Managing dispersion: A collective job

The changing forms of planning in organizations place workers in a very labile environment. Last-minute modifications, interruptions, multitasking, balancing one commitment with another... all this leads employees to constantly rearrange activities. This "dispersed work" requires skills and entails an additional workload, both physical (the fatigue owing to tine pressures) and mental (cognitive overload associated with recurrent interruptions) or even psychological (emotions, fear of failure). As this analysis of a communications firm and travel agency in France shows, the work group is a key resource for managing this dispersion and its effects. Given the mechanical solidarity between this group's members, it is possible, in an emergency, to move beyond the functional division of labor and "collectivize" the management of emotions. (C) 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. Tous droits reserves.