Representatives of France's unemployed have vowed to continue the national movement that has rattled the Socialist-led government in recent weeks, and urged students and workers to join them in new nationwide demonstrations, reports The Financial Times``Faced with the arrogance of the Patronat [the main employers' federation], the silence of Unedic [the country's unemployment insurance committee], and the absence of new government proposals, a movement absolutely must continue,'' the four leading unemployed associations said in a joint statement.
The government of French prime minister Lionel Jospin, has taken comfort in the fact that the movement, though garnering much publicity, has not so far spread to other groups. The extent to which students and workers participate in such events may thus be seen as a gauge of whether the protest, in support of higher benefits for France's 3.1 million unemployed, is finally running out of steam.
The pro-Communist CGT trade union, which has played aprominent role in many of the protests, has said that it would ``engage fully'' in the new demonstrations and urged other unions to participate.
In a new measure of public attitudes to the protest, a BVA survey indicated that 52 per cent of French people thought the unemployed did not receive too many benefits, with 41 per cent holding the opposite view.
Meanwhile, a Communist-proposed measure increasing aid for some older unemployed people was passed unanimously in the National Assembly. In another important test for the government, negotiations have begun between Emile Zuccarelli, civil service minister, and representatives of France's more than 5 million civil servants.
The government is aiming to secure a two-year agreement covering 1998 and 1999 by the end of this month. The shape of the settlement will have an important bearing on France's ability to meet its budget targets.
Mr Zuccarelli warned that if a deal was not reached, the government would take unilateral measures that would be``less favourable for the civil servants and for this country.'' Civil servants had legitimate expectations, he said, pledging not to make them ``a scapegoat of the crisis.'' New research questions the effectiveness of psychological tests.
A new survey on occupational psychology has come up with some mind-boggling facts, report The Financial Times. Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist needs to have his head examined, according to a saying attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, the film director who made an art form of verbal confusion. It was tempting to recall his observation while visiting the British Psychological Society's annual occupational psychology conference in Eastbourne last week.
The gathering had its usual share of contributors content to deliver barely comprehensible papers on some labyrinthine thesis, with predictable conclusions on the blindingly obvious.
One paper, for example, concluded that people found working on a moving assembly line boring. Another found that ``increasedproductivity and efficiency derived from a well-adjusted and high-performance workforce increases a company's competitiveness.''
Some were too reliant on surveys of students, and some fell back on the academic's favourite standby, saying more work was needed, so justifying another year of investigation.
Fortunately, other contributions were strong enough to maintain interest from employers, particularly in areas such as psychometric testing and some of the more fashionable human resource practices.
One of the most revealing studies, carried out by a team from Birkbeck College, London, led by David Guest, professor of occupational psychology, raised reservations about the way some employers are seeking to increase flexibility by employing more contract workers.
Prof Guest argues that, while this may have the effect of reducing fixed pay costs, it may do so to the detriment of the employer. This is because it can lead to higher costs for using free-lancers and restricted choice for good people in theface of competition from other employers. It can also create a confusing array of contractual arrangements.
``Managers spend so much of their time trying to sort out contracts that they can't get on with their proper management job,'' he says.
Another piece of research, undertaken by a team from Goldsmiths' College, London, questioned the effectiveness of some so-called ``360 degree'' appraisal systems that provide all-round evaluations from peers, subordinates and the boss. Clive Fletcher, the professor who supervised the research, says that the temptation for managers is to assume that, simply because they have a particular human resource tool, they have nothing to worry about.
Some of the appraisal questions examined by the team did not actually measure the behaviour they were designed to assess, he says. The study demonstrates the need for employers to ensure that their management tools actually do what they are supposed to do. This might sound like common sense but it is surprising, says ProfFletcher, how often companies introduce such measures without checking their worth.
Personality testing had been under scrutiny by a number of psychologists. One paper by Chris Lewis, a psychologist at he University of East London, noted that personality tests take little account of cultural differences between countries, which can lead to a skewing of results.
Questions, for example, looking for a need to achieve - popular among those tests attempting to identify sales drive - are not appreciated by Swedes who, he says, like to bury any desire to achieve beneath a socially conscious exterior. Neither are they likely to express a need for rules or supervision.
Germans, on the other hand, do not mind rules, but hate to be seen as pushy or overbearing. The Finns do not like dealing with details, unlike the Danes who display an almost obsessive attention to detail. ``As you leave the airport in Copenhagen,'' says Mr Lewis, ``there is a sign that says: `Have you remembered your luggage?' I thought thatwas a nice bit of validity. Mr Lewis has ironed out such cultural incompatibility in an existing test he has revised for PA Consulting, a management consultancy.
A branch of personality testing attracting increasing attention from employers is integrity testing. Unlike conventional personality tests that concentrate on positive attributes, integrity testing looks at levels of honesty by measuring negative attributes.
One such test featured at the conference, called Giotto, examines seven traits of integrity: prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice, faith, hope and charity.
Developed by John Rust, of Goldsmiths' College for the Psychological Corporation, the test works on the basis of ``negative screening'' sifting out traits in job candidates that an employer wants to avoid. Mr Rust argues that they are an effective tool for those employers who have a good idea of the sort of people they do not want, such as poor time-keepers or the work-shy.
A potential problem in the use of such tests is thedetermination of the acceptable level of integrity. Would any employer want a totally honest individual? Indeed, does such a person exist? A paragon of virtue may turn out to be naive and socially inadequate.
It may be that, as employers get closer to selecting the sort of people they think they want, they risk losing other attributes such as common sense and independent thinking that, hitherto, they had not considered important.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
