This is the dawning of the age of Work 3.0 – what’s new?

Daiga Kamerade (Salford, UK) Helen Richardson (Sheffield Hallam

University, UK, h.richardson@shu.ac.uk)

Agenda

From Work 1.0 to Work 3.0 – the digitally-enabled global economy

Work 3.0 – who and where? The ‘gig’ economy case study: Call centres@home

Conclusions

Work 1.0 – Work 3.0 Work 1.0 – company employees Work 2.0 – subcontracting

Work 3.0 – ultra flexible, individually responsible and independent ‘just-in-time’contractors, crowdsourcing, work-on-demand, pay-as-you-go, bodyshopping for ‘Human Intelligence Task’completion etc: ‘Ínnovative’, ‘society of entrepreneurs’ ‘creative’

‘empowering’, ‘worker in full control’ ????

See: Bergvall-Kåreborn, B and Howcroft, D (2013) ‘The future’s bright, the future’s mobile: a study of Apple and Google mobile application developers, Work Employment and Society 27:6

Teleworking history Technological determinism often prevails - swinging

from dystopian gloom to utopian hype and back again Handy (1984) and Toffler’s (1981) ‘telecottaging’ –

‘domestic rural bliss’ ‘50-80% of jobs could be conducted at home’

Origins in oil crisis of the 70’s Quah – weightless economy Huws – re-embody cyberspace Madonna – we’re living in a material world

ESRC seminar series: Home-based telework in the European Labour Market, 2014-2016 also with Dr Sudi Sharifi (Salford), Dr MinnaSalminen (Uppsala) and Dr Pascale Peters (Radboud, Nijmegen)

SpinThere are no losers in

teleworking – all win (Mahfood 1992) Family-friendly Improved quality of life Balance of work and life Flexibility Empowerment Employment for women,

disabled people and the excluded

Pollution reduced Carbon footprint reduced

What Call centres@homeliterature says: Reduced costs Overheads cut Increased productivity Flexibility (fast cover at

busy times) Expanded skill base Attrition down Sickness absence down Absenteeism reduced

4 decades: 1980’s – PCs and automation – new paradigms

of work and leisure -> option for a few senior, skilled men

1990’s – networking and mobile telephony –dispersed and flexible working possibilities -> option for a few senior, skilled men

2000’s – hand held devices, digitally enabled and ‘gig’economy developments & then recession -> so now the home-based teleworkers are...........????????

Data European Working Conditions Survey (2010) Sample: a nationally representative sample of

43,816 employed and self-employed individuals living in 34 countries (27 EU members+ Norway, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo).

Supranational weights used to address the unequal selection probabilities and differential non-response rates across various socio-demographic groups.

Home-based teleworking: definition, measurement and extent

Main place of work is their own home& main work involves working with computers and/or ICTs at least ¾ of their working time

Only 1.1% (n=387) (or approx. 4.9m) employed and self-employed individuals are home-based teleworkers

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4Turkey

AlbaniaMalta

BulgariaCyprusGreeceNorway

RomaniaSlovenia

ItalyMonten…

DenmarkHungary

GermanyAustriaCroatia

SpainSlovakia

PolandLatvia

KosovoSample…Czech…

BelgiumFYROMFrance

SwedenEstonia

PortugalEU27

Luxem…EU12

LithuaniaEU15

FinlandNetherl…Ireland

UK

% of all employed and self-employed

Home-based telework

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Self-employed withoutemployees

Self-employed withemployees

Employed Other

%

Employment status

At employers premises

Home-based teleworkers

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

%

Occupational group

At employerspremises

Home-basedteleworking

Case study

Home is where the KPI’s are – Call centres@home (DomCo) – research by Helen and Prof Debra Howcroft

Bricks and mortar call centre issues: Cost of premises Overheads Staff with right skill mix not in when and where needed Meeting SLA’s Companies wanting to outsource onshore especially

when using voice Absenteeism Sickness Turnover Trust, security and risk issues

Call centres@home DomCo - US company providing outsourced services to

5 out of the top 40 Fortune companies in 40 countries Focus on ‘right shoring’ – cost and quality balance 30% home-based agents Recruited, supervised and trained online WorkBooth technology platform:

“converts the employees computer into a company-driven terminal that ensures sensitive client data is managed in a fully secure, spyware, retention-free environment”

@home business development manager:Home-based agents work for one client only – high quality

call centre end

“The great thing about these people is that they are completely flexible and this allows us to complement the ‘bricks and mortar’ model”

‘It gives us a unique opportunity to target talent – we can be very picky about who we employ……….it gives us a significant pool from which to recruit’

Worker profiles More mature, loyal, less attrition 84% women Average age 40 Average number of years of experience – 11 20% higher productivity from home-based

agents 50% less attrition

“We could only dream about this”

Supervision‘We know exactly what they are doing every minute they

are working for our clients….we can see their desktop and we are in constant communication with these individuals’

‘we dial out to the individual and then disable that line so they can’t go to Starbucks and work with wifi’

‘Security begins ‘between the keyboard and the chair’ Agents cant store or print client or customer data

Health and Safety Agents provide room, desk, chair, phone, PC etc

- training given in ergonomics

‘Every time they log on to the system they face the 7 commandments which they have to tick to confirm they are adhering to Health and Safety requirements. The easiest option – the preferred one for us – is let the agents take responsibility. They may just be lying on the bed, but we don’t know about it. And it’s all legal!!’

Monitoring

KPI’s – hourly targets on screen Restricted breaks Immediate control of call and screen by

remote supervisor“we implement virtual team collaboration and

continuous performance monitoring”

Flexible resource “a very flexible resource – a 30 second commute

to the office” A nice side effect – we’re bringing jobs to those

who couldn’t work in the past ‘Our clients are very interested in the social responsibility side of this’

Meet the peaks and troughs – 10-2, 7-11 shift, 4-6 hours a day, 5 days a week, holidays and weekends

IncentivesAuction for the best shifts, ‘premiums in pay packets’, ‘other

incentives to balance home and life better’

Home-based agents comments

It’s not the job for us mums at home as they insist you work in a place where nothing will disturb you including family

Charged for a solicitor, wanted 6 refs – unable to supply It almost seems too good to be true I started training with them but stopped after 3 days, it

wasn’t for me. I spent a lot of time sitting on the phone listening to people talking only to be told on day 3, I needed to buy a router

5 minute breaks – not enough

Conclusions

Work 3.0 means digitally enabled capitalism with (mainly) employer-led or owner-led choices (so nothing much new)

Casualisation and insecurity has increased Yet terms and conditions are not inevitable No death of geography - ‘The rich are global

the poor are local’ (Eagleton 2003)