What does good work mean for you?

The distinction between good and bad work is unconvincing. Work is work. 

Without repeating or reciting the vast canon of research on employment and the host of factors that increase or decrease productivity and quality, from Fordism to hot-desking and touch-down points, from personnel to HR, there is I believe one single over-riding determinant of good employment.

Employers who *least* regard their employees as either factor costs or bought resources, no different from the rent, the materials, the equipment and the utilities, provide the best employment environment.

As a secondary, employers who realise they are only buying 40 hours a week of their workers' time and skill, not their lives and souls, also provide quality jobs. Creeping corporate control that invades private behaviour, memberships, allegiances, activities and beliefs must be halted.

Im pleased the RSA has a focus on work  - it is one of the key issues facing us today. My work in engineering and social justice has been questioning the relationship between justice, work and technology for some time. Today we face constant questions related to enhanced automation, which will eventually render the more common notion of 'jobs' obsolete. 'Job opportunities' have been offered for years as incentive for certain forms of development. The mining sector for example, has traditionally used arguments of employment for locals as a bargaining tool when faced with community opposition to potential environmental destruction. With open pit mines and driverless trucks, the relationship between the extractive industry and local affected communities becomes ever more strained and exploitation more apparent. Employment will become a term of the past and we must think of what we mean by 'work' for the future. I like Richard Sclove's notion of democratic work (Democracy and Technology The Guilford Press 1995, p43). He says Democratic work denotes' 1) work activity through which one can discover, develop and express one's creative powers, strengthen one's character and enhance one's self esteem, efficacy and moral growth (including one's readiness to act on behalf of common interests and concerns; 2) a work setting that permits one to help choose the product, intermediate activities and conditions of one's labour..;  and 3) the creation of material or other cultural products that are consistent with democracy's necessary conditions that are useful or pleasing to oneself or to others and that thus contribute to social maintenance and mutual self respect' . It seems that if anyone group of people can get their heads around what this looks like in practice - the RSA is the one to do it....  

Good work means finding your calling, a niche if you like, in which you can put your skills, education and experience to use for the benefit of others. Good work does not have to be highly paid work, although a realistic remuneration is a great help. The important thing is that work adds value or some benefit to others; as it is the only way you will find meaning and fulfilment in life. It may take time to find your particular calling however, but it is worth the wait.

Secure and/or helping to prepare you for an uncertain future