Kontakt 2013, 15(2):165-172 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2013.020

How does the staff of labour offices evaluate their workload?Health and Social Sciences - Original article

Karel Paulík

Ostravská univerzita v Ostravě, Filozofická fakulta, katedra psychologie

This paper deals with the subjective perception of workload of the labour office staff dealing directly with clients and their problems. The aim of this paper is to find out how these workers, who, according to the character of their job duties can be classified as a group of helping professions, feel their workload at all, how subjectively they perceive and evaluate changes in their workplace and in workload related to the reform of public administration and how they try to cope with the demands of their work. The research was carried out in February and March 2012 in labour offices in the Czech Republic. The respondents (N = 150, average age 39.23, average time of employment at the labour office 12.5 years) were the employees working directly with the clients. The used method was an inventory consisting of 7 items, 3 of which find out subjective assessment of working and non-working load and comparison of working demands compared to other professions in 5-point level of Lickert scale. Other items relate to the main sources of increased workload, to the ways chosen for its management and to the assessment pros and cons of the reform affecting the activity of the labour office. The results show that the respondents assess their own workload as relatively high (higher than non-working load and higher workload compared to other comparable professions). The main sources of their stress are caused by lack of free time, conflicts with colleagues, problems with technology. We can't exclude that in the sense of high workload is reflected the assessment of the reforms at the labour offices, where many respondents found no positive results. Critical comments (unprepared software, staff shortage, errors in implementation) prevailed above stating the positives (unified pay place). In order to cope with the workload the respondents most often choose relax, contact with family members and friends, sport and other popular recreational activities.

Keywords: helping profession; workload; stress; stress management; labour office

Received: September 6, 2012; Accepted: February 14, 2013; Published: June 18, 2013  Show citation