CORPORATIONS New economy pits companies, bosses against employees

Pressure is increasing for corporate workers.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
When Dean Xeros entered corporate America in the late 1980s, he didn't think twice about job security.
"There was still a lot of employee loyalty. You never worried about layoffs or even expense freezes," he said.
But for the technology sales veteran, everything changed in the late '90s. Within a two-year period, he weathered two layoffs, and his earnings dropped by nearly half from their peak at the height of the dot-com frenzy. He even worried about whether his travel and other business expenses would get reimbursed.
The second-generation Greek American had had enough. In July 2002, he launched his own company, Opa Foods, which sells a line of Greek food seasonings that he created.
Though Xeros, 44, wound up having to take another sales job, he works on his food company nights and weekends and dreams of one day spending all his time running it.
"I'm getting tired of having my destiny, my future and the welfare of my family controlled by others," he said.
Here's the situation
Xeros' attitude isn't unique. For many workers, life in corporate America is increasingly turning into a pressure cooker loaded with nonstop stress, long hours and never-ending fears about the next layoffs.
Workers are being asked to do more with less and at faster speeds even as they contend with downsizings, restructurings and now offshoring.
As if the wage freezes and pay cuts of recent years weren't enough, many are now forced to shoulder more of the cost of rising health care premiums.
Some stand to lose overtime pay, thanks to new government rules soon to go into effect. And a growing number of workers can't even send e-mails without their employers monitoring their messages.
"It used to be working hard meant you got a promotion," said Mitchell Marks, a San Francisco organizational psychologist who helps companies cope with mergers and other work-force changes. "Now working hard means staying in the same place."
The more demanding and intense corporate environment -- a dramatic switch from 15 years ago -- can be attributed to a number of forces, from technological change to globalization and companies' focus on meeting Wall Street's short-term demands, workplace experts say.
"Everybody is now part of a global work force," said Arlene Johnson, vice president of WFD Consulting, a Watertown, Mass., human resources research and consulting firm.
Bruce Tulgan, a workplace expert and chief executive of Rainmaker Thinking Inc. in New Haven, Conn., describes the situation as the "real new economy -- where employers must be ruthless to survive and individuals must be very aggressive to succeed."
What study found
In a recent study, his firm found that employers are less tolerant of employee error, waste and inefficiency. At the same time, workers are getting less management guidance and support, less downtime and greater fear of imminent job loss.
"There is a lot of grumbling on the front lines like, 'I don't know how long I can do this,'" Tulgan said. "Market forces are like a steamroller. Market forces leave casualties."
The focus on faster, better, cheaper is inserting itself into the workplace like never before.
Most employees must not only book their travel arrangements themselves but also hunt for the cheapest fares and stay at budget motels. Many are on call 24 hours a day, rising early or staying late at the office to talk to colleagues in other countries. And these days, only top executives get assistants.
These kinds of demands are making it nearly impossible for people to achieve the work-life balance that a host of management experts touted as the model for life in the '90s.
Employees were supposed to work hard but also have a life, with flexible schedules and understanding bosses.
Instead, jobs have become so demanding that more than three-quarters of employees go into work when they're sick, according to ComPsych Corp., a provider of employee assistance programs. Unscheduled absenteeism fell to an all-time low last year, said CCH Inc., an employment law and human resources firm.
In fact, working 60-hour weeks and taking only one week of vacation is now perceived to be a good thing, said Frank Kenna III, president of the Marlin Co., an employee communications firm in North Haven, Conn.
"People are wearing that as a badge of honor," he said.
What's expected
A research firm, Walker Information, found that although 75 percent of workers were satisfied with their jobs, only 30 percent were truly loyal to their employers.
That means many workers are going to bolt for the exits as soon as the economy generates plenty of new jobs, workplace experts predict.
"Those employers that have been treating their employees shabbily are going to find their best workers leaving," said Roger Herman, a workplace futurist and author. "When things start picking up, they are going to pick up very strongly."
The human toll is all too evident to Marks, the organizational psychologist. During his 20 years in practice in San Francisco, he has assisted in 100 corporate mergers and downsizings.
Today, people are taking longer to return phone calls, he notes, and when they do call back, they are a bit ruder.
"People can't change, change, change. People aren't machines," he warns. "It's going to get worse before it gets better -- this focus on speed at any cost, this focus on short-term results. The human machine is going to break."