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You are here: Home > Current Topics > Mind your Business > 24 October 2005 |
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Image: Many businesses rely on information exchange and networking - this leads to changes in the way that we work. Informal meetings over breakfast, coffee or lunch are more common than they were even 15 years ago. Copyright: Lotus Head What is a career? For many people the idea of starting a job when they leave school or university and working your way through a company or within a certain profession may be what we think of a career. For many people the world of work will not be like that. Working practices are changing. Things that used to be seen as being important in the work place and the relationships between staff at different levels are changing as the economy changes. In part this is due to the change in the structure of employment - the reduction in the proportion of workers in primary and secondary sectors and the increasing importance of the tertiary sector. Particularly important is the growth in information driven businesses. Young people entering the world of work today will be unlikely to have a job for life. They will have a number of jobs in different industries, have to be more flexible and be prepared to move to maintain employment. They will also face changes in the way they work - many people will have to put up with fixed term contracts, working from home will be more common and even the way we dress for work is changing. |
The main areas to investigate with regard to the changing world of work are:
Image: Employment in primary sector industries is falling - partly because of a shrinkage in the sector and partly because of the increased mechanisation available to farmers. Copyright: Christoph Burgdorfer
The changes in employment patterns relate to the number of people working in part time work as opposed to full time employment, the numbers working in different employment sectors and how employment will change over the working life of the individual.
To get some idea of the changing patterns in these areas we need to refer to some statistics:
Data source: Office for National Statistics (Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.)
From these statistics we can identify certain trends:
By identifying these trends we may then get the information that helps to provide some of the answers to other questions we might be interested in. You will be doing some analysis of this data later in the resource. As for the changes to employment over the working life of the individual, it seems that for many people there is now a far more flexible and dynamic aspect to work. What this means is that the existence of short-term contracts that increase flexibility for employers means greater instability and longer-term uncertainty for employees.
Employers will use short term contracts to employ people to carry out specific tasks where these tasks are not needed permanently. It may be therefore that an engineer is employed to oversee the health and safety aspects of a new design project in a chemical works for a three-year contract whilst the plant is being constructed and will then move on to other employment.
For the employee there is uncertainty over the future but at the same time there is also the opportunity of doing a wide range of different tasks, building up more skills and generally improving the quality of the CV. This also helps to make them much more attractive to potential employers.
Image: Changes to supermarket opening hours have been brought about by changing lifestyles. This also means changes to the way people work and creates opportunities for different employment patterns. Copyright: Fernando Tangi
Changes in the way that businesses work necessitates changes to the way people work. To take a simple example, many supermarkets are now open far longer hours and more days in the week than was the case 20 years ago. It is not uncommon for larger supermarkets to be open 24 hours a day. The same thing has happened in pubs and the global nature of business might mean that business needs to be conducted over different time zones. What employers do not need therefore is a rigid 9 - 5 mentality with one hour for lunch and two 20-minute breaks during the day!
These changes have to be seen within the existing legislation. There are things like the Working Time Directive that lay down the average number of hours worked over a period of time per week and so employers have to be mindful of these restrictions.
The effect of this is that there is a far greater degree of flexibility in the way in which employers can offer employment. It might be that covering the early hours of a supermarket's opening (say from 4.00am - 9.00am) is quite difficult but that staffing the day time period is much easier. Different employees with different needs therefore may be able to fit in with the needs of the supermarket far more easily and this might boost part-time employment especially for women and students who might have certain requirements such as family or study commitments.
A parent might be able to work from 10.00am to 3.00pm therefore whilst the late afternoon and evening could be more appropriate for students or parents with partners who can take the child care responsibility in the evening.
Other aspects of flexible working include working from home, teleworking and hot desking. As the nature of business changes to incorporate more information based work (note the evidence from the statistics in the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) report, Home-based working using communication technologies [PDF, 161 KB] (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/labour_market_trends/teleworking_Oct05.pdf)) the extent to which employees need to be housed in an office is also changing. The changes here are dependent on the ease with which information can be exchanged and the developments in broadband provision and access now mean that many people are able to work at home.
Image: The changing nature of work means that working at home is more of an option for many people - provided they have acess to a computer and a telephone. Copyright: Fleur Suijten
For businesses, having employees working from home means they are in a position to utilise space differently and this might mean that they are able to reduce their overheads quite considerably. Employees might be more motivated by the flexibility that working from home offers them - work does not have to be done at a certain time of the day - provided it gets done and the empowerment that employees can gain from the experience can boost motivation and productivity.
For employers it might also mean that they are able to recruit from a much wider field without the problems of re-location packages because people are able to work at a distance and travel to meetings or be at the 'office' one or two days a week when needed far more easily.
Hot desking is a consequence of this type of working practice. Hot desking refers to a situation where a physical space is available for anyone within an organisation to work on a flexible basis. It might be that a desk and PC is available to be used by anyone, or could be in the form of connection points at specified places where a worker can go and plug in their laptop or other mobile device.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that 2.4 million people worked primarily from their home in the spring of 2005. 3.1 million people either work in their home or somewhere remote from their main headquarters. 2.1 million of these workers relied on a PC and telephone to be able to carry out their work.
The ONS defined teleworking as 'working in a location that is separate from a central workplace using telecommunication technologies to enable this' (Source: Labour Market Trends, October 2005 [PDF, 161 KB](http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/labour_market_trends/teleworking_Oct05.pdf)).
The number of teleworkers represents 8% of the workforce, up from 4% in 1997 but the majority of these (62%) are self-employed. This would suggest that despite the possibilities that might exist for even more flexible working there is still a long way to go.
In the United States, some businesses are taking the opportunities offered by flexible working to their advantage. Sun Microsystems, based in San Francisco, California, have developed a policy to encourage workers to be more flexible. They estimate that the cost savings in overheads amounts to $71 million and that is money they can better use on recruiting high quality staff who will drive their business growth.
Many of the changes in working practices have been sparked by the recognition that motivating human beings at work is a complex process requiring more sophisticated techniques than merely controlling workers. Some of these changes have some origin in the work of recognised thinkers such as Abraham Maslow and Frederick Herzberg. Essentially these people highlighted the complex psychological and emotional effects of people in the workplace.
Changes in working practices have included such things as empowerment, cell production and seemingly simple ideas like 'dressing down days' and 'duvet days'. The essence of these ideas is to recognise that the workplace environment can be stressful and at times artificial and the more 'homely' it can be made the more likely workers are to respond in a positive fashion and thus increase productivity.
Empowerment for example, refers to the transfer of decision-making powers to employees rather than being handed down from managers. Such a philosophy is designed to tap into the expertise of the workers at all levels where they might have ideas and views about the business that would be valuable and which come directly from their day-to-day work practices.
Cell production is a development of this philosophy. Workers in manufacturing can be organised into small groups or teams and each team has the responsibility for all the stages of the production process. They therefore have to make decisions, solve problems, maintain budgets and generate targets.
Image: Has the move to 'dress down Friday' gone too far? Does the way we dress for work change the relationships we have with our colleaues? Copyright: Keith Syvinski
Dressing down days and duvet days may sound like quirky ideas but can generate a 'feel good' factor amongst the workforce breaking down the formality of work and improving relationships between staff at all levels.
Dressing down days originated in the United States and tended to be held on Fridays where the wearing of formal suits for work for both men and women was relaxed and people could come into work in more casual attire. For some in the workplace this is a contentious issue. If you had a meeting with a client what impression would you be giving if you turned up in jeans and a t-shirt to that meeting? Does it really matter what people wear? Do the clothes you wear reflect the way you think about yourself and the image of care, attention and presentation that may be seen as important qualities in the workplace?
Duvet days refer to a situation where a worker can choose to take the day off rather than come into work. These have been criticised as being one step too far in giving workers more power in choosing their work-life balance. However, it may be a part of recognising something that will happen anyway.
Professor Cary Cooper, an expert in organisational psychology at Lancaster University, identified something he referred to as 'acute post bank-holiday depression syndrome' as an important factor in how businesses operate. This essentially refers to occasions where people may not be ready to go back to work, especially after such times as bank holidays.
The argument goes that workers who are not fully engaged with the workplace will be unproductive and to all intents and purposes useless! Giving people the flexibility to be able to plan their own work-life balance therefore leads to less stressed workers who feel in control of their own lives and are significantly more efficient and productive when they are at work.
With these additional rights of course come responsibilities so it does not mean that workers simply take days off and stay in bed for the day whenever they want - they have to recognise that they have a job description and a contract of employment and must therefore meet the obligations of that contract - in other words get the job done! But it does represent a move to 'trust' individuals in the workforce as opposed to the control that might have been more typical of the workforce 30 years ago. Does this therefore represent a move from McGregor's Theory X approach to a Theory Y?
