Management and union make an initial agreement to try out modular work allocation, perhaps for a period of one year, with continuation to depend upon both having judged the experiment to have been successful. Agreement is next reached regarding all jobs to be included in the modular allocation process, and those to be excluded from the process; for example, all supervisory positions, and nonsupervisory positions requiring rare skills, may be excluded. As a third step, the qualifying requirements of training and experience are stipulated for each job to be included in the experiment; these decisions define the workers eligible to "bid" for each task. At about the same time, agreement must be reached on the process of matching individual preferences to organizational needs; this procedure may be centralized or decentralized, done by staff or by representatives, done by management or by management-union committees. Management must now stipulate the organizational requirements; that is, the conventional jobs must be restated in modular terms. (This process, if no other changes are introduced at the same time, is merely arithmetic; requirements for given tasks or skills are stated in terms of the number of hours or modules (two-hour units) required each day.)) At this point a job market of modular units has been created. Workers are asked to state their preferences; these statements are matched to the organizational requirements, in accordance with procedures already agreed upon; work proceeds on the new basis of task allocation. At the end of the first term or trial period, perhaps six months, the procedure is repeated with whatever improvements are suggested by the initial experience. One can imagine many variations on this basic theme. - Coverage may be - or to certain unskilled and semi-skilled jobs, for example very limited very broad. The rights of a worker to his original job may be treated as absolute, so that any individual preference for the status quo ante is granted before the modular allocation process begins, or all job activities may be included in the market of modules. The allocation of tasks and hours may be considered fixed for substantial periods or subject to change at any time on the basis of individual preferences and available modules. A series of experiments will be needed to discover which of such variations are appropriate under particular circumstances. The work-module experiment is proposed as a means of improving goodnessof-fit between the individual and the job. To the extent that it does so, its first effects should be increased satisfaction with work. Secondary individual - - effects should include increases in reported self-utilization (use of valued skills and abilities) and self-development (acquisition of new skills and abilities). Ramifying effects on other life roles spouse, parent, friend, citizen are less predictable, but should be explored; it is at least plausible that major improvements in the work role will have positive effects in other sectors of life. Effects on physical health should also be positive, since an improvement in goodness-of-fit means a reduction in job stress and the accompanying physical and psychological strains. We expect positive effects at the organizational level as well as the individual level, however. Absence and turnover can be regarded in part as behavioral responses to unsatisfactory work situations; to the extent that the modular allocation of work better meets the needs of the individual, he has less reason to leave the job temporarily or permanently. The organization also gains in innovative capacity, because information and experience are more widely held; such gains might be visible in terms of suggestions for technical improvement. The broader acquisition of experience might also increase the organizational reserves for replacement and promotion, and in this way reduce its costs of recruitment and training. Most difficult to measure, perhaps, are the effects of the work-module experiment on the larger community. Such effects might be negligible in the case of a single plant; were the modular allocation of work to be given a more widespread trial in a community, the effects could be substantial. For example, the labor force would be enlarged by the addition of people who do not need or cannot accept "full-time" jobs. Young people enrolled in school or college, women with particular responsibilities for child care, and older people who cannot or need not work full time might be attracted to work some number and pattern of modules. We would expect also to see some increase in employment stability, because individuals need not quit their jobs in order to get some change in work pattern, and organizations need not terminate workers in order to get some adjustment to market fluctuations. The predicted organizational gains from the modular allocation of work, even if they should be realized, would not be cost-free. Certainly there will be the time required to plan and execute the change-over from conventional to modular assignments. Some of that time can be regarded as a one-time cost, but some of it will be a continuing charge of modular allocation and reallocation of tasks. It is likely that some conflicts will arise over matters of equity and the inability of the organization to meet individual preferences; how difficult and how costly the resolution of such differences will be remains to be seen. Bookkeeping and payroll computation will surely become more complex, and even computers respond to increased complexity with increased costs. The involvement of workers in several tasks may conceivably result in some loss of expertise and some corresponding increase in error, especially during the initial phase of a new allocation of tasks. Finally, if the modular allocation of work involves an increase in the number of workers employed in an organization, it may involve some increases in those fringe costs of employment that are associated with individuals rather than hours of work. To what extent these costs and others unforeseen will reduce materially or obliterate the organizational gains from the work module remains to be seen. Only trial and evaluation will resolve such questions. it. Conclusions Whether the work module is a useful idea can be determined by trying If it is successful, so much the better; if it is unsuccessful, other proposals are needed. The major issue is not the work module itself, but the dilemma of industrial society to which it is an attempted response humanization of work. That dilemma, I believe, can be resolved by the process of innovation, trial, and evaluation and by no other means. - the We have had too much of assumption and stereotype. Managements have accepted too long, for example, the assumption that every increment of fractionation in a job represented a potential increment of production. Unions have assumed too long that they could prevent workers from being exposed to unreasonable hazards or physical strains, but not from being bored to death. 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