Does America Offer Too Many Jobs? Author Says Corporations Should Have Fewer Jobs And More Flexibility

Know what’s wrong with corporate America these days? Despite massive layoffs scheduled or carried out at 3M, Prudential, AT&T and elsewhere, it remains bloated with too many jobs.

And blessed with too little creative thinking.

That’s not the message the average American wants to hear, but it’s the news that author and consultant William Bridges has spread since his book “JobShift” was published a year ago.

Bridges recently told a group of managers and educators that corporations need fewer jobs and more flexibility. He praised Intel, Microsoft and CNN for having the foresight to attract multitalented employees - and then giving them the freedom to develop their skills.

“They don’t do jobs. They do what needs to be done. They talk about assignments, not jobs,” said Bridges, who coined the phrase “the dejobbing of America.”

One litmus test of whether a company is “job-based,” and therefore outdated, he said, is whether employees pass off tasks by saying: “It’s not my job.”

Bridges spoke at the third installment of “Rethinking Work in America,” an initiative by Allina, Ceridian and Dayton Hudson, among others, that has examined the future of the work force since last spring.

He said an entrepreneurial mindset is key as a growing pool of consultants, temporary employees and contract workers compete to earn a living in a downsized business environment.

Salaried employees need to change their thinking, too. How to retrain a generation of workers raised on the mentality of company loyalty and a lifelong job is corporate America’s greatest challenge, Bridges said.

Terry Saario, president of the Northwest Area Foundation, warned of a two-tiered society: “the nimble, educated” upper class and the less-affluent, less-educated people left behind.

Many audience members said the newfangled economy is leaving too many traditional workers in its wake. “We don’t talk about this often,” a labor union representative said. “What will happen to those who took entry-level factory jobs?”

“If we’re going to dejob, then health coverage can’t be related to a job,” said Amy Lindgren, a career counselor who sees 2,000 unemployed blue-collar workers a year.

Neither can mortgages and credit cards be granted solely on the basis of a person’s employment history.

Kathy Tunheim, who founded her own public relations firm five years ago, said time will be needed to smooth out employment patterns.

Necessity, in the form of financial stress, will be the mother of invention in terms of how companies and employees approach work, she said.