Dodo practitioners

Citation

(2000), "Dodo practitioners", Work Study, Vol. 49 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2000.07949faa.004

Dodo practitioners

Dodo practitioners

I read a paper (or a polemic!) recently, the intention of which was to persuade the government to "do something" about helping small businesses cope with recent legislation (minimum wage, working time regulation, fairness at work, etc.) without shedding staff. The paper suggested that these firms needed access to good old-fashioned work study. However, it suggested that the skills have been lost – the work study practitioner is no more; replaced by "the suits" – the high-paid, strategic consultants who don't know the basic techniques, and do not have the fundamental skills. Their approach is unsuited to the small business so we have a dilemma. Is this diagnosis correct? If so, is it too late to stop the extinction of the work study engineer?