Social Services in the Workplace: Rhetoric vs. Reality.

Wyers, Norman L.; Kaulukukui, Malina

The article deals with a study which investigated the need for and nature of social services at the workplace. History of the employee assistance program and examples of workplace services are also presented in the article. Both the work force and workers' attitudes toward work itself are undergoing significant changes in the contemporary U.S. Expanded roles for women, federally mandated regulation of discriminatory hiring practices and increased longevity due to medical technology and greater attention to health care have been instrumental in altering the participation rates of women, minorities, handicapped persons and older workers in the work force. The increased participation has resulted in a highly competitive job market, which, in turn, has often created stresses for workers both on and off the job. In addition, workers' rising expectations that theft jobs will provide psychological satisfaction as well as economic return, and industry's perceived unresponsiveness to these expectations, have resulted in increased frustration with and alienation from the workplace. It is in this context that social work has come to look at the workplace as a practice arena.

EMPLOYEE assistance programs; SOCIAL services; WORK environment; EMPLOYEE services; LABOR supply; INDUSTRIAL engineering

Social Work, 1984, Vol 29, Issue 2, p167

0037-8046

Academic Journal

10.1093/sw/29.2.167