What does good work mean for you?

As conventional jobs are replaced, whether by imports or automation, surely we have to revalue work as purposeful activity, whether it is paid or not? Better still we need to make it easier to do collaborative work with others, if only to overcome isolation and provide greater fulfilment or a sense of purpose. There is a host of jobs that need doing, especially in the fields of care and maintenance, where human beings have a comparative advantage over machines.

But useful work, as opposed to useless toil, to quote William Morris, needs space, and someone to act as enabler, and this has to be paid for somehow. So the real challenge is going beyond well-meaning but somewhat empty concepts such as 'community enterprise' to mechanisms that function at different spatial levels - the neighbourhood or street as well as the town or city. Most people want, especially those of retirement age like many RSA Fellows, have a wealth of expertise that could needs to be tapped, without having to waste time in fruitless meetings trying to raise funds to prop up one service or another.

As a model we could learn from great cities like Vienna, rated one of bet places to live and work in the world. House price inflation has been avoided, and car use has been cut drastically over the last two decade, thanks for a first class integrated and affordable transport system led by a progressive municipality.. There are no empty shops or buildings, and all seem in good repair. Instead of turning our back on Europe, and falling for IT based fantasies, we need to learn how to make 'collaborative commons' work. The basic ingredients are what makes a town or city a great place, and might be measured by the number of places you can sit and talk to others without disturbance.. If you can sort that out, the rest should follow naturally, (and there will be plenty of well-paid jobs as well to keep the young engaged!)

'Good work' should be personally fulfilling, socially useful and reasonably secure, but that begs the question.

- Work doesn't have to be stimulating or intrinsically fulfilling to be 'good'. All work is boring sometimes and some work is boring all the time. But boring and unpleasant work can still be fulfilling, if only because the income allows the worker to engage in other fulfilling activities (whether that's participation in RSA activities, buying yachts or pigeon fancying). 

- Social usefulness is bound to be somewhat subjective. You can question certain aspects of financial sector activity, but also some of the remoter corners of academia.

- Security doesn't necessarily mean a proper contract. Zero hours are ideal for some workers, such as students, who don't want regular (or even guaranteed) hours. But it must mean 'decent' pay and conditions.

Can you legislate for all this? Probably only the pay and conditions parts.

Thanks folks - some great comments here (which are really helpful as I draft my annual lecture for next Tuesday). Keep them coming and please tell other people about the initiative.  

The guy who made the biggest impression on me for this issue was a friend of mine who used to be a professional athlete. Extensive competitive career, won championships etc, not world championships or Olympic medals, but still, very high level guy in Britain. Anyway, retires 25, now coaches his sport, maybe 2 sessions a day, and on top of that does private one-to-ones for wealthier people who can afford it, £50 per hr. 2 or 3 of those a day.

Came in one day smiling ear to ear, telling me how much he loves life, and how excited he is for x y & z coming up. Asking him why he's so happy today, he answers, "Because I feel unemployed". I was taken aback...trying desperately to make sense of what he meant, or trying to see if he was kidding. He wasn't. His long term ambition in life was to be unemployed, to be off the grid.

His explanation? Basically that he only has to "work" 4 hours a day and get paid more than tripple what he'd make working as a Barista at Pret, or something like that which he could get, which would rob his soul and give him peanuts to live on. So at 25, he's now making 40k a year just off supplementary private sessions alone, with a base of 25k for coaching regular sessions to other athletes.

65 grand a year at age 25, working 4 hrs a day.... 'working' being a word he laughs at hysterically.

Then look at some young graduate around the same age...miserable at a desk-chair all day with a back condition worse than his old man, sat in a cubicle in a corporation, doing 12 hour days for less than half my mate's money.

Madness.

But then again, you're not allowed to say that. You're not even allowed to *think* in those terms, because if you do, you're a selfish, lazy, entitled, narcissistic, spoonfed millennial. And people over 50 are not only *allowed* to say something that offensive and prejudiced about an entire group of people, they're actually *cheered on* for saying it by their 50 year old mates.

Couldn't make it up.

It seems to me that we are (slowly) moving from an "organisational" economy (where big companies require huge amounts of people who commute daily into big offices to work 9-5) to a "network" economy (where many tasks can be completed at home - or anywhere - using various devices. That work can be done at any time - not 9-5 - so long as it is ready when its required).  

If so, this has huge implications for the future of work - as well as gov't policy. The good side is a far more flexible lifestyle and an end to long, expensive, soul-destroying commutes - and the hundreds of hours of completely unproductive hours per person/per year. The bad side is the loss of stability/security that comes from working in a large organisation - and the social aspect of interacting with colleagues on a daily basis (although some may not think that as a bad thing).

One can surmise at length how this trend will impact society: From how our cities will be designed to transport infrastructure to entertainment & recreation patterns to management techniques, to taxation & benefits - etc etc. 

I think this is what we need to prepare for.