Just Work

Narratives of Employment in the 21st Century

G. Michelson, S. Ryan

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137350152
• eBook ISBN: 9781137350169
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Exploring major questions such as what people want from their work and why, Just Work discusses both new and enduring themes, examining to what extent this is accounted for by a changing environment of work since the 1970s.

1

What Has Happened to Work?

With the importance of appreciating how workers talk about and view their jobs including their employment milieu, and any changes to these over time, this chapter will briefly explore the major developments in the world of work as highlighted by previous scholars. In so doing, this will allow us to better locate and understand the lived experiences and narrative identities (see Foster 2012) of those who stories are included in this book.

With a bold assertion that the end (of the world) of work is nigh, or at least work in developed market economies, Rifkin (1995) suggested that changing technologies would fundamentally change work and lead to widespread displacement of employees, and to ensuing unemployment. Written with almost apocalyptic implications, this book caused a stir among commentators on work. While it did not escape critique (see Smith 2006; Strangleman 2007), it was perhaps symptomatic of what many others were also later to observe – that work, and the regulation of work – was undergoing significant transformation across a number of developed countries (for example, Ackers and Wilkinson 2003; Beck 2000; Callus and Lansbury 2002; Felstead and Jewson 1999; Hearn and Michelson 2006; Johnson 1999; Lansbury and Michelson 2005; Osterman et al. 2001).

In addition to the role of technology, including contemporary manifestations through networked and information and communication technologies (Castells 1996; McLoughlin and Clark 1994), other, and often inter-related, factors were identified as contributing to the changes being witnessed. These included, for instance, deteriorating economic fortunes for traditional manufacturing industries; a rise of new jobs in the service sector; the decline in memberships of collective bodies such as trade unions; a growing ideological importance on managing ‘the individual’ in employment relations with accompanying managerial discourse such as flexibility and choice; and an increasing propensity among firms to shift risk by outsourcing work, both nationally and internationally (Healy et al. 2004; Kelliher and Richardson 2011; Korczynski and Macdonald 2009; Peetz 2006). Moreover, societal-wide tendencies and changes in the labour process toward ‘McDonaldisation’, with discernible patterns and practices of standardisation, control, calculation and efficiency, were also increasingly permeating work and the organisation of work (Ritzer 1996).

Such changes have not gone unchallenged and a number of scholars have attempted to argue that it may be possible to advance such rationalities while ensuring that a strong social and human emphasis occurs at the same time (Budd 2004; Lansbury 2004). Such arguments recognise that social and industrial change has come at some human cost, including how it may have altered employee identities and how employees engage with their jobs. While it is acknowledged that nostalgia can be politically appropriated by management to serve its ends (Strangleman 1999), nostalgic talk – or recounting the past – by employees can nonetheless provide valuable insights into the impact and meaning of change and should not be so readily discounted (Strangleman 2012).

Developments at work

In an article published in Forbes magazine entitled ‘Why Studs Terkel’s Working World No Longer Exists’, the author contends that, in the USA, demographic, economic, attitudinal and technological changes have all contributed to a fundamental shift in how modern societies live, work and do business (Brotman 2012). While Brotman points to a number of positive aspects including the stability of job satisfaction over growth and recessionary economic periods, it is also the case that the number of employees required to perform particular jobs has typically declined in the face of technological, structural, managerial and other changes. At the same time, how and where work is being performed (the place of work) has been transformed by new technologies, and this has provided the ability to undertake certain work almost anywhere (Felstead et al. 2005). The rise of global production chains and service networks exemplifies how connectivity on an international scale is now possible.

Connectivity has further created the possibility of perpetual contact at work and, while technology can enable a range of positive outcomes, it might also intrude or over-extend into non-work time. The now ubiquitous mobile phone with numerous ‘smart’ features including the Internet and data-transfer options runs the risk of keeping employees constantly connected to work. While in general terms the mobile phone poses little issue for non-work and home life (see Bittman et al. 2009), it is nonetheless important to remain mindful that the technological and social organisation of work can influence whether any alienating features of technology will result (Blauner 1964). This also means that the consequences of technological change on skills and the organisation of work may be quite diverse, complex and difficult to predict (Attewell 1990; Wood 1982).

Australia, like many other developed market economies such as the United Kingdom, the USA, Canada and New Zealand, has experienced waves of migrant labour, with significant implications for public and employment policy (Markus et al. 2009). Data from the 2011 Census revealed that 26 per cent of Australian residents were born overseas, a figure higher than many other Western countries (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2014). In Australia, migrant labour has attracted the attention of politicians, the business community and trade unions in recent years. Irrespective of the arguments for or against migrant labour, this further illustrates how the theme of connectivity increases diversity in the working population.

People are now literally travelling great distances in the global labour market. It might be tempting to suggest that people from different countries have different work goals and expectations, adding further complexity to workforce management. Research has shown that ‘interesting work’ and ‘good pay’ are dominant goals, and this is consistent internationally irrespective of age, gender and organisational level (Harpiz 1990). Migrants can still face additional challenges of re-locating in a different country, including social, cultural and linguistic adaptation (Ho and Alcorso 2004). However, labour mobility in general and mobility by migrants in particular also enact social and other changes in the countries to which they move for employment (Groutsis 2006).

Another notable feature since the early 1970s, or the period captured by Terkel in Working, has been the rise of the service sector and the number of employees undertaking service work in developed market economies. These changes have afforded for women additional opportunities for participating in the labour market, in particular in health care, education and retail (Workplace Gender Equality Agency 2013). Since 1979, the participation of men in the labour market has slowly decreased while the participation of women in the labour market has steadily increased (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006).

Service work is typically characterised by simultaneous production and consumption and the inseparability of production and consumption, intangibility, perishability (the work cannot be stored) and variability (Cutcher and van den Broek 2006; Korczynski and Macdonald 2009, p. 3). Given such characteristics, it is therefore not surprising that forms of organisational regulation and management control have shifted and that the customer plays an important role in service work. Indeed, such terms as ‘the sovereign consumer’ have emerged around which revolve a discourse of employee enterprise (Du Gay and Salaman 1992). Other commentators have also identified how the customer impacts studies of industrial relations (Heery 1993), as well as how instruments such as consumer reports and feedback can essentially manage and discipline service workers (Fuller and Smith 1991).

While service work is broad and can assume different variations, it nonetheless remains the case that the customer is involved in the labour process in some discernible way. This has led to the cultivation and management of employee emotion and the associated notion of emotional labour during service delivery (Hochschild 1983; Lopez 2006). The idea of emotion at work and emotional work has attracted considerable attention (for example, Ashforth and Humphrey 1995; Fineman 2003) and this, as well as the wider discourse of enterprise, is arguably over-deterministic and tends to assume away employee reactions such as acts of resistance or misbehaviour (see Ackroyd and Thompson 1999; Lundberg and Karlsson 2011; Mulhall 2013).

Employees are not unthinking or unfeeling people; they can act either overtly by leaving the situation or expressing their concerns in order to improve it (Hirschman 1970), or covertly through humour, cynicism and emotional detachment in response to their work and work situation. Poor treatment from managers, customers and co-workers can trigger these and a range of other employee attitudes and behaviours. With a strong foundation in equity theory, the notion of justice at work – sometimes referred to as organisational justice – has remained an enduring theme in the literature. This posits that perceptions of equity (or inequity) emerge from comparisons between one’s self and others based on various inputs (for example, experience, knowledge, training, effort) and outcomes (for example, pay and benefits, promotion, recognition). Perceptions of justice may lead to a number of benefits including higher job satisfaction and commitment to the firm (Cohen-Charish and Spector 2001; Meyer and Allen 1997).

There are many different types of justice, including distributive justice and procedural justice. The former relates to fairness associated with various outcomes associated with the distribution of valued resources (pay, recognition), while the latter concerns the processes associated with decision-making and allocation of resources (see Greenberg 1996; Greenberg and Colquitt 2005). The notion of justice or fairness introduces an inherently moral component to studies of work and people’s experience of their work, and questions of good or poor treatment at work are necessarily ethical questions too (see Lindblom 2011; Muirhead 2004).

The discussion of justice at work raises a timely reminder that social comparison with others is a powerful influence on the shaping of individual identity. Work is not merely about the production of goods and services; it also helps to produce people. Work helps people to find identity and to be identified by the work they do (Gini 1998). This is a powerful claim – one that is reinforced by how much a part of life is work for men and women from approximately 20 through to 65 years of age. The concept of work identity and how this is constructed has attracted considerable interest and controversy in recent years; discussion has covered numerous elements including individual, professional, group and organisational identity, among others (Grant and Shields 2006). There are some like Beck (2000) and Sennett (2000) who advocate an ‘end of work’ thesis – comprising the end of traditional working practices, the end of life-long careers, endemic insecurity, and shifting skills needs – but this does not necessarily change personal identity and meaning established in and through work (Doherty 2009). Work, quite literally, remains the ‘presentation of self in everyday life’ (Goffman 1969).

Satisfaction with life seems to be related to satisfaction with our work and the quality of our lives seems dependent on the quality of the work that people do (Gini and Sullivan 1987). It is therefore of little surprise that job quality has attracted increasing attention by commentators (see Findlay et al. 2013; Spencer 2013; Warhurst et al. 2012). Such focus is also undoubtedly influenced by changes in employment forms and traditional notions surrounding careers, including how to define career success (see Heslin 2005). The understanding of career and financial wellbeing in a context of more non-standardised forms of employment such as fixed-term, temporary, casual and labour hire employment, for instance (Buchler et al. 2009; Burgess et al. 2004; Cappelli and Keller 2013; Peck and Theodore 2002; Watson et al. 2003), raises many important questions about how traditional understandings of work and career management occur over one’s life.

Typically, such non-standard forms of employment have been referred to as ‘precarious’ work (see Kalleberg 2009). Perhaps because of, or at least accompanying, the growth in such work, the understanding of career has also changed. The economic uncertainty facing organisations through mergers and acquisitions, downsizings and outsourcing of labour has seemingly jeopardised the longevity of firms. The rise of the protean career (Hall 2004) has elevated the need for employees to be versatile and adaptable and not necessarily to presume employment with a single employer or in the same occupation over the duration of their working lives. There has been a related discourse around the ‘boundaryless career’ as employees seek to self-manage, if not circumvent, such structural changes (Peiperl et al. 2000).

Many writers have also identified patterns of longer working hours and overwork across various sectors and occupations (Hewitt and Luce, 2006; Moen et al. 2013; Schor 1992; Sturges 2013; Watson et al. 2003), although there is recognition that this is not always externally imposed. Employees can exercise some agency over their long hours (Van Wanrooy and Wilson 2006) and perhaps this reflects the ownership by some individuals of their career management and the satisfaction they derive from their jobs. The source of long work hours and other aspects that might be regarded as work intensification and even work addiction (see Burke 2009) has been subject to considerable debate.

For some people, their work might be regarded as a calling, and the line between work being something imposed by others and work being self-imposed can blur in practice. Moreover, what is considered to be ‘work’ in this context is not always uniform and can assume different meanings (Bunderson and Thompson 2009; Hall and Chandler 2005). This suggests that the wider consequences of any changes need not always be seen in terms of the vision of Cederstrom and Fleming (2012) as negative or utterly gloomy; rather there are different subjective interpretations of how any changes are regarded by employees themselves.

What this implies is that meaningful work may be constructed in spite of conditions that may militate against it (DesJardins 2012; Isaksen 2000). The six general characteristics associated with meaningful work are: work that is freely entered into; work where autonomy and independence might be exercised; work where rational capacity can be developed; work that provides a sufficient wage for physical wellbeing; work that enhances moral development; and work that is not paternalistic in the sense of interfering with the worker’s conception of how they wish to obtain happiness (Bowie 1998, p. 1083). A number of the above characteristics could be challenged, including whether or not it is management that is responsible for meaningful work (Michaelson, 2011). However, the general point remains about how meaning from their jobs can be derived by some workers. Yet we do not over-exaggerate our case and similarly acknowledge that for many people work holds no real connection or meaning.

A number of frameworks about work and employment have been developed by commentators. One such example has been recently constructed by Budd (2011). He identifies 10 concepts of work, including:

a) a curse – a burden necessary for survival;

b) freedom – the opportunity for individuals to create, and to be independent;

c) a commodity – a tradeable product that has economic value;

d) occupational citizenship – enabling members to be part of a community and with certain rights;

e) disutility – something that is strenuous and painful, conflicting with more pleasurable leisure;

f) personal fulfilment – satisfying various emotional, attitudinal and spiritual needs;

g) a social relation – providing human interaction with others such as managers, co-workers, customers;

h) caring – attending to and maintaining other people;

i) identity – work gives social and psychological sense to the participant;

j) service – devoting effort to others such as the community, nation or in a spiritual sense.

Importantly, these different conceptualisations actively structure the understandings of, and experiences with, work. In other words, they help shape how different people will experience work in practice (Budd 2011). Extending this, they also provide implications for how work might be theorised, organised, managed and motivated, and regulated. It is therefore highly plausible that workers experience dread, resignation, apathy, distraction, value, fulfilment, joy and so on. Rather than taking work for granted, Budd (2011) reminds us that work is simultaneously highly dynamic and complex. How the various conceptualisations complement and interweave with each other, or are held in tension at times, remains an important consideration.

Summary

We have canvassed some of the main themes and debates about work and employment identified in the academic literature over recent decades. This has been designed to be illustrative rather than exhaustive; and an overview rather than an in-depth treatment of each of the themes since other sources provide far more analysis than what we have space to provide. The themes have included technological change, global connectivity and movements of labour, the ascendancy of service work, emotion at work, justice and fairness, identity, job quality and meaningful work, shifts towards more non-standard forms of employment, and contemporary understandings of career. In general, it appears there is more fragmentation and uncertainty in how work occurs and is experienced than in earlier decades (Watson et al. 2003). How these issues are identified and understood by working people, and to what extent, remains to be seen. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Forewords
• Acknowledgements
• About the Authors
• Introduction – Reflections on Work
• 1 What Has Happened to Work?
• 2 Growing, Making and Delivering Stuff
• 3 Selling and Serving
• 4 Helping People
• 5 Protecting People
• 6 Informing and Entertaining
• 7 Work – In Progress
• Appendix 1: Participant Characteristics
• Appendix 2: Author Narratives
• References