And that's it. We've looked quickly at work history, specifically work-employment and wage-earning.
We have a better vision of diversity and perhaps a better understanding of how our society feels about work. Is it different from yours?
However, considering that a wage defines work, we must admit that many laborious activities are unpaid.
Housework, child-rearing, cleaning, meal preparation, and so on. Our days are filled with activities that can be considered work but are not recognized by the labor code.
Effective working time is the time during which the employee is at the employer's disposal and complies with the employer's instructions without being free to pursue his or her occupations (Code du travail (Ndlr: in France) L 312-1 )[1]
In addition to salaried work, volunteer work is on the increase, often without us even realizing it. Every day, we contribute to the economic sustainability of social networks by adding personal information. And recently, we've been improving the productivity of department stores by scanning our purchases.
Did you know that most software on the market uses users' voluntary work to finalize their products? Some large companies sell "buggy" applications and take advantage of early adopter feedback to complete the testing sequence.
This might be normal for highly complex software that has to undergo batteries of tests in such diverse contexts that only its actual use can serve as a test plan. But the fact remains that bugs reported by users are rarely rewarded.
What's more, this habit has become routine for most web companies. So-called "transactional" interfaces used to sell or order products are put online with many "bugs". And it's the users who, through their bad user experience, report the technical problems. These "tickets" then fill a "backlog" of more or less urgent corrections.
The evidence of the problems encountered with these interfaces is so elementary that it makes you wonder whether the testing work has been properly carried out or whether delegation to customers has become the norm.
And the situation doesn't stop there.
Two or three years ago, a banking service company contacted me to offer a card payment terminal. It was a small box connected to the telephone and could receive real-time payments.
The service costs 30 euros monthly for the box and 50 euros for the telephone support service.
Astonishing. Why do I have to pay more for telephone support? Does the box have any defects? Should I expect any malfunctions?
Well, yes. This paid service was linked to the fact that the box could have problems. And because it was "not working properly", I had to pay extra.
So we've had to pay to access a service that will require more work. We have to pay more to work more!
It's also worth noting that while work deserves pay, not all pay is earned by work.
The proof is in the training time, coffee and fag breaks, and even paid vacations. All this paid time does not directly constitute a production effort.
The question then is what can be included in working time and considered as a factor that benefits the quality of work.
But here, you can tell me that we don't care whether looking after your children or preparing food should be considered work since the subject of this book is motivation "in the workplace.”
The problem is that business has changed a lot in recent years. The company is no longer a specific geographical location. New working methods have changed how we organize our lives, mixing private and professional zones. Telecommuting has become a way of life, and young parents sometimes bring their newborn children to work.
An employee's way of working increasingly resembles that of a freelancer.
Another major change in how work is organized is the growing involvement of consultants, temporary staff, self-employed workers, cooperative workers, in-house representatives and experts. How should we treat these workers who do not answer directly to the company's authority?
If the organization of work is undergoing radical change, it is essential to agree on the content of the work required by the company.
Work is an activity carried out by a subject to satisfy an explicit or implicit order from another, who benefits from its results and without whom the activity would not have been carried out.[2]
[Work is] an activity consisting of mobilizing energy to produce a good or deliver services, constrained by a social and technical framework. [3]
As far as I'm concerned, and to include what seems to me to be all the activities that have a mental load specific to work, I would define work activity as follows:
This simple and somewhat radical definition differentiates work from leisure, which is, by definition, an activity without constraint.[4]
As soon as an activity is carried out for a specific purpose, in response to a request from another person or from the individual him/herself, the activity will be considered as constraining.
Thus, work can no longer be defined by salary alone, the state of subordination, or the effort it demands. An employee responding to his manager's directives works just like a freelancer training himself in new technologies or a self-employed entrepreneur launching his own business, 12 hours a day, without direct remuneration, and giving the impression of having the time of his life.
If there's a constraint, there's work. And that in no way prevents the pleasure of doing it.
[1] LINHART, Danièle. L'insoutenable subordination des salariés (Sociologie clinique) (French Edition) . Eres.
[2] Marty, Céline. Travailler moins pour vivre mieux - Guide pour une philosophie antiproductiviste : Guide pour une philosophie antiproductiviste (Hors Collection) (French Edition) Dunod.
[3] Louche, Claude. Psychologie sociale des organisations - 4e éd. (Cursus) (French Edition) (p. 16). Armand Colin.
[4] In this framework, constraints are extrinsic to the activity itself. Such as deadlines, productivity, etc. An intrinsic constraint would be, for example, getting dirty when digging a hole.