Cluster 3 Day 1

Future of Work

Salzburg 21.5.2007

Future of Work – Day 1 Soft Skills – Elements of

A New Social Contract• Autonomy (see details in the next slide)

• Job contract

• Service – client orientation; accounting clients’ needs, preferences, demands

• Skills, competences, “informal”

• European contract with implications on regional policies

• Redistribution/taxes

Future of Work – Day 1 Soft Skills – Elements of

A New Social Contract• Increased autonomy of the employee, in

terms of a portion of working time to develop personal projects to be reused within the company; the autonomy means different things in terms of professions, hierarchy levels; technology cycle; Institutional way to settle negotiations; official = job + “informal” activities

Future of Work – Day 1 Social Experiments –

Best Practice and Examples• Organisation giving time to the employees

for self-development benefiting a community or the society at large

• Random eligibility as experiments for evaluating social policies

• Creating incentives for an equal split for parental leave – increasing equal job opportunities

Cluster 3 Day 2

Future of Work

Salzburg 22.5.2007

Future of Work – Day 2Networks & Communities

Improving employment outcome through networks

Roles of informal networks for employees – examples from Germany:

• Knowledge workers get access to job related information and new hiring opportunities from the informal networks;

• Immigrants overcoming language barriers through informal ethnic networks for accessing the jobs, as opposed to Germans who are accessing formal channels;

Future of Work – Day 2Networks & Communities

Improving employment outcome through networks

Roles of informal networks for employers – examples

• IT companies relying mainly on recommendations from employees while recruiting new personnel;

• Recruitment for position in academic world relying on recommendations combining information received from formal and informal networks

Future of Work – Day 2Networks & Communities

Improving employment outcome through networks

Views on the networks: • Benefits for both

employees and employers;

• Networks of skills as opposed to networks of misery; mixed networks including employed and unemployed based on common skills

Future of Work – Day 2Networks & Communities

Improving employment outcome through networks

Questions to be considered:

• How to develop participation in and profit of social networks?

• How to provide an access of socially excluded to the advantaged social networks? Advantage = relation to labour market opportunities

Future of Work – Day 2Networks & Communities

Improving employment outcome through networksTechnology based networks - how to do?

• Encourage the use of knowledge management systems (to do lists, wiki, calendar, files, chat)

• Collaborative networks • Schools and pupils using these, substituting

some activities done in school • Potential use also in a workplace or in skills

based communities; extrinsic motivation needed

Future of Work – Day 2Networks & Communities

Improving employment outcome through networksTechnology based networks - how to do?

• Exiting/entering/incentives/effort; openness; motivation

• Mentored tasks will be carried on making more tangible the personal contribution

• Referral systems, connecting the skills networks to informal networks of the members

Future of Work – Day 2Networks & Communities

Improving employment outcome through networks

Non-technology informal networks• Digital divide as mainly age divide

– youth mentoring seniors;• Lack of infrastructure and access to internet of

disadvantaged groups– providing access and training in public spots (Finnish example);

• Disadvantaged groups, not able to connect to different networks;– Using a set of tools as starting point to create a community: joint

learning events (seminars, workshops, study trips), developing certain skills

• Not enough representation of employees’ interests– Modernised “guild system” – skill based and open

Future of Work – Day 1& 2Soft Skills, Social Experiments

Networks &Communities

• Increased capacity of individuals through– Open organisation and development

opportunities (self-development in independent dependency/autonomy at working place)

– Skill based communities with the purpose of people meeting their potentials through a mentoring process (including persons with different skills levels)

Future of Work – Day 1& 2Soft Skills, Social Experiments

Networks &Communities

• Thanks