Division of labor and coordination, intra‐organizational career and salary fairness

Abstract

PurposeThe aim of the current article is to clarify satisfaction of the staff of Estonian university libraries with the division of labor, work organization and coordination, existence of intra‐organizational career opportunities as well as with the fairness of salaries in view of the qualifications and responsibilities of university librarians in Estonia.Design/methodology/approachThe data used in this paper are based on reviewing and summarizing of relevant literature to provide an overview of the concepts of performance and efficiency in general and in the context of the library as well as on results of the original study, created by the paper's authors, held in 2011/2012 in Estonian university libraries to determine the attitude of the libraries' staff towards division of labor and performance appraisal.FindingsAlthough a number of Estonian university librarians were mostly satisfied with the division of labor within their departments, the respondents feel that duties in the library as a whole should be reorganized and workloads should be divided more equally. Librarians are relatively pessimistic about career opportunities within their libraries. The fact is that in Estonia, the predominantly women's jobs, such as teachers, librarians and nurses, are low‐paid. Therefore, as expected, the employees of university libraries are not satisfied with their salaries. However, librarians are capable and willing to work more and/or more intensively than they are currently allowed if that would bring about an increase in their salaries.Originality/valueThe majority of the literature in library science has focused – and rightfully so – on the user: what do users and patrons want and/or need, how do they use it, how can librarians best provide it to them, do the users feel themselves comfortable in library building etc., etc. Also, a fairly large number of studies have focused on finding relations between librarians' job satisfaction and performance output, but, to the best of the authors' knowledge, no research has been previously carried out in the Estonian library context to determine employees' attitudes towards their division of labor and coordination as well as librarians' intra‐organizational career opportunities and fairness of the salary.

Impact of organizational justice on job performance in libraries

“…In libraries the issue of low wages is as old as library profession itself. Kont and Jantson (2013) also stated in their study that Estonian university libraries are facing the problem of lower distributional rewards (money) toward their knowledge, skills and responsibility. Library staff members showed great concern in the study that if they are paid more justifiably their inclination toward working will be high.…”

Pengaruh Pembagian Kerja Terhadap Kepuasan Kerja: Studi Kasus pada Pegawai di Perum DAMRI Bandung

“…Apabila permasalahan di atas dibiarkan dan tidak mendapatkan perhatian maka tentu saja bisa menjadi penghambat tercapainya tujuan organisasi. Menurut Milvi Tepp, Profesor Organisasi dan Manajemen di Universitas Teknologi Tallinn mengatakan bahwa teknologi yang lebih baik hanya dapat meningkatkan produktivitas organisasi hingga 1/3 tingkat, tetapi lebih dari itu, bahkan 2/3 kinerja yang lebih baik berasal dari pembagian kerja yang baik (Tepp dalam (Kont & Jantson, 2013)).…”

“…Pada dimensi beban kerja, deksripsi pekerjaan juga belum terdeksripsi dengan jelas, padahal supervisor dan kepala divisi menggunakan deskripsi pekerjaan sebagai dasar untuk menetapkan pekerjaan dan memperjelas ekspektasi kinerja. Deskripsi pekerjaan juga merupakan alat utama dalam penilaian kinerja, di mana supervisor mengevaluasi kinerja pekerjaan pemegang jabatan Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Human Resource Management dalam (Kont & Jantson, 2013)). Selain itu, pegawai juga sering mengerjakan tugas yang tidak ada pada deksripsi pekerjaan mereka, padahal menurut Manullang dalam (Arfiany, 2019) pembagian tugas merupakan penunjukkan tugas atau kewajiban kepada orang lain untuk meringankan beban pekerjaan seseorang.…”

Reflections and Contemplations of Women professionals Contributions

“…(Ladner, 2004) 12 studied the "Career Patterns" of women library professionals from the perspective of technologies, especially the Internet; with "moderate satisfaction with supervision and responsibility; and high dissatisfaction towards policy and administration of libraries (Badawo, 2008)." 13 Later, (Kont and Jantson,2013) 14 found out that in Estonia, "the predominantly women's jobs, such as teachers, librarians, and nurses, are low-paid" and reflect a positive aspect of professionals' capability and willingness to achieve performance output in context with the division of labor and coordination and intra-organisational career opportunities.…”