Trends in working lifeSheena Davies

Management Futures

Lecture outline

• Who?• What?• When?• Where?• How?• Impacts and responses/business ideas• Future scenarios and critique• Selected data

Future

Who?• Past

– Political pressures for equality and increasing health & safety regulations

– Declining need for physical strength at work– Pressures to increase economic health of nation– Societal pressures for emancipation and material std of living– Technological advances in ‘knowledge’ and service industries and

increased domestic productivity.• Therefore;

– Fewer ‘male’ jobs now– But, not all to do with women taking men’s jobs!

• Change in patterns from manufacturing to service industries• (CIPD Perspectives: HRH – a work audit, 2002)

• FutureFewer traditionally male jobs could result in more males going into

traditionally female jobs.

Who?

Who?Despite the gradual change in ‘gendered’ employment, it is interesting to note

the following;• The Marriage Bar wasn’t lifted in Post Office until 1963 • Half of women’s jobs are part time• Still very strong gender-based employment patterns

19% of men and 3% of women are in skilled trades22% of women and 4% of men are in admin/secretarial jobs

• 75% of all self-employed people are maleSource: Focus on Gender, ONS 2006.

Future: On 4th March 2010 it was reported that in the last year, there has been a 50% rise in applications from men for primary school teacher training. This is because of redundancies and uncertainty in other sectors (www.bbc.co.uk). This could speed up the ‘de-gendering’ of primary school teaching thus attracting even more males in the future (virtuous reinforcement loop).

Can you think of any other professions that are becoming ‘de-gendered’? Perhaps social work, police force.

Who?• Tenfold increase in HE students since 1950s (currently 2m HE students)

– 16-19 year olds in education increased from one third to two thirds• Therefore, unqualified in workforce has dropped from 46% in 1979 to 12% in

2002• Those with degrees increased from 12% in 1979 to 30% in 2002(CIPD Perspectives: HRH – a work audit, 2002)• Increase from 1.75m HE students in 1996 to 2.36m in 2006 (www.hesa.ac.uk)

• Projections for higher education participation in England shows a serious dip around 2020 with a subsequent increase. What are these projections based on? (www.hepi.ac.uk)

FUTURE• If more females are going into HE, it is likely that they will marry later and/or have

children later which also means decreasing fertility as a woman gets older, which probably means fewer children (demographic transition theory). Therefore, may see a dip in HE numbers in the future – but also have to consider migration and international participation. How will this affect the labour force in the future?

Who?• More diverse workplace

– Immigration into UK peaked in 2005• Note that over 50% were women• Notable countries are Poland (peaked in 2006) and Indian

Sub-continent• Difficult to ascertain the numbers because of the complexity

of data collection in this area. – Future

Forthcoming government cutbacks in HE funding is likely to cause an increase in overseas admissions into UK HE. Could then see further increase in diversity in UK workplace. Cuts could also encourage UK students to seek places overseas thus increasing diversity further.

Who?– Imbalance in age profile of working population

(Donkin 2010 – also see ONS 2006)• The well known phenomenon of ‘aging society’

– Future• Mass retirement of baby boomers could cause mass

‘leakage’ of knowledge. • Retirement age likely to increase

– People living longer – Pensions problem

• ‘Returnees’ trend – older people coming back to workplace• Recent trend in ‘grown up gap year’ (www.telegraph.co.uk)• Likely to see increase in voluntary retirement packages

What• ‘First wave’ – agricultural age• In 1950s (‘Second wave’ – manufacturing )

– UK was ‘Workshop of the World’ – manufacturing was a third of national output and 40% employment

– 31% of GDP was in the public sector• 50 years on (Third wave – the information age)

– Decline in manufacturing – transferred to low cost countries• 1985 – 28% of UK employees worked in manufacturing• 2005 – 17%

– Privatisation: 20% of GDP in public sector– Weightless work– Mass-customerisation and increasing service sector– Manufacturing jobs down from 8.7m to 3.7m (57% drop)

• Future– Fourth wave – what is it?

Source: CIPD, Perspectives: HRH – a work audit, 2002

What • Participation in employment

– 29.4 million (24.6m in 1971) – compare with employment rate – from 74.9% to 74.4%– Female employment risen from 56.4% to 70.1%– Male employment dropped from 92.1% to 78.3%– Self-employment

• From 3.4m in 1992 to 3.8m in 2008• Percentage remains 13%

– Part-time employment• From 23.6% in 1992 to 25.5% in 2008• Male part-timers increased, female part-timers decreased

although women still dominate part-time employment(Source: Economic & Labour Market Review, Feb 2009)

• Future– The internet is likely to increase the number of small businesses because barriers to

entry are so small. Economic conditions puts pressure business to reduce costs. Therefore, likely to see increase in part-time working.

What• Post-materialism (Inglehart 1997 see Noon p378)• Pressure on organizations to be ‘green’.

– Will it be ‘business as usual’ with token attempts at being green (‘greenwashing’)?• ‘Weak environmentalism’ / ‘shallow sustainability’

– Find more efficient use of energy– Technological solutions, sustainable sources– Adapt the earth to meet our needs– Buy ‘green’ products rather than buying fewer products

• ‘strong sustainability /deep ecology’– Consume less stuff!– Change our needs to adapt to the earth

• Future

See Williams (2007) chapter 13 ‘Green visions of work organization’

‘Ecopreneurship’ an emerging

field

Tomorrow’s trade

When• More women in workplace, and increase in single parent families –

led to development of policies to support flexible working. Will further advances be likely now?

• (Early 1980s) it was believed that in becoming a ‘post-industrialist society’ in the ‘third wave’, we would have so much leisure time that policy makers worried about it (Toffler cited in Williams 2007)

– Nearly 30 years later – where did our leisure time go?• Working hours

– Increase in part-time working but apparently we are not working such long hours. However, do the statistics capture all work ?

– Blurring between work and home life (eg. ‘Crackberry’)– Women are still doing most of the housework! (but to be fair, men spend

more time at work) – ‘24-hour society’ – partly fuelled by globalization and flexible work patterns.

Future– Blurring of distinction between work and home. Also more shift work.

Both of these trends could lead to more stress and depression.

Where– Homeworking

• e.g IBM in Portsmouth – 60%+ are home workers – use ‘hot desking’

• Second Life – further enhances our ability to work from home

– Future• What are the implications for business relationships?• Increase in depression and obesity?• Increase in demand for wireless/mobile technology,

computer security systems, teleconferencing, Skype and home office products. Also issues of trust, control and surveillance.

• Decrease in road traffic?

Where• ‘Work anywhere!’

– Remote management eg. your boss could be in Mumbai

– Availability of wireless and broadband and mobile devices likely to increase this trend

• Future– Increase in ‘virtual jobs’ eg. remote lawyer

(Tomorrow’s Trades)– Further blurring of work and home life. ‘Work

anywhere’ really does mean ‘anywhere’.– Increase in stress related illness?

How– Increasing use of email (projected to rise by 40% a year) – (Personnel

Today, 2007) – emergence of ‘information literacy’ field– ‘Cyber-shirking’ – internet browsing, social networking and personal

email are relatively recent methods of skiving (how much is acceptable?)

– Surveillance at work • Employers are already allowed to monitor email and internet

usage • Products can have RFID tags – could these be used to monitor

staff?• Future

– Possible threat of counter-terrorism legislation which gives employers more rights to monitor their employees

– Increase in workplace bullying?– Tomorrow’s trade – ‘social networking councillor’– Tomorrow’s trade – information literacy consultant

Trends/impacts/responsesTrend Impact Response/ business idea

‘24 hour’ society Employee health Shift worker support package

Single parentsIncreasing cost of child care

Not worth working because of childcare cost

Distributed network of customer support workers, working from home. Can work during school hours, or in evenings.

Increase in home-working Household organization of work space. Issues with security of data.

Home office conversions.Data security and recovery consultants. On call 24hrs.

Aging society More 65+ peopleIncreasing support needed from government

‘grown up gap year’Specialist travel packagesOld age ‘wellness’ counsellor (Tomorrow’s Trades)Increase pension age

‘Tomorrow’s trades’ and related trends

• ‘The vertical farmer’ – (pollution, land scarcity, ethical consumerism)• ‘Old-age wellness consultant’ – (aging society)• ‘Quarantine enforcer’ – (globalization of disease)• ‘Narrowcasters’ – (mass customization, web 3.0)• ‘Waste-data handler’ – (ICT, proliferization of information)• ‘Social networking counsellor’ – (internet, cyber-bulling)• ‘The body-part maker’ – (terrorism, conflict, combat situations, spread of

democracy, technology advances)• ‘virtual social entrepreneur’ (don’t know if this term exists) eg.

http://www.everyclick.com/ , Freecycle – (web 3.0, philanthropy, third sector)• ‘celebrity blogger’ – (internet, reality shows, celeb culture, ‘look at me’

phenomenon)• Cyber addiction rehab (made this one up)• Cyber political campaigner expert – (use of internet was influential in election of

Obama)

• Some of the above is from http://sciencesowhat.direct.gov.uk/future-jobs

Workplace of the future as envisaged by graduatesScenario of 2020: Three worlds?

Small is beautiful:

The OrangeWorld

Companies care:

The GreenWorld

Corporate is King:

The BlueWorld

Fragmentation

Source: PriceWaterHouseCoopers (2008) ‘Managing Tomorrow’s World’

Integration

IndividualismCollectivism

Specialisation willdominate theworld economy

Big businessreignssupreme

CSR is the keydriver of business

Scenario critique

• How was the scenario derived? Sample of graduates – is this sufficiently broad?

• Are the scenarios realistic, plausible, possible?• Is there an agenda here? • What use are they to business and

organizations? You have to ask the ‘so what?’ question.

Conclusion

• We have looked at a number of trends relating to work – this is obviously not an exhaustive list. Some trends are more certain than others.

• Don’t assume that upward or downward trends will continue with the same trajectory

• Try to triangulate – contradictions are a good thing because it gives you something to criticize.

A level participation by gender

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

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Boys

Girls

Source: www.hepi.ac.uk

Critical commentary: How stable is this trend?

1750.0

1800.0

1850.0

1900.0

1950.0

2000.0

2050.0

2100.0

2150.0

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

2026

2027

2028

Po

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Latestprojection

Previousprojection

Projected HE participation 18-20 year olds from 2007 to 2029

Source www.hepi.ac.ukCritical commentary: why has the projectionchanged? – go back to the orginal source

Time spent on housework

male female

Cooking, washing up 27 54

Clearning 13 47

Washing clothes 4 18

Leisure in the home 170 145

Average time in minutes per day (2005)

Source: www.statistics.gov.uk

male female

2000 2005 2000 2005

128 101 215 180

All housework (ave minutes per day) 2000-2005 comparison

Note – this doesn’t tell youhow many hours men/womenspend at work.

Divorce rate 1981-2006

Source: www.statistics.gov.uk

Note – how might the divorce ratebe affected by the recession?

Trends in female migration

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Labour Force Change Projection 2005-2020 (% of UK labour force)

Where are the labour shortages going to be in the future?

International migration into and out of the UK, 1995 to 2004

Source: www.statistics.gov.uk

2003¼ are students (135,000)⅕ are workers (114,000)

ReferencesBBC News ‘Emails taking over your life? 8 March 2008 on BBC news playerBBC News ‘Returnees boost workforce’ 6 Nov 2007 on BBC news playerCIPD, (2002), Perspectives: HRH – A Work Audit, CIPDDonkin (2010), The Future of Work, Palgrave MacMillanEconomic & Labour Market Review, Feb 2009Inglehart, R (1997) Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and Political

Change in 43 Societies, Princeton University PressNoon, M and Blyton, P (2007) The Realities of Work, Third Edition, Palgrave-MacMillan‘E-mail misuse: Inside Information’ 13 June 2007 retrieved 12 March 2008 fromhttp://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2007/06/13/40947/e-mail-misuse-inside-information.html accessed 12/3/08ONS (2006) ‘Focus on Gender’ONS (2006) ‘Labour market trends’, Vol 114, no 1, pp13-27PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Managing tomorrow’s People, (2008) retrieved on 4 April 2008

from http://www.pwc.co.uk/eng/publications/managing_tomorrows_people.html‘Work weary execs queue to take a gap year’ (2007) retrieved on 4 April 2008 from

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2003/aug/31/travelnews.uknews.theobserver

References‘Widening Participation and Fair Access: An Overview of the Evidence ‘(2003) retreived on 17

April 2008 from http://www.hepi.ac.uk/pubdetail.asp?ID=148&DOC=Reports‘Hours Worked’ retrieved on 23 April 2008 from

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=341‘Working time patterns in the UK, Sweden….’ retrieved on 23 April 2008 from

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/labour_market_trends/Working_time_patterns.pdf‘A level participation by gender’ retrieved on 24 April 2008 from

www.hepi.ac.uk/downloads/31HEDemandto2020andbeyondsummary.doc‘Time spent on main activities ….’ retrieved on 24 April 2008 from

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/nojournal/time_use_2005.pdf‘Employment in SMEs’ retrieved on 24 April 2008 from

http://stats.berr.gov.uk/smes/200612/sme_statistics_for_the_regions_2005.pdf‘Be grown up about your gap year’ retrieved on 24 April 2008 from

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/07/02/cmgap02.xml‘Total international migration estimates…2006’ retrieved on 24 April 2008 from

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/emig1107.pdf‘women form half of all migrants’ 6 Sept 2006 retrieved on 24 April 2008 from

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5319702.stm

Referenceswww.hesa.ac.ukONS (2006) Social Trends 36‘Retirement age will rise to 68’ 25 May 2006 retrieved 24 April 2008 from

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/may/25/politics.business‘Retirement age ‘should reach 85’’ 17 Feb 2006 retrieved 24 April 2008 from

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4726300.stm‘Persons divorcing per thousand of population’ retrieved 25 April 2008 from

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=170Williams, C. (2007) Rethinking the Future of Work: directions and visions, Palgrave.Worman (2006), Woman in the boardroom: the risks of being at the top, CIPD (available as a pdf

at http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/AF113943-D9B8-4ECD-9826-B8193D833013/0/wominboard.pdf

Other Useful sources‘weak signal’ indicators of how work in USA could change in the future;Penn (2007) Microtrends: The small forces behind today’s big changes, Allen Lane

A broad overview of the future of work in the UK (according to the author);Donkin (2010) The Future of Work, Palgrave Macmillan.

For data about higher educationwww.hesa.ac.uk

For a wide range of statistics about the UKwww.statistics.gov.uk

For ‘future jobs’ discussionhttp://sciencesowhat.direct.gov.uk/articles/future-jobs

Department of business innovation and skillswww.berr.gov.uk