Starting Points: A Holistic View of Work and Its Role in Society

A new social contract must be grounded in a clear vision of what members of society expect from work. What must we achieve at work to contribute to a good society, and where does work fit into the larger set of institutions that constitute a modern, information-based, global economy? Figure 16.1 lays out a multidimensional, holistic view of work that can serve as a framework to evaluate the quality of the policies and institutions supporting and governing work.

Figure 16.1: A Holistic View of Work

If work has these multiple dimensions, then the institutions and policies that govern and support that work must be accountable for addressing each of them and their interrelationships. Too often our old institutions drew lines between these different aspects of work. Unions focused on improving the economic dimensions of work; employers took primary responsibility for shaping the workplace culture and designing and coordinating work to achieve maximum productivity and quality. Workers were expected to separate their families, communities, and citizenship responsibilities from their jobs through a division of labor within the family unit. If these dimensions are to become more interdependent today, all institutions at work must attend to these interdependencies.