Browsing by Subject "Työn muutos"

Working life has changed significantly in recent decades. For example, the development in information technology, internationalisation, economic cycle, labour code and changes in organisations have affected the work of individual employees. The aim of this research was to understand the changes in working life from the point of view of Alko’s shop assistant. The empirical analysis of this article was based on theme interview data with three shop assistants working for Alko. The data set was collected in autumn 2010. All of the interviewees were approaching retirement age and had all done a long career in Alko. The main research question was: How does a shop assistant with a long career in Alko see the changes in their work? I transcribed the voice recorded interview data after which I analysed the data drawing on data based content analysis. All the interviewees experienced that their way of working has changed. These changes occurred in different sectors of working life and during different periods of time. Some of the reported changes had happened slowly within a long period of time but some of the changes had occurred in a relatively short and specific time period, such as at the time of the depression of the 1990s. In my research, the changes were divided into four themes: work pace, customer demands, competence and changes in the organisation. On the one hand, the changes in working life have made work more likeable but on the other hand more demanding and more laborious. The changes in work have been researched in many fields for example from the point of view of economics and well-being at work. In the future, it would be interesting to investigate using a wider data and interview set how different generations see the changes in their work, and incorporate these findings to a wider field of competence and working life.