Corrosion of Character

Causes

Flexibility is advocated by many governments as a way of staying ahead in competitive global economic markets. Firms may need to hire and fire workers if demand increases or decreases. Flexibility might involve workers developing new work techniques. Or it may involve new forms of work organization and structures such as teamwork, where teams can be assembled and reassembled as work tasks change.

The use of new technologies at work is an additional factor in the trend toward flexibility, in terms of replacing traditional craft skills with machine-controlled technical processes. For example, in a bakery, computer-assisted technology of mixing ingredients and setting baking temperatures simplifies and standardizes the work process and replaces the knowledge and experience of a baker. Making work less dependent on specific skills and experience can make workers more dispensable. On the other hand, new technologies may enhance people's working life, increase skill requirements, and take away some of the drudgery.

If flexibility originated in the private sector, it has also influenced the public sector and the provision of welfare. A slimmer and flexible public sector constantly restructuring and reorganizing work involves a permanent process of changing work roles and tasks. While “efficiency gains” are used to justify this process, demoralization and lack of commitment of the workforce are also potential outcomes. Moreover, relationships of care, embodied in the provision of welfare, are being reorganized flexibly into short-term injections of support that are time limited. This is sometimes referred to as the transition from welfare to workfare. In the era of flexibility, a new logic of short-term commitments is pervasive.

Consequences

The fundamental problem is that flexible work organization conflicts with work as an opportunity to establish an enduring sense of identity. Dependability and long-term commitments cannot derive from the logic of short-term organization. Although few would advocate a return to the dull and mindless routine of older patterns of some work, routines can be a virtue because they develop skill (imagine an orchestra playing without practicing together), and dealing with difficult and challenging work situations enables people to act creatively and independently. The balance between these attributes of work as a source of routine activity, creative stimulation, and interdependence is difficult to achieve but can provide genuine opportunities to build narratives of work that develop character.

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