STUDY LINKS USE OF COMPUTERS TO HIGHER PAY FOR MANAGERS, WORKERS.Byline: Leah Beth Ward The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times Computers, it turns out, provide a good reason for employees and their bosses to get along at work. A study by two professors at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School is the business school of University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was established in 1881 through a donation of Joseph Wharton, making it the world’s oldest business school. has found that pay goes up for each group when the other's use of computers increases. Adjusting for factors like the educational background of the work force, the professors found that the earnings of production workers increased 3 percent annually when their managers' use of computers doubled. Only half of the increase is attributable to greater skill on the part of the workers. The study suggests that the introduction of computers into a company frees its employees to take on more complicated duties. That change, in turn, often increases their salaries. Managers benefited even more. Their earnings climbed by 3.5 percent when the production workers doubled their use of computers. Other researchers have concluded that technology drives a growing wage gap between low- and high-skilled workers. But the Wharton study says computers will not necessarily hurt the pay of the lower-skilled workers or automate To turn a set of manual steps into an operation that goes by itself. See automation. them out of employment. ``It suggests you shouldn't be afraid of computers,'' said Peter Cappelli, a management professor at Wharton who was co-author co·au·thor or co-au·thor n. A collaborating or joint author. tr.v. co·au·thored, co·au·thor·ing, co·au·thors To be a collaborating or joint author of: "He and a colleague . . . of the study with Kermit Daniel, an assistant professor of public policy. The study, which looked at United States Census The United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution.[1] The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats ("congressional apportionment"), electoral votes, and government program data from 1994, focused on 3,000 businesses. Cappelli said the positive relationship between employees' salaries and the addition of technology held across groups of industries. Bill Cahill, managing director of compensation for the Federal Express Corp. in Memphis, Tenn., said the results rang true at his company. Employees who used to work on typewriters are now working on computers, he said. That has allowed employees to work faster and more accurately, but also more analytically an·a·lyt·ic or an·a·lyt·i·cal adj. 1. Of or relating to analysis or analytics. 2. Dividing into elemental parts or basic principles. 3. , which has raised their skill levels, he said. Phyllis Eisen, who directs human resources The fancy word for "people." The human resources department within an organization, years ago known as the "personnel department," manages the administrative aspects of the employees. for the 1,000-member National Association of Manufacturers, said she was not surprised that the pay of supervisors increased as their subordinates' use of computers grew. She attributes the trend to performance-based pay programs. |
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