Employee personality holds key to successful work-sharing

ITHACA, N.Y. Work-sharing, a workplace management approach used primarily in the autoand apparel-manufacturing industries, may not be suitable for all types of employees, finds an ongoing Cornell University study. Work-sharing quite literally requires workers, such as those building cars on assembly lines or those filling orders for a large mail-order clothing firm, to share equipment and technology to complete their required tasks. "We have found that the flexibility work-sharing affords employees in completing their tasks makes for a more efficient and effective way to manage a workplace," said L. Joseph Thomas, professor of manufacturing at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. "But understanding what type of employee can produce the best results, how the work situation affects the motivation of the employees, and the best ways to divide up the work are key to a successful work-sharing environment." Thomas is running experiments in a simulated workplace to assess work-sharing's effectiveness. An expert in inventory control, productivity and new technology, Thomas has conducted numerous studies on manufacturing and has done consulting for such corporations as IBM, AT&T, Boeing, Bethlehem Steel and Hershey. In work-sharing, four employees may be using 10 machines to produce an inventory of shirts or skirts, for instance, and some machines are used by two or more employees at different times. Work-sharing differs from the other popular workplace management approach called "fixed assignments," where each employee has exclusive use of a particular set of machines and there is no sharing of technology.