Conclusion 399
Families are another characteristic that differentiate workers. Many
employees in the public and nonprofi t sector are parents who need greater
flexibility in work schedules and work patterns to accommodate family
responsibilities. Flexible work arrangements are needed for parents to care for
young children or in some cases for employees to care for their parents. More
opportunities should be available for part - time work, and there should be
greater variety in benefi ts programs, such as child care and elder care. Ben-
efi ts packages should recognize alternative families and different priorities.
Alternative scheduling now being used in many public and nonprofi t
organizations includes job sharing, fl extime, and a compressed workweek
(a full week ’ s work is compressed into fewer than fi ve days). Working at
home or telecommuting are other options.
Change in Skill Requirements
More and more jobs in the public and
nonprofit sector are of a professional
nature, requiring higher levels of edu-
cation and fewer jobs requiring routine
tasks. Technology has taken on much
of the workplace ’ s mentally and physi-
cally repetitive tasks. Jobs today require
employees to possess greater skills as
they assume more challenging respon-
sibilities. Organizations need to acquire the skills necessary for coping with
the challenges brought on by today ’ s competitiveness.
Accompanying the change in competitiveness are changes in the
way organizations are evaluated. Critical performance standards are
effi ciency , defi ned as the ability to produce higher volume with the same or
fewer resources; quality , defi ned as matching products or services to
a human need with a consistent conformance to standards; variety ,
defi ned as providing choices to suit diverse tastes and needs; custom-
ization , defi ned as tailoring goods and services to individual clientele;
convenience , defined as developing user - friendly products and ser-
vices and delivering them with high levels of customer satisfaction; and
timeliness , defi ned as delivering innovations to customers, making continuous
improvement, and developing new applications quickly (Carnevale &
Carnevale, 1993).
Organizations need to
acquire the skills necessary
for coping with the
challenges brought on by
today ’ s competitiveness.
