МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ РЕСПУБЛИКИ БЕЛАРУСЬ

УО «Белорусский государственный экономический университет»

С.К. Родион

EMPLOYMENT

ЗАНЯТОСТЬ

Электронное учебно-методическое пособие по дисциплине «Иностранный язык (английский)»

Минск 2009

Рецензент: зав.кафедрой теории и практики английской речи БГЭУ, кандидат филологических наук, доцент Т.Ф. Солонович.

Рекомендовано кафедрой теории и практики английской речи БГЭУ

Родион С.К.

Занятость = Employment : электронное учеб.-метод. пособие / С.К. Родион – Минск: БГЭУ, 2009. – 19 c..

Учебно-методическое пособие содержит лексический материал, тексты для чтения и комплекс упражнений и заданий для формирования англоязычных коммуникативных навыков студентов в рамках темы «Занятость», предусмотренной типовой программой по дисциплине «Иностранный язык». Предназначено для студентов БГЭУ дневной формы обучения.

EMPLOYMENT

We hire a man, not his history.

Henry Ford (1863-1947), American car manufacturer

GETTING STARTED

1. Discuss the following questions first in small groups, then with the whole class:

1. If you were asked to define the term “employment”, what would you say?

2. Do you find employment to be a social issue or a political one? Why?

3. How does the level of population employment influence the economic situation in the country?

2. In your opinion, which factors from the list given below are important for getting a job? Choose the seven most important. Is there anything missing from the list?

age, appearance, astrological sign, contacts and connections, experience, family background, handwriting, hobbies, intelligence, marital status, personality, qualifications, references, sex, sickness record, blood group

3. Sooner or later you will be invited for a job interview. In pairs note down two things you think candidates should do at a job interview, and two things they shouldn’t do.

USEFUL VOCABULARY

employ v

employer n

employee, co-worker n

employment n

unemployment n

unemployed a

manual labor

white-collar, blue-collar, pink-collar jobs

full, seasonal, formal, informal employment

telecommuting = teleworking n

part-time work

self employment

freelancer n

flexible working hours, flexitime

clock in/ out v (clock on/ off)

work in shifts

be on the day/ night shift

run one’s own business

workforce, payroll n

staff, personnel n

be overstaffed

skilled, unskilled workers

redundancy n

make smb redundant, sack, lay off, dismiss, fire v

leave, quit one’s job, resign, retire v

wages, salary, fee, bonus, commission, tip, premium, retainer, fringe benefits, perks n

trade unions

recruitment process

absentee record

hire = recruit v

recruitment / employment agency

headhunter n

failure n

interviewer, interviewee n

applicant, candidate, nominee n

shortlist n

job opening, position, post, vacancy

“golden hello”, “golden handshake”

apply for a job

applicant n

meet requirements

CV (curriculum vitae)

application letter

reference n

racial / sex discrimination, sexism, sexual harassment, ageism

leave for work

go to work

get to / arrive at work

be at / off work

be in / out of work

satisfying, stimulating, fascinating, exciting, dull, boring, uninteresting, repetitive, routine, tiring, tough, hard, demanding work (job)

READING

Reading 1

1. Read the text and focus on the following points:

• the definition of employment, labor and workforce;

• the main goal of reformers;

• pros and cons of telecommuting.

Definition and Types of Employment

When we speak about employment we usually mean paid work done by a person or a group of people. Labor, in its turn, refers to the routine work that people do in their jobs, whether it is performing manual labor, managing employees, or providing skilled professional services. Manual labor usually refers to physical work that requires little formal education or training, such as shoveling dirt or moving furniture. Managers include those who supervise other workers. Examples of skilled professionals include doctors, lawyers, and dentists. Very often managers and skilled professionals are called white collar workers, as their job does not involve manual labor.

The main goal of economic and social reformers is full employment, that is, availability of living-wage jobs for all employable citizens. But still many people work part-time, that is performing their professional duties only a part of the regular working time. With the growing number of people out of work job sharing becomes more and more popular. This is the practice of dividing a full time job between two people so that each works for half the time. There is also informal employment, or paid work on a casual basis. Jobs are irregular, and workers are often self-employed without earning pensions and without paying taxes. This sort of employment is common in urban areas of developing countries. It may involve service jobs as well as craft industries. Informal employment also includes illegal activities such as theft, prostitution, and selling drugs.

With technological advances, more and more people resort to telecommuting. They work away from the employer’s office, often at home, but maintain close contact with coworkers and managers through electronic mail and telephone. In some situations telecommuting can increase an employee’s productivity; it also decreases time spent driving to and from the office and decreases pollution from automobiles. But some managers feel uncomfortable with the lack of direct supervision they have over their telecommuting employees, and some employees may dislike telecommuting because of isolation from coworkers.

The total number of people a company employs is the payroll or the workforce. If there are too many employees the company is overstaffed and it has to let its employees go. In this case we are talking about downsizing, or rightsizing. When the employees have no choice the redundancies are compulsory. But when the employees can choose to leave the redundancies are voluntary. The payroll can also be reduced by natural wastage, with employees leaving over a period of time for usual reasons.

2. Scan the text again and make a list of different types of employment mentioned in the text. Can you add any other forms of employment which are popular in Belarus?

3. Decide whether the following statements are true or false:

1) Manual labor refers to physical work that requires little formal education or training.

2) Very often managers are called white-collar workers, as their job doesn’t involve manual labor.

3) Full employment is absence of jobs for all employable citizens.

4) Informal employment is unpaid work on a casual basis.

5) Self-employment is common in rural areas of developed countries.

Reading 2 It’s Useful to Know…

Types of job

A full-time job is for the whole of the normal working week; a part-time job is for less time than that.

A permanent job doesn’t finish after a fixed period; a temporary job finishes after a fixed period.

Skills and qualifications

A skill is the ability to do smth well, especially because you have learned how to do it and practiced it.

Jobs, and the people who do them, can be described as highly skilled (e.g. car designer), skilled (e.g. car production manager), semi-skilled (e.g. taxi driver) and unskilled (e.g. car cleaner).

Companies look for people who are:

• self starters, proactive, self-motivated, or self-driven: good at working on their own;

• methodical, systematic and organized: can work in a planned, orderly way;

• computer-literate: good with computers:

• numerate: good with numbers;

• motivated: very keen to do well in their job;

• talented: naturally very good at what they do;

• team players: people who work well with other people.

Recruitment

The process of finding people for particular jobs is recruitment or hiring. Someone who has been recruited is a recruit or a hire. The company employs or hires them and they join the company. A company may recruit employees directly or use outside recruiters, recruitment agencies or employment agencies. Outside specialists called headhunters may be called on to headhunt people for very important jobs, persuading them to leave the organizations they already work for. This process is called headhunting.

People and workplaces

A company’s activities may be spread over different sites. A company’s most senior managers usually work in its head office or headquarters (HQ). Some managers have their own individual offices, but in many businesses, most employees work in open-plan offices: large areas where many people work together. Administration or, informally, admin, the everyday work supporting a company’s activities, is often done in offices like these by administrative staff or support staff. For example, those giving technical help to buyers of the company’s products are in technical support.

In larger organizations there is a human resources department (HDR) that deals with pay, recruitment, etc. This area is called human resources (HR) or human resource management (HRM). Another name for this department is the personnel department.

Labor unions, organizations defending the interests of workers (AmE) are called trade unions in BrE.

When workers are not happy with pay or conditions, they may take industrial action:

• a strike, stoppage or walk-out: workers stop working for a time.

• a go-slow: workers continue to work, but more slowly than usual.

• an overtime ban: workers refuse to work more than the normal number of hours.

Pay and benefits

Salary - money paid monthly directly into a bank account, normally to professional people and office workers.

Wages - money paid weekly and usually in cash, normally to manual workers.

Earnings - the total of the sums earned by an employee during a regular pay period.

Income - money we receive from work, investments, etc. It can be earned income (wages or salary) or unearned income (money from dividends, interest, royalties, etc.).

Revenue - income, generally the total income earned by the state or a large corporation: it’s not used for people and it is also the money a government receives through taxation.

Fringe benefits – extras such as a car or free accommodation received by right in addition to one’s salary.

Fee – a payment to a lawyer, doctor, etc. for professional services.

Bonus – something given, paid, or received above what is due or expected.

Compensation and remuneration are formal words used to talk about pay and benefits, especially those of senior managers. Compensation package and remuneration package are used especially in the US to talk about all the pay and benefits that employees receive. For a senior executive, this may include share options (BrE) or stock options (AmE): the right to buy the company’s shares at low prices. There may be performance-related bonuses if the manager reaches particular objectives for the company.

Compensation is also used to talk about money and other benefits that a senior manager (or any employee) receives if they are forced to leave the organization, perhaps after a boardroom row. This money is in the form of a compensation payment, or severance payment. If the manager also receives benefits, the payment and the benefits form a severance package. In Britain, executives with very high pay and good benefits may be referred to as fat cats, implying that they don’t deserve this level of remuneration.

Problems at work

There are some health and safety issues for people at work. For example, passive smoking, repetitive strain injury, dangerous machinery, hazardous substances and fire hazards. All these things contribute to a bad working environment. The government sends officials called health and safety inspectors to make sure that factories and offices are safe places to work. They check what companies are doing about things like heating and air-conditioning, first aid and fire precautions.

If someone such as a manager bullies an employee, they use their position of power to hurt or threaten them, for example verbally. Someone who does this is a bully.

Sexual harassment is when an employee behaves sexually towards another in a way that they find unwelcome and unacceptable.

If people are treated differently from others in an unfair way, they are discriminated against.

If a woman is unfairly treated just because she is a woman, she is a victim of sex discrimination, or sexism. In many organizations, women complain about the glass ceiling that allows them to get to a particular level but no further.

If someone is treated unfairly because of their race, they are a victim of racial discrimination or racism. Offensive remarks about someone’s race are racist and the person making them is a racist.

In the US, Affirmative action is when help is given in education and employment to groups who were previously discriminated against. In Britain, affirmative action is known as equal opportunities.