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| project description | TECHNOLOGY AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF EMPLOYMENT IN BANKING IEE has completed a qualitative research project that examined how firm restructuring has affected the nature of work and career mobility in the retail banking industry. The research consisted of an in-depth case study of a major North American retail bank, coupled with background data on trends in the banking industry. We asked several questions: How has the bank reorganized retail banking over the past two decades, and why? What role has technology played? And what have been the effects on skill requirements and job quality within the branch system, especially for tellers? Our findings are that reengineering at this bank has had important effects on the staffing, task content, and quality of jobs at the branch level. In simple terms, a market segmentation approach by the bank has led to a corresponding segmentation of work into high quality and low quality jobs. This research was presented at the annual meetings of the Industrial Relations Research Association, January 2, 1998 in Chicago. Dr. Annette Bernhardt, former Senior Research Associate at the Institute, helped to organize a session with a focus on firm restructuring in the service sector, one of the first ever sessions on this emerging field of inquiry. The session was titled The Impact of Restructuring on the Labor Market: Evidence from Firm-Level Studies in the Service Sector. "It's Not Just the ATMs: Technology, Firm Strategies, Jobs, and Earnings in Retail Banking" was recently published in a special issue of Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 54 (2A): 402-424.
Available from IEE::
Institute on Education and the
Economy
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