UNIT 5

WAYS OF WORKING. PAY AND BENEFITS

For many office workers regular working hours are 8.30-9.00 a.m. to 5.00-5.30 p.m. Consequently people often talk about a nine-to-five job. Some people have flexitime which means they can start an hour or so earlier or finish later as long as they do enough hours each month. Working at different times, e.g. days one week and nights the next week, is called shiftwork. For some people it is difficult changing from one shift to another and to a new routine for sleeping and eating. Working from home using a computer and the Internet is becoming more and more popular. It is called teleworking or telecommuting.

Most blue-collar workers (manual or unskilled workers) are paid by the hour. Their pay (wages) may be higher if they work at night or on public holidays: night work, for instance, may pay time and a half (=one and a half times the normal hourly rate). Wages are usually paid weekly or daily. White-collar workers and professionals usually get a salary. It is paid monthly and usually by bank transfer. Nowadays the young person (aged 30-40) who has a highly-professional job and seems to be interested only in earning a lot of money and buying expensive things is called yuppie or golden-collar worker.

In different countries the basic salary that goes with a job may be only part of the package: bonuses paid in a “thirteenth month”, pension plans, discounts on goods produced by the company, a company car, free-canteen meals, cheap housing loans, profit-sharing schemes which pay employees more money when the business does well. 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 or stock options: the right to buy the company’s shares at low prices.

EXERCISES

1. Decide if these statements are true (t) or false (f). Correct the false ones with the right information.

a) Usually office workers have a nine-to-five job.

b) Some offices have flexitime which means they start and finish work at different times, provided that they do a certain number of hours each week or month.

c) Shiftwork isn’t considered to be difficult at all.

d) Teleworking or telecommuting is becoming less popular.

e) Most blue-collar workers get wages.

f) Salary is usually paid every week by bank transfer.

g) Compensation package includes all the pay and employees’ benefits.

h) Share or stock options mean that some senior executives have the right to buy the company’s shares at low prices.

2. Match the following words and phrases in column a with their definitions in column b.

A B

a) nine-to-five 1) an extra amount of money that is added to a payment, especially to sb’s wages as a reward

b) teleworking 2) the normal working hours in an office

c) a blue-collar worker 3) connected with people who do physical work in industry

d) wages 4) the practice of working from home, communicating with your office, customers and others by telephone, computer, etc.

e) bonus 5) any of the units of equal value into which a company is divided and sold to raise money

f) a share 6) a regular amount of money that you earn, usually every week, for work or services

3. Find in the text words or phrases which have these meanings.

a) working in an office, rather than in a factory, etc., connected with work in offices;

b) money that professional employees receive for doing their job or working in an office, usually paid every month;

c) an amount of money that is taken off the usual cost of sth;

d) the system of dividing all or some of a company’s profits among its employees;

e) something, especially money, that sb gives you because they have hurt you, or damaged sth that you own;

f) advantages that you get from a company in addition to the money that you earn;

g) a reward or payment for the work that has been done.

4. Supply the sentences with the most suitable words from the list below.

Compensation, benefits, bonus, have benefited, discount, salary

a) There are extra … for people on low wages.

b) He gets a basic … plus commission.

c) All employees received a $100 Christmas … .

d) They were selling everything at a … .

e) … has cost the company a lot of money.

f) These small businesses … … greatly from the fall in interest rates.

5. Which person (a-e) is most likely to do each of the five things

(1-5)?

a) a software designer in an Internet company (has to be in the office)

b) an office worker in a large, traditional manufacturing company

c) a manager in a department store in a large city (lives in the country)

d) a construction worker on a building site where work goes on 24 hours a day

e) a technical writer for a city computer company (lives in the country)

1) work in shifts

2) work under a flexitime system

3) telecommute

4) commute to work

5) clock on and off at the same time every day