Defining Work

The following Britannia Encyclopaedia entry is a modernized rendition of the concept of work:

"Work is essential in providing the basic physical needs of food, clothing, and shelter. But work involves more than the use of tools and techniques.

Advances in technology, which will always occur, help to extend the reach of the hand, expand muscle power, enlarge the senses, and multiply the capacities of the mind. The story of work is still unfolding, with great changes taking place throughout the world and in a more accelerated fashion than ever before.

The form and nature of the work process help determine the character of a civilization; in turn, a society’s economic, political, and cultural characteristics shape the form and nature of the work process as well as the role and status of the worker within the society.

The world of work—comprising all interactions between workers and employers, organizations, and the work environment—is marked by the constant adaptation to changes in the technological, cultural, political, and economic environments."[1]

As expressed, the paragraph above reflects a broad social belief that work is essential and a fundamental characteristic of civilization – aspects of work that have well known historical foundations.

However, the definition above, like so many in modern-day literature, also reflects the impact that advanced technology is having on work. While the specific technologies are not established (e.g. information technology), nevertheless those involved in studies of work all agree that the concept of work and the introduction of new ways to “extend the reach of the hand, expand muscle power, enlarge the senses, and multiple the capacities of the mind” have reduced the physicality of work and introduced new intellectual and knowledge-based aspects.

As important, within the previous paragraph (and within most definitions of work) a modern-day nuance is quietly expressed - that work is generally associated with interactions between workers and employers and organizations, something that most would recognize as a job.

So, to understand what work is, the idea of a job needs to be clearly understood.

Some will suggest that a job represents the principle activities of one’s life.

While I tend to agree inasmuch as it expands the idea of a job to include efforts beyond those compensated for by an employer, it is not the most common definition.

In today’s context, a job more often than not acts as a proxy for a place of employment and engenders the idea that it is an organizational position within an employer’s business environment (and not as broad as one’s life activities).

This modern-day perspective drives the narrowing of the idea that a job is a set of defined activities (tasks) expressed as a formal job description that can be accomplished through full-time or part-time efforts, is legal or acceptable in nature, associated with some level of revenue and exists in a business environment.

Unfortunately, the overbearing modern day definition establishes a belief that a business job is the only work we do and the only work that is important. While complete nonsense, nevertheless, permeates our modern thinking and defines us as humans within so-called developed economic settings.

In doing so incorrectly defines the concept of work as a business job and establishes who is and who is not acceptable in developed societies.

In the modern-day setting of most developed economies, having a job is a primary pre-requisite to being part of society and being allowed to achieve some level of self-determination.

Why?

The answer lies in the separation between work and money (revenue, salary, compensation); a separation created by the development of the modern-era job.

If one does not have a job that generates a monetary income, then it is virtually impossible to participate in the consumption economy of most developed societies.

As such when one works within the family raising children, volunteering on community initiatives and providing support to the less fortunate without monetary compensation (or very low compensation) are often viewed as “less than”.

Not having a job defines an individual. Not-being-employed (or not being employable), places you on the “state dole” and as a receiver of state charity- essentially a non-contributor to society.

While developed societies, including Canada’s diverse social democracy, have advanced to a point of understanding that the work done outside of a revenue-generating effort as valuable and necessary, there remains an industrial revolution “stigma” associated with this type of work.

To understand how we arrived at the point we now find ourselves, we need to take a brief historical journey to set the stage for how we ended up with such a narrow modern day definition of work.

In the world of antiquity, work was actually scorned and thought to be a curse.

The Greek word for work was “ponos “, which meant sorrow.

Work, during antiquity, was the effort of the lower class – predominately slave laborers that were “owned and rented out” by high-class landowners. The idea of a job did not exist.

However, the concept of work certainly did exist and was stratified into two basic groups.

Physical and manual work completed by the lower class and the work of philosophy, art, and politics by the majority of men within the higher class, as citizens, (not women, which is a bit absurd).

Leisure time was revered.

During the time of the Roman Empire, a similar approach to society applied.

Essentially there were two groups – citizens and slaves. Slaves were in the worker class. While they often accomplished the work of craftsmen and artisans, suggesting refined and valuable skills, the work they did was essentially physical and manual.

More importantly, the work they did was not considered to be part of the occupations.

The only two occupations for citizens were agriculture and business. As important, only men were involved in the occupations; perhaps an insight into the mess we now find ourselves in.

While human societies evolved, many of the antiquity-based ideas on work were carried forward – things like men being dominant in the occupations (which evolved into the professional disciplines we know today), physical and manual work as the domain of society’s lower classes and that social class was required as a means for stratifying work.

It was through the Reformation and continued drive of religious based organizations to establish labor and work, at all levels of the human spectrum, to be considered humankind’s ethos.

Formed by a “Protestant ethic” articulated by the German sociologist Max Weber, the domain of work became defined in the context of religion – work was God’s way. As a human, you needed to be diligent, punctual and void of seeking gratification. It was the moral way to contribute to society’s efforts and engagements.

Frankly, there is nothing wrong with the idea of shared responsibility for accomplishing the needed efforts of a society to ensure its sustainability and hopefully, its growth and evolution and “the Church” provided the foundation for achieving these concepts within modern day society.

Over time the religious impetus and “the Church’s” influence faded as societies and its individual players became more self-aware.

As societies evolved, particular the “new societies” in North America, belief systems became founded on secular ideals, reducing religious overtones and influences on the idea of work.

This shift should not be viewed as an elimination of the idea of faith and morality within modern society. It simply means that, for whatever reason, society shifted into a more secular perspective.

Personally, I think that the concept of faith must remain in society. It provides society an ideal and a place for holding a higher moral understanding that forms one of the most important structural pillars of what it means to be human.

Nevertheless, the move towards a more secular (and scientific) view of the world reinforced the primary idea that work was to be done by all and the concept of “work ethic” was born.

In doing so, a significant shift in the concept of work happened. Specifically, that seeking leisure as the ultimate goal for human endeavor was frowned upon. At least, the idea of “less physical” work was considered a characteristic of an elitist upper class.

This perspective initially impacted how society looked upon higher education (colleges, universities), the professions and cultural endeavors such as the fine arts – a perspective that, thankfully, changed over time.

As the modern-day culture formed more definable characteristics, the concept of work ethic evolved into something more. But the changes were not always achieved in the best way.

Essentially humankind was goaded, by an evolving elitist industrial class, into believing that hard work would lead to individuals having the opportunity to master their own destiny.

As the Industrial Revolution took shape – a follow-on of the Reformation, the upper echelon of society (elitist industrial class) – the ones with the money, connections, and land began to realize that they could leverage all of these hard working people who had a desire for self-determination into “organizations for profit”; and we gave the new construct a name – the corporation!

Part of the perceptive fallacy of being in control of one’s destiny was formed at a time when much of the initial industrial work was done at home and in small workshops.

The result was a falsification of the concept of control. It appeared that control of the work effort was direct and in the hands of the worker.

Remember, back in the early 1800s, the formalization of management as a separate bureaucratic structure was not well established.

However, as the Industrial Revolution took hold and more corporations became the norm, control of the work effort slipped into the hands of a new organizational class called management and with it, a reduction in one’s ability to define and achieve an individual and self-determined destiny.

More importantly, the very value defined by one’s competency and skill as a craftsman or artisan (e.g. a carpenter, a farmer, a mason, artist, etc.) was replaced by anonymity, repetition, and discipline.

In addition, corporations became (and continue to evolve into) societies unto themselves – often with conflicting characteristics and aspirations with the broader society in which it exists.

Insomuch as most scholars agree that work defines society as a whole, the idea that modern society may become a group of loosely integrated closed societies defined by a corporate name and logo is a bit unsettling.

My point becomes ever the more important as we continue to introduce more specialization and automation into the concept of work. The more removed we become from the natural world around us and the very reasons as to how we exist at all, the more we become dependent on a corporate job and the financial benefits it provides.

Many of these concerns have been expressed in some form throughout the 20th century.

For example, the German-born Italian sociologist Robert Michels, vigorously disputed Weber’s (see the previous comment) claim that organizations would act in the best interest of the broader society and pursue government (and official) goals and objectives without question.

Michels believed that an “iron law of oligarchy,” would always be prevalent, particularly within the top decision makers of organizations simply because there exists in all leaders a strong desire to maintain their power and privilege.

Michels was of the opinion that self-interest drove leaders to avoid any risk that could impact the survival of the organization and their position in society — even if it meant subverting an organization’s original goals and principles and acting in fraudulent ways.

Interestingly, Michels position was being expressed in 1911 – before World War I. It appears that not much has changed in the 21st century.

In North America, reviews on the concept of work only began in earnest after World War II.

Scholastic efforts were generally focused on work and the management of work within an industrial setting – reflecting that fact that North American industries were at their height of their performance and societal impact.

What was discovered was that the work being done rarely matched the official depiction of what was to be done or how the work was to be organized. More importantly, it was also discovered that participation in an organization was dramatically impacted by the social ties and networks of communication an individual used.

Interestingly, the organizational analysis was completed in the later part of the 1940s and early days of the 1950s and “hinted” at things to come; specifically that being connected was an important societal construct and was integral in how we accomplished work.

The studies also identified an organizational characteristic that even remains today – complexity. It was found that organizations addressed complexity by introducing well-defined routines that could be administered, monitored and measured.

Unfortunately, the growing management class refused to acknowledge that complex environments, of which most of the evolving industrial organizations were (and continue to be), will always contain uncertainties. The result was a growing belief, certainly within management and senior decision makers, that the lower working class were lazy and not very productive.

In response, scholars and researchers began to focus the management sciences on time and motion studies with the hope of defining and developing optimal structures of specialization that would assist management in deploying specific competencies and skills towards well-defined work efforts.

The result was the establishment of “siloed” functional groups and departments and the creation of non-permeable organizational boundaries. Many of these organizational structures remain today – most negatively impacting work by impeding the flow of information and subsequent decision making.

The result is that the concept of work remains steadfastly locked into past industrial revolution patterns of organizational design in which everything focuses on specialization.

Specialization reinforces separation and segmentation, forcing the concept of work to continue to be defined by corporate job descriptions that fall short in inducing such competencies as innovation, self-management, broad communications, social networking, adaptability, career mobility and collaboration into the business environment.

Of more importance is the fact that the new-generation worker is no longer interested (or trained) in applying hard earned competencies and skills into a business environment that has a narrow view of work.

Today, two prominent career nuances have appeared.

The first is a protean career path characterized by greater mobility, a whole-life perspective, progressive development of skills, the utilization of personal values as opposed to organizational values and a desire for self-direction.

Often, in concert with this self-directed approach, modern professionals are aspiring towards a boundaryless career in which the building of work-specific relationships that extend across traditional organizational boundaries is an important component of their professional life.

In both cases, these types of career paths are far less structured and specialized. More specifically, the career of the next-generation professional, within both a trades and business setting, are becoming more malleable and open to continuous refinement and modification.

In part, the changes in career formation reflect the rapid creation of new communication mechanisms within society. These communication mechanisms support the building of extensive networks of professionals and contacts that can offer a broad array of work opportunities. In turn, these professional networks support and enhance the desire for mobility.

In today’s business environment the desire for mobility is often being read as “flippant” or a non-committal attitude towards work in general and often expressed as “modern day workers being entitled”.

What is really taking shape are structural and fundamental changes to the concept of work – changes that are not being reflected in modern-era organizational design.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-work-organization-648000