Turnover, Absence, and Transfer Rates as Indicators of Employee Dissatisfaction with Repetitive Work

It is frequently alleged that the extreme division of labor or simplification of tasks in mass-production industries is a major source of job dissatisfaction. Moreover, according to this view, workers typically express their discontent with the monotony of highly repetitive jobs in high rates of absenteeism and labor turnover, or by seeking transfers to less repetitive work. The findings of the study reported in this article dispute the usefulness of such personnel phenomena as indicators of the degree of employee dissatisfaction with repetitive work. A variety of other job conditions submerged the effect, if any, of repetitiveness on turnover, absenteeism, and transfer rates in two manufacturing companies studied by the author. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)