Effects of the transition to a client-centred team organization in administrative surveying work

A new work organization was introduced in administrative surveying work in Sweden during 1998. The new work organization implied a transition to a client-centred team-based organization and required a change in competence from specialist to generalist knowledge as well as a transition to a new information technology, implying a greater integration within the company. The aim of this study was to follow the surveyors for two years from the start of the transition and investigate how perceived consequences of the transition, job, organizational factors, well-being and effectiveness measures changed between 1998 and 2000. The Teamwork Profile and QPS Nordic questionnaire were used. The 205 surveyors who participated in all three study phases constituted the study group. The result showed that surveyors who perceived that they were working as generalists rated the improvements in job and organizational factors significantly higher than those who perceived that they were not yet generalists. Improvements were noted in 2000 in quality of service to clients, time available to handle a case and effectiveness of teamwork in a transfer to a team-based work organization group, cohesion and continuous improvement practices--for example, learning by doing, mentoring and guided delegation--were important to improve the social effectiveness of group work.

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