..(freelancer/freelancers/freelanced).
Then they started (5)………………. (laid/lying/laying) off more senior people like me. The new owners said they wanted to make the company (6) ………….(flat/flatter/flatten) and (7)……………………..(lean/leant/leaner).So I was made (8)……….(redundant/redundancies/redundancy).They offered to help me to find another job with (9)……..…... (outplacement/outplaced/outplacing) advice, but I refused.
Over to you
If you work……
Do you have performance reviews? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Has your organization been restructured? What aspects of the business does your company outsource?
If you don't work...
Would you prefer a job for life or a more flexible career? Would you like regular performance reviews?
PROBLEMS AT WORK
A
Health and safety
Here are some health and safety issues for people at work.
A) temperature b) passive smoking c) repetitive strain injury or RSI
D) dangerous machinery e) hazardous substances f) fire hazards
All these things contribute to a bad working environment. The government sends officials called health and safety inspectors to make sure that factories and offices are safe places to work. They check what companies are doing about things like:
B
Bullying and harassment
If someone such as a manager bullies an employee, they use their position of power to hurt or threaten them, for example verbally. Someone who does this is a bully.
Sexual harassment is when an employee behaves sexually towards another in a way that they find unwelcome and unacceptable. The related verb is harass.
C
Discrimination
If people are treated differently from others in an unfair way, they are discriminated against.
If a woman is unfairly treated just because she is a woman, she is a victim of sex discrimination. In many organizations, women complain about the glass ceiling that allows them to get to a particular level but no further.
If someone is treated unfairly because of their race, they are a victim of racial discrimination or racism. Offensive remarks about someone’s race are racist and the person making them a racist.
In the US, affirmative action is when help is given in education and employment to groups who were previously discriminated against. In Britain, affirmative action is known as equal opportunities.
Some companies have a dignity at work policy covering all the issues described in B and C
1. Match the employees’ complaints (1-6) to the health and safety issues (a-f) in A opposite.
1. My doctor says there’s something wrong with my lungs, but I’ve never smoked ….
2. I do a lot of data entry, and I’ve started getting really bad pains in my wrists …
3. It’s either too cold and we freeze, or too hot and we all fall asleep ….
4. There’s all this waste paper but there are no fire extinguishers in the building. ….
5. The containers are leaking – one day someone is going to get acid burns. …
6. There are no safety guards on the machines: you could easily get your hand caught. …
