Duffy/Atwater © 2005 Prentice Hall Chapter 10 At Work and Play.

Duffy/Atwater © 2005 Prentice Hall

Chapter 10

At Work and Play


CHAPTER SUMMARY

1.Careers

A. Taking stock of yourself

B. Identifying compatible careers

C. Arriving at your career decision

D. Preparing for your career


Chapter Summary Cont’d

2. Your career outlook

Mining is one

occupation

that is not

expected to

grow.

A. Forecasting your career’s growth

B. Changing jobs or careers



3. Contemporary issues in the world of work

A. Job satisfaction

B. Technology and work

C. Diversity in the

workplace



4. Leisure time

A. What is leisure?

B. Work and leisure

C. Using leisure positively


Definitions

Job: position of employment or set of work activities and responsibilities associated with a given position.

Career: one’s purposeful life pattern of work, as seen in the sequence of jobs held throughout one’s life.

Workplace: place of paid employment outside the home.

Leisure (unconditional): activities freely chosen, excluding work and maintenance activities.


1. Choosing your career

A. Taking stock of yourself

• What are your interests?

• What school subjects do you like the best?

• What are your hobbies?


• What are you good at?

• What have been your greatest achievements?

• How would you describe your personality?

• What do you think you would enjoy most about work (your values)?


B. Identifying compatible careers

• Books you can use:

The Occupational Outlook Handbook (go to the website of the Bureau for Labor Statistics)

The Guide to Job Opportunities (College Board,

Princeton, NJ).

• Interest inventories may be offered at your campus counseling center (e.g. Strong Interest Inventory).


C. Arriving at your career decision:

• Be sure you know about the decision-making process.

• List the pluses and minuses related to each possible career.

• Guard against making impulsive choices.


• Don’t be attracted to a career after only one job in that particular field.

• Don’t select a career based just on its prestige or financial status.

• Try to be your own decision-maker; do not allow family or friends to unduly influence you.


D. Preparing for your career

• Get a good education.

• Enroll for an internship, apprenticeship, or mentoring program in the career field that interests you.

• Check out state licensing, certification, and other requirements.


• Practice in advance for your job interview.

• Use planned searches to find open positions (personal networks, job fairs, the internet, career service centers, professional journals, etc.).


2. Your career outlook

A. Forecasting your career’s growth

The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects employment

opportunities to grow.

Service sectors such as finance, health care, law, education, data processing, etc. are expected to grow faster than any other sectors such as manufacturing.


B. Changing jobs or careers

• The longer you delay changing careers, the more difficult it is.

• People, however, are changing jobs more today than in the past.

• As people age, they are less likely to change jobs.


There are many reasons people change jobs such as:

- Burnout

- Low job satisfaction

- Changes in one’s family

Can you think of other reasons for changing jobs?


3. Contemporary issues in the world of work

A. Job satisfaction:

Definition: how well one likes a given job.

Researchers report that most Americans have high job satisfaction.

How well you perform in a job is not directly correlated with your performance (e.g. people who like a job still might not work hard).

Satisfaction depends on many factors such as the work activity, contact with other employees, learning

opportunities, autonomy, working conditions, pay, job security, working hours, supervisor’s style, etc.


B. Technology and work

Examples of technology at workinclude computers, cell phones, palm pilots, voice mail, teleconferencing, and so forth.

Administrators prefer vertical electronic communication; lower level employees utilize horizontal electronic communication.

In task-oriented organizations, satisfaction with technology is related to use (e.g. the higher the use, the more the satisfaction).

In people-oriented organizations, technology is not well liked.


C. Diversity in the workplace:

Some interesting statistics:

The percent of Whites in the labor force will soon decline from 73% to 69%.

Hispanic workers will soon outnumber Blacks in the labor force.

Asians are the fastest growing group of employees.

The number of women in the labor force will grow faster than the number of men in the labor force.

A related issue is the presence of sexual harassment in the workplace when men and women work together.


What this means for you:

• Be prepared to work with a diverse group of

coworkers.

• Try to learn as much as you can about

other cultures and cultural customs.

• If you are from an individualistic culture, be patient;

you will more easily differentiate work time from

leisure time than someone from a collective society.

• Try to understand role conflicts, especially

those related to home/family versus work.


4. Leisure time

Most American feel they are working more and playing less.

This is true; the average number of hours in the workweek is increasing:

Administrators typically work 61+ hours a week

Small business owners work 50+ hours a week

Working women have less leisure time than working men because women do more housework than men

Downsizing is partly to blame; remaining workers are usually assigned other job responsibilities.


Another cause may be technology. Instead of reducing the amount of work, it has increased the amount of work!


A. What is leisure?

Leisure is different from maintenance activities which involve activities necessary for life.

Maintenance activities include housework, food preparation, doinghomework with children, etc.

Playing a musical instrument and being paid for an orchestraperformance is work; playing an instrument for the sheerenjoyment is a leisure activity.

If you work too hard at a leisure-time activity, then it becomes more like work!


B. Work and leisure

There are individual differences in leisure activities.

When men become infirm they stop their leisure activities.

When women become infirm or age, they maintain their involvement in leisure activities.

Involvement in leisure activities helps us cope better with negative life events (e.g. divorce).

Leisure activities also assist us with our overall personal adjustment.


C. Using leisure positively

Americans’ favorite way to spend leisure time is watching TV.

There are many other leisure activities

available to us.

To really enjoy your leisure time, you should select activities that

are compatible with your interests and lifestyle.

Keep in mind that you may need to acquire the related skills.

Leisure activities honed in early life can make retirement easier to

adjust to.

Duffy/Atwater © 2005 Prentice Hall Chapter 10 At Work and Play.

Documents