The Future of Employment

Contemplating the future of ‘employment’ in the context of ‘creativity’ and ‘earning a crust’ ….. might past trends reflect new opportunities in the modern high-tech economy: “What goes around comes around?”

theCafé is mostly concerned with ‘Creativity and Well-being’. But for many of us, consideration of ‘Well-being’ begins with ‘having enough to live on’, AKA  making a living or as we used to call it, ‘earning a crust. If modern economies are truly about ‘added value’, then we need to understand what that means and, if it’s true, then we have reason to celebrate our course and cause!

Skills, education, partnerships across local economies, employment, and revenue have been and can remain essential elements of a society that serves the individual, the community and the nation. A longish part of my, perhaps too-long, life makes me especially aware of the importance of these issues in our present context.

Nor is it just me on the team that is ‘aware’ of these issues.  By way of context, when Michael was 14 years – and a bit – old and having been assured by his parents that ‘he was not that clever’, he found himself not training as an RAF Officer (that came later) but working in the post room of the local NCB (National Coal Board). For no reason that he ever understood, his senior bosses at the time (Messrs. Harold Sherwin and Norman Fricker) called him into their suite in the “big house” and said, “Boy, you can do better than this. You will go to night school 3 nights a week for a year to study business and economics, and we will then give you a day release to continue”.

Moving on …..

Many years ago in a galaxy far away  – Thatcherland   –  we had seen the demise of jobs, industries, and structures that had  – often under the influence of “nationalised industries”- looked after their workers and their families. Their support took in housing, salary, medical care, pensions, insurance and other protections, including training and education.  Mostly, these responsibilities were seen as a part of the task with which they were charged, and they undertook these duties in ways that promoted social cohesion and a sense of ‘the community’.

One particular day, I was listening to a group of politicians and local dignitaries expanding – i.e. prevaricating in marketing speak  – about the best ways to invest EU funds in rebuilding the local economies after industries and the economies of whole towns had imploded (AKA been trashed) post-Walters and Friedman.  Being a simple man, lacking wisdom, and having no actual expertise to offer, I listened until ultimately, I was astounded to hear my voice say; “But if you do not know what skills were required to do the old jobs, what skills the inward investment will require and/or what skills the local education system can help re-engineer then what, in God’s name, is the point of spending billions on new industry and why, other than for our money, would industry choose to come?”.

Sadly, two rather influential politicians in the government of the time – neither of them particular admirers of “Thatcherism”  – were present and off we went, eventually looking at steel, coal, chemicals, railways, et al.  Even HM Armed Forces became involved;  I still take pleasure from how that approach helped many leaving the Armed Forces secure new jobs in ‘civvy street’ with CVs that were skills-based, upon leaving the Armed Forces, including some from the  Gurkha regiments which had particular needs in the areas of “resettlement”

It all helped teach me and our present teams at theCafé and Talking Health that embedded perceptions are often at the heart (do you really mean heart? ED?)  of imagined difficulties in securing opportunity and selection in terms of employment. Throughout history we have seen it impacting across a number of areas; women, accents, colour and physical infirmities (we have to accept that sometimes discrimination was based on the actual demands of the task/job –“ lift dat bale”, “working a blast furnace”  or “doing your stint down t’mine” which made real physical demands on the individual). Often, “opportunities” for women occurred when so many men had been taken by plague or war as to ensure that the harvest could not be safely gathered in or the required output of fashion and undergarment stuff achieved in the “machine room of a local factory”.)

I find the history of it all intriguing; back then, people were often paid by results; the area ploughed or families, including children, paid by the bale in those days of the lovely golden, tent-like structures that adorned our fields. (Elsewhere, I thank heavens daily for the folks treading the grapes, or where would my evenings be!?). It is true also that when manpower was short – plague, war and the rest – one inevitable outcome was more opportunities for women.

Henry Ford changed all that, asserting that if he paid his workers properly, they could afford to buy his cars; he also sponsored art and artists. Equally, in Bournville, families of chocolatiers created lovely living spaces for workers, who could then better serve production in the factories and, of course, they also embedded art as a part of the culture.  As manufacturing declined, “service industries” emerged as being ever more important.

The last decade has seen “working from home” become something of a necessity wherever the task and new technologies rendered it possible to do so or, in many cases, to fix it so that it could be done.  But, post-COVID, etc, we are seeing something of a resurrection of the traditional regime vis a vis employment; get back to work is morphing to become get back in the office (or else). Moreover, coupled with the assault on woke and rights, the trend is to not only put an end to that but to change perceptions so that the practices can be dismissed and trivialised.

But technology is giving us – the people – the ability to collaborate and thus to have a say,  perhaps even to change things, and heaven knows that change is needed.  “Why so?” Well, “The number of young people aged 16 to 34 who do not work because of long-term sickness and have a mental health condition has reached 270,000. This number increased by 60,000 (26%) in the last year, according to the DWP. As of January, 9.3 million people…. in the UK were economically inactive…”?

NESTA tells us, “A high value-added economy focuses on those activities that generate a large margin between the final price of a good or service and the cost of the inputs used to produce it, and thus create higher profits for businesses and higher wages for workers” and interestingly for example Future Learn, amongst others offers courses to teach us: “innovation that supports speed of delivery, high-end products, unique production processes, customisation and environmentally sustainable product lines”. Surely, that tells us something of value in our present context and says something as to the increasingly important role to be played by the educational sector.

More widely, we will  proselytise the idea that technology and attitudes could easily facilitate extending and shaping how – collectively and individually – we might now work to “add value” across more “products”, including the production and distribution of creative related content.

Many production lines in the past were fashioned so that parts might be brought together and the whole product assembled in a movement to the end of the line as each worker handed over the results of their efforts towards completion of the whole – I still recall, as a lad, seeing a pile of parts  turning into a complete car which was started and then driven off the line.

I am aware also that some of those now working with us were a part of a series of Joint Ventures – one in India which created BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) centres working with Universities, academies, local authorities, enterprises and charities to deliver an early demonstration of how these ideas might work.  Thus, we can demonstrate that the most important of measures vis a vis such initiatives: it works!

At its core, theCafé project is about the link between creativity and well-being; if we add to that inclusion, opportunity, education and investment, do we really lack the wit and the will to empower individuals to become part of an intellectually driven production line that harnesses the fundamentals of creativity in all its forms? I wonder if such an arrangement might not also help facilitate the creation of a high added value economy that is accessible to more people, including the challenged and disadvantaged. Certainly, some members of our team still celebrate how, at a time of crisis, DMU and Loughborough University helped them reformat their own working lives.

It is my position then, to argue with as many folks as might care to have their ‘halfappenyworth’ in these pages and, Insha’Allah over the coming months, that modern media and technology are not just for allowing governments to tell us half-truths, or to serve big business or perverts. I suggest, as strongly (but modestly) as I can, that these things can be used to fashion new relationships with education and new style “communities” (based on shared interest or pooled talents rather than geographic proximity). These shared talents collectively helping add value for the purposes of wealth generation and well-being. We can break down the tasks involved in “production” and “doing” and “adding value”  and get it done collectively in a new high-tech production line. By that, I mean the possibility of partnerships involving education, finance, and legislation to change the way that some markets are served, not to say “exploited” in terms of creativity and well-being in the wider context suggested herein.

In the process, I would hope that, as before in the earlier endeavours of which we were a small part,   local government, educational, charity and banking sectors would want to make these new initiatives and facilities their own. Together, they could help expand the conversation even,  perhaps, to collaborate on what we learn through these conversations and the understandings and discussions which, we hope, they will help generate.

Finally (you hope!),  just as I was signing off on this piece, the following appeared: Number of young people not in work or education hits 11-year high; surely something must be done! Insha’Allah, together we might help a tad.