Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 WORK VALUES

 Work is Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve

a result.
 A value is a principal or standard that is held in high esteem by an individual
and is related to all aspects of one's personal and work life.
 Work values are global aspects of work that are important to a person's job
satisfaction. The Work Values Sorter is an assessment of the values a person
considers important in a work setting.

Your work values are the work-related qualities, principles and standards that
really matter to you. When your career path and the type of work you do are in
line with your values, your work is likely to be more satisfying and rewarding.

 Why work values are important ?

Often, people choose a career for all the wrong reasons, and find their
responses to the workplace are incompatible with their true values. This may
produce feelings of unrest, discontent and a loss of productivity. Also,
employers like to see certain work values in employees and will not hire
people who don't show their actual true values at work. To help avoid these
problems, career values help people uncover their real values and use them
to make better career choices.

 No matter how employees feel about work, their primary motivation to work
is to earn a living. People's attitudes toward their jobs are related to the
nature of their work and the rewards they receive. For the factory "worker,
work is a necessary evil which merely ensures survival. The 5 corporation
president sees work as a way of obtaining material goods far beyond what is
necessary for survival. The teacher and the librarian, although not highly
paid, find intellectual stimulation and personal grati- fication in their jobs.

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  One's job in the United States is an important facet of personal identity.
"What do you do?" (i.e., for a living) is synonymous with "What are you?"
In American English, asking a child, "What do you want to BE when you
grow up?" really means, "What kind of work do you want to 5 DO?" Since
the American society places a stronger emphasis on "doing" (including
producing) than on "being,"_work is one of the most important activities in
an individual's life. In addition, what a person "does" helps to determine that
person's prestige. A lawyer has more prestige than a bus driver; a nurse can
claim more prestige than a waitress or a 10 waiter .

1.2 The “Work Ethic”

 Attitudes toward work in the United States have been greatly influenced by
the "work ethic." Also called the "Puritan Ethic" or the "Protestant Ethic," it
motivates people to work hard in order to become successful. The "work
ethic" imbues work with the quality of goodness. It 5 originated with the
Puritan colonists from England, who came to North America in the 1600's.
The ethic was an outcome of the religious belief that material success was a
sign of God's favor, and that those who achieved this success were among
God's "chosen" and would go to heaven.

 Whether or not success was achieved, work attained religious and moral
value as illustrated in the expression, "The devil makes work for idle hands."
For the seventeenth-century Puritan colonists in New England, work was a
religious virtue. The work ethic is still important 5 (particularly in the
middle and upper classes), even though it has lost its religious significance.
An outcome of this American work value is materialism: the tendency to be
concerned with wealth and possessions.

A good work ethic is an attitude that combines hard work, good

performance & dependable results

Act in a Professional Manner

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• Be on Time!
• Be Polite!
• Be Respectful!
• Be Dependable!
• Show Initiative!

Initiative…What’s that??

 Initiative is the ability to get a job done on your own, without someone
constantly reminding you.
 People with initiative often come up with new ideas and ways
tosolveproblems
 Self motivatedpeople often volunteer for the challenging assignments

Act in a Professional Manner

• Avoid gossip
• Do not use profanity
• Be trustworthy

Keep your Personal Life Private

• Avoid discussing personal problems at work

• Keep personal phone calls to a minimum

Do not Steal!

• Stealing is illegal and unethical at all times

• Taking office supplies or food from the storeroom is stealing
• Taking cash from the cash register is stealing
• Letting your friends eat without charging them is stealing

Top 10 Work Ethics

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• Attendance
• Character
• Team Work
• Appearance
• Attitude
• Productivity
• Organizational Skills
• Communication
• Cooperation
• Respect

Reasons Employees are Fired

Attendance
• Being late or absent from work
• Shows lack of responsibility
• Can hinder productivity

Reasons Employees are Fired

Character
• Being dishonest : Trust, once lost, is hard to regain
• Being unreliable, Dependability is an employee asset
• Abusing drugs or alcohol, Can create health/safety issues

Reasons Employees are Fired

Appearance

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• Dress Code
This can be a safety issue as well as a disregard for rules

Reasons Employees are Fired

Productivity

• Being lazy. It’s a form of theft

• Being careless. Can lead to accidents/profit loss

Six secrets of successs

• Self Confidence
• Sincere Attempts
• Good Beginning
• Winning of the Minds
• Have Pure Thoughts
• Have Helping Nature

1.3 The "American Dream"

The American Dream is the idea held by many in the United States of America that
through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve prosperity. These
were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to
subsequent generations.

• Define the Dream

• Analyze the Dream by examining different sourcesand various groups of people
• Write a personal manifesto about your own American Dream

A definition of The American Dream is that freedom, equality and opportunity to

be available to every human being.
Another is a life of personal happiness and comfort which has been sought by
individuals

 In the United States there is a belief that people are rewarded for working,
producing, and achieving. Many people believe that there is equality of
opportunity that allows anyone to become successful. This belief is

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 illustrated by stories written by a nineteenth-century American 5 novelist,
Horatio Alger, who wrote about the "American Dream." In his stories he
described poor people who became rich because of their hard work, honesty,
and luck. The stories reinforced the idea that all individuals, no matter how
poor, were capable of becoming wealthy as long as they were diligent and
virtuous. For many Americans, however, Horatio 10 Alger's "rags-to-riches"
stories do not represent the reality of oppor- tunity. Many poor immigrants
who came to the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were
able to rise on the social and economic scales. Today, however, the poor
generally do not rise to the middle and upper classes. The "American
Dream" is now described as a 15 myth; it is still difficult for several million
Americans to "get ahead."

Problems with the American Dream

 Many people see it as a false hope to achieve the American dream, as it

presentsa utopian world that can never be achieved.
 There is a vast amount of discussion over what the American dream actually
entails. For some it owns a home, some it is making massive wealth.
 Many people start out full of confidence for the dream, and then get bogged
down by debt and day to day life.
 For many the American Dream is now purely materialistic, about having the
latest gadgets and fast cars.

 The American Dream is the hope that in the United States of America,
anyone can become rich and/or famous if they work hard and try their very
best.
 The idea of a true American dream started to spread through education, in
schools and collage. It then spread through other countries when immigrants
returned home.
 The strain theory focuses on the idea of an individual aiming to a goal
society that had set out with relentless and ruthless behaviour.
 The American Dream, in a stereotypical vision of the white picket fence, the
wealthy job, the straight white nuclear family, in a quiet suburb of small-
town America, is instantly recognisable to the common individual.

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The American Dream has been discussed in some of the greatest American
literature, some notable examples being The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, as well as work by John Steinbeck and
Mark Twain – common study material for schoolchildren all over the world.

Considering that everyone is so obsessed with the American Dream, Its all the
more strange that no one can agree to what exactly it means. To some people, it's
the faith that anyone who lives in this country -- even a penniless immigrant, slum
dweller or child of a hardscrabble farmer -- has the potential to prosper and
become wealthy. To others, it's the belief that everyone in America has the
opportunity to pursue his or her passion. To others, such as folksinger/activist
Woody Guthrie -- whose most famous composition, "This Land is Your Land," is
sung today by schoolchildren across the nation -- and civil rights leader Martin
Luther King, the American Dream means that every citizen of the land is
guaranteed equality, freedom and the right to be heard.

In many ways, the original idea of prosperity through opportunity and hard work
still stands. America is very supportive of business and commerce, and even in a
tough global economic situation enterprise is encouraged by the state, though not
to the extent possible prior to the recession. If all Americans tried hard enough to
reach their goals and reflected on their actions they would realise the world would
be a better place for them and for everyone else.

Chapter 2 Theory and Discussion

2.1 Rewards and Job Satisfaction

There are some people, however, who do succeed in raising their economic and
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social levels. "Upward (occupational) mobility" or "climbing the ladder" are terms
that refer to one's advancement in work. Many employees have a succession of
jobs that constitute a career. Some 5 businesses, organizations, government
agencies, and firms provide employees with the opportunities to progress to
higher positions. Promo-twnsjmd increased responsibility generally bring higher
salaries. Job satisfaction is a pleasurable emotional state resulting from the
appraisal of one’s job or job experiences. It represents how you feel about your
job and what you think about your job. Values are things that people consciously
or subconsciously want to seek or attain. According to value-percept theory, job
satisfaction depends on whether you perceive that your job supplies those things
that you value. Employees consider a number of specific facets when evaluating
their job satisfaction. These facets include pay satisfaction, promotion
satisfaction, supervision satisfaction, coworker satisfaction, and satisfaction with
the work itself. Job characteristics theory suggests that five “core
characteristics”—variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback—
combine to result in particularly high levels of satisfaction with the work itself.
Apart from the influence of supervision, coworkers, pay, and the work itself, job
satisfaction levels fluctuate during the course of the day. Rises and falls in job
satisfaction are triggered by positive and negative events that are experienced.
Those events trigger changes in emotions that eventually give way to changes in
mood. Moods are states of feeling that are often mild in intensity, last for an
extended period of time, and are not explicitly directed at anything. Intense
positive moods include being enthusiastic, excited, and elated. Intense negative
moods include being hostile, nervous, and annoyed. Emotions are states of
feeling that are often intense, last only for a few minutes, and are clearly directed
at someone or some circumstance. Positive emotions include joy, pride, relief,
hope, love, and compassion. Negative emotions include anger, anxiety, fear, guilt,
shame, sadness, envy, and disgust.

Job satisfaction has a moderately positive relationship with job performance and
a strong positive relationship with organizational commitment. It also has a strong
positive relationship with life satisfaction. Organizations can assess and manage
job satisfaction using attitude surveys such as the Job Descriptive Index (JDI),

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which assesses pay satisfaction, promotion satisfaction, supervisor satisfaction,
coworker satisfaction, and satisfaction with the work itself. It can be used to
assess the levels of job satisfaction experienced by employees, and its specific
facet scores can identify interventions that could be helpful.

How Important is Job Satisfaction?

 Job satisfaction does influence job performance.

 Job satisfaction is correlated moderately with citizenship behavior.
 Job satisfaction influences organizational commitment

2.2 Workaholic

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A workaholic is a person who works compulsively. While the term generally
implies that the person enjoys their work, it can also imply that they simply feel
compelled to do it. There is no generally accepted medical definition of such a
condition, although some forms of stress, impulse control disorder, obsessive-
compulsive personality disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder can be work-
related.

The term workaholic refers to various types of behavioral patterns, with each
having its own valuation. For instance, workaholism is sometimes used by people
wishing to express their devotion to one's career in positive terms. The "work" in
question is usually associated with a paying job, but it may also refer to
independent pursuits such as sports, music, art and science. However, the term is
more often used to refer to a negative behavioral pattern that is popularly
characterized by spending an excessive amount of time on working, an inner
compulsion to work hard, and a neglect of family and other social relations.

Researchers have found that in many cases, incessant work-related activity

continues even after impacting the subject's relationships and physical health.
Causes of it are thought to be anxiety, low self-esteem and intimacy problems.
Further, workaholics tend to have an inability to delegate work tasks to others and
tend to obtain high scores on personality traits such as neuroticism, perfectionism
and conscientiousness.

Workaholics feel the urge of being busy all the time, to the point that they often
perform tasks that are not required or necessary for project completion. As a result,
they tend to be inefficient workers, since they focus on being busy, instead of
focusing on being productive. In addition, workaholics tend to be less effective
than other workers because they have difficulty working as part of a team, trouble
delegating or entrusting co-workers, or organizational problems due to taking on
too much work at once.[6] Furthermore, workaholics often suffer sleep deprivation,
which results in impaired brain and cognitive function.[7]

 There are people who are especially attracted to the notion of "climb- ing the
ladder" so as to increase their status, financial position, and sense of self-
worth. In part, as a result of the work ethic, these people are internally
"driven" to work. Not infrequently, foreign visitors have 5 observed that

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 Americans spend an inordinate amount of time working and, as a
consequence, Americans have little time for leisure or personal relationships.
In American English a new word has been created to describe people who
work compulsively, The world "workaholic" describes an individual who is
as addicted to work an alcoholic is to 10 liquor.

 There are conflictiong points of view about workaholics. Those concerned

with problems of mentally. Others hold that workaholics are valuable
members of society because ther are extremely productive. The 5 American
culture values achievement, efficiency, and production a workaholic uphold
these values

2.3 Leisure and Socializing

 Despite the presence of workaholics, there is a growing realization in the

United States that excessive work demands can be physically and mentally
harmful. Many people have been rebelling against the work ethic, claiming
that when a job is so important, personal relationships 5 suffer and relaxation
becomes secondary. Consequently there has been a shift in values, with
more emphasis being given to personal relation ships and nonwork activites.
Leisure time provides opportunities to find personal satisfaction and freedom
from the routine of work.

 Increased leisure in the united States has not altered the idea that work and
play are distinct activities. This distinction is clear-cut; there are “work-
hours” and “after-work-hours.” There is a belief that it is deriable “to work
hard and play hrd” and undersirable to combine 5 the two. In many offices,
stores and factories socializing among employees is discouraged. An
employee under pressure at work often cannot afford to respond to social
calls and visits. However, the amount of personal contact interaction
between teachers in a school than between 10 scientsts doing independent
research. Nevertheless, work and play are usually perceived and maintained
as separate activities.

 People are ambivalent toward work;it is, at the same time, glorified and
belittled. In the words of former President Richard Nixon: “The ‘Work
ethic’ of this people, is alive and well. Another viewpoint is expressed in an

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 Anacin (aspirin) commercial: “ O like my jon and am good at it, but it sure
grinds me down sometimes, and the last thing i need to take home is a
headache.”

RESOURCES

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workaholic Presentations on SlideServe, Presentations for workaholic
http://www.slideserve.com/search/workaholic

reward-and-jobs-satisication Presentations on SlideServe, Presentations for

reward-and-jobs-satisication http://www.slideserve.com/search/reward-and-
jobs-satisication

work ethic - Penelusuran Google https://www.google.com/search?

q=work+ethic&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=nts

Work values- penelusuran Google https://www.google.com/search?

q=beyond+language&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=np&source=hp

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