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The Repercussions of Work: Achieving Social Sustainabilityin and beyond the Workplace

Juliet WebsterEmployment Research Centre

Department of SociologyTrinity College, Dublin

Address for Correspondence:22 Northchurch Terrace

London N1 4EGTel/Fax: +44 20 7249 2504Internet: [email protected]

Abstract of paper to be presented at the conference

Unity and Diversity: the contribution of the social sciences and the humanities tothe European Research Area, Bruges, 29-30 October 2001

The achievement of human-centred forms of work organisation has long been an objectiveof many individuals and agencies concerned with improving the quality of employment in

Europes organisations. Under the broad umbrella of quality of working life, we canidentify a number of different intellectual and policy concerns. These include human

factors and human-centred technological systems approaches to technological design andimplementation (Corbett 1988; Brodner 1990), work design projects concerned with

creating a positive relationship between the implementation of new production conceptsand the improvement of working conditions/employee development (EuropeanCommission 1997; Pramborg 2001; Hvid 2001; LO 2001), and policies for the promotion of

decent work work carried out in conditions of freedom, security, equity and humandignity (ILO 1999).

Central to many of these ideas is the premise that improving the quality of working life isnot only morally desirable, but is also more economically and competitively sustainablethan taylorist approaches to the design of work. However, the focus is in the workplaceitself, and quality of working life efforts generally stop at the factory gates (or perhaps it ismore appropriate in a service-based economy to say at the office doors). The main

elements of quality of working life are usually identified in terms of the forms oforganisation required, skills requirements, employee development practices, and desirableforms of social dialogue. The implications of the design of work for the quality of lifeoutside and beyond work are less well-explored.

Feminist studies of work and employment have, however, been central in promoting abetter recognition of how the conditions of work affect and are affected by the sphere ofunpaid work and private life. This is because such research has highlighted the fact thatthe conditions of womens paid work cannot solely be understood by reference to theirstatus as employees. Womens position in the labour market the work they do, thetraining they receive, the skills they develop, the pay they earn, the status they have, their


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working hours, and the labour market mobility they enjoy all these are fundamentallyshaped by womens place in the domestic sphere and by their continuing responsibility forunpaid labour, particularly child- and family-care.

This paper builds on that recognition of the intersection between quality of working life andlife outside the workplace. It looks at the relationship from the opposite viewpoint,considering how the conditions of work affect not only the life chances of employees in thelabour market, but also the quality of their daily lives within and beyond the workplace. Itsuggests that the concept of sustainability in relation to forms of work organisation takeson much greater salience when it is applied to the intersection of work with social andprivate life. Work and life, the paper argues, should be mutually enhancing not mutuallydiminishing.

The first part of the paper examines some philosophical and political approaches to the

quality of working life, for example approaches which are centred around sustainablework (Pramborg 2001). The paper suggests that the objective of social sustainabilitybuilds on this work by linking the improvement of working conditions and the labour marketposition of employees to the improvement of the conditions of their social and private lives.Promoting social sustainability allows for a broadening of policy efforts beyond issues ofhuman-centred work systems, beyond productivity and profitability, and beyond theprotection of the environment, to include the domain of domestic, (psycho)social and civiclife.

The second part of the paper examines some contemporary developments in working life.The paper draws particularly upon research carried out under the European Commissions

Targeted Socio-Economic Research Programme into the nature of womens employmentin the context of changes in technology, work organisation and working time in Europeanservices. Project SERVEMPLOI examined the implications of these changes for

womens skills and expertise, their opportunities for progression and for the genderregimes in their workplaces and thus the equality of opportunities.

The results of this project, when taken in conjunction with the findings of other relatedresearch, suggest that many contemporary developments in working life are antithetical to

the objective of improving social sustainability. The paper identifies and discusses thefollowing specific problem areas:

Fulfillment of human potential within and beyond the workplaceThe dynamics of contemporary technological and organisational change often perpetuateand extend the existence of routine work with little knowledge content in manyoccupations. This problem particularly affects women, who are already disproportionately

clustered in low-grade jobs.

The paper argues that the prospects for human development tend to be very limited in theroutine jobs which still comprise a significant proportion of contemporary work. Despite anincreasing policy emphasis on human resource management for increasedcompetitiveness, many women in junior jobs are unable despite their skills to move outof those jobs and into more highly valued, more highly paid work. They are stuck at the


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bottom of the labour market. This affects not only their motivation and morale in theworkplace, it also affects their overall sense of their own value and their sense of whatthey can achieve in life. More prosaically, it affects their ability to benefit from equality of

opportunity and to enjoy better or equal pay for the work they do. This, combined withwomens continuing responsibility for the domestic sphere, means that women remain theprime sufferers of absolute and relative poverty.

Working Hours & Work-Life BalanceIn some European workplaces, there is already a long-hours culture. There is in additionto this a tendency for opening and operating hours to be extended. In many countries,working time is being deregulated, and work is increasingly colonising other areas ofpeoples lives. Many organisations require employees to work flexibly in a variety of ways,including on zero hours contracts, and on call contracts. For these employees, work isbecoming more unpredictable.

Research suggests that working time flexibility is largely imposed upon employees, ratherthan being a matter of choice. For employees, and particularly for female employees,what matters is not so much what hours they work as the fact that they have control overtheir working hours. This is particularly the case in countries where childcare is notroutinely provided by the state, and is only available on a private basis. When work isextensified, it becomes even more difficult for employees to manage their childcare needs.Female employees may reject promotion and advancement in the workplace because theycannot manage the demands of extended working time made in more senior positions.

The extensification of work and the loss of control over working hours also create profoundproblems for employees in fulfilling other areas of their social, their private and their

domestic lives. They are inhibited from doing extra-curricula activities, hobbies, voluntarywork, and out-of-work training and learning. They see their partners and children briefly.Social networks become more fragile.

Personal physical and mental well-being

Stress and burnout are commonplace in contemporary work, affecting just under one-quarter of all employees. Again, there is a gender dimension to this issue: women makeup the majority of front-line customer service workers. They also constitute around 70% of

call centre workers, who routinely suffer burnout as a result of the pace and nature of theirwork (Belt et al 1999). Stressful work and long working hours, are stealing time from

private life, and particularly from sleeping time, so again work is colonising an increasing

part of waking and sleeping hours.

Bullying can be related to contemporary forms of work organisation, particularlydelayering, in which management is less structured and more reliant on charismatic

figures like team leaders. Harassment and abuse by the public are growing aspects offront-line customer service work. Such front-line work tends to be female-dominated;indeed, many organisations recruit women expressly for their skills in dealing withcustomers, and train them in anger management. Increasing abuse may be partly linkedto perceptions of poorer service levels, and customer frustration expressed, for example,through phone rage. This therefore constitutes a problem not only for service employees,but for users as well.


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Family life and childcareAcross the EU, women form a growing percentage of the paid labour force, and now make

up approaching half of the European workforce. Yet for many, participating in the labourmarket presents them with profound childcare problems and enormous resulting stresswhich is often passed onto their families.

The paper examines some experiences of women, their children and their families in thesesituations. Women are inhibited from taking jobs where working hours are flexible andfrom applying for promotion into management positions because of the long hours cultureof management work. Where they are forced to work long hours or to work unsocialhours, they may become alienated from their own children. Grandparents who care fortheir grandchildren full-time often do so after retirement and when they are elderly. Somefind it difficult to do so in the context of failing health. All generations within the family pay

the price for the extensification of work and the absence of formal childcare.

Despite the negative aspects of work, which the paper argues disproportionately affectwomen in various aspects of their working and domestic lives, research shows that work isgood for women in terms of their health and well-being. Women in paid work havebetween 3 and 5 years more life expectancy than women who are not in paid work. Thepaper concludes by suggesting some areas of action to promote sustainable work.

References

Belt, V., Richardson, R., and Webster, J. (1999) Work Opportunities for Women in theInformation Society, Report to the European Commission, University of Newcastle,Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies.

Brodner, P (1990) The Shape of Future Technology: the Anthropocentric Alternative,London, Springer-Verlag.

Corbett, M. (1988) Ergonomics in the development of human-centred AMT, AppliedErgonomics, 19, 1, 35-59.

European Commission (1997) Partnership for a New Organisation of Work, Brussels,

European Commission.Hvid (2001) The Developmental Work, Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing,

11, 2, 89-101.

ILO (1999) Decent Work, Geneva, International Labour Office.LO (2001) The Rewarding Work Organisation, Stockholm, LO.Pramborg, A. (2001) Sustainable Workplaces, in Wennberg. A (ed) Work Life 2000

Quality in Work, Scientific Reports from the Workshops held for the Work Life 2000

Conference under the Swedish Presidency of the European Union, Malm, 22-24January.

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