Two Futures of Work

By Tom Lloyd
Visiting Fellow to Northampton Business School

Two contemporaneous, but very different arguments about the future of work are struggling for ascendancy.

The first is the ‘opportunity’ argument, which sees new technology as offering not only greater efficiency, but also much more choice in the way we work, and how much, and how long we work. It loosens the bonds that have hitherto tied us to organisations, workplaces, fixed hours, and careers devoted to climbing hierarchies. It makes labour markets more efficient, and purges them of prejudices that have reserved almost all of the power in organisations and most of the wealth they create for white males.

The ‘opportunity’ argument foresees re-configurations of work, and re-assignments of roles and responsibilities that will reduce the sacrifices, in terms of work-life balance, that people have had to make until now for fulfilling careers.

The other less optimistic, but, allegedly, more realistic argument about the future of work is the ‘threat’ argument. We’re living in a fool’s paradise, according to this view, if we think we can take our noses from the grindstone and re-arrange work patterns in ways that suit us more, and suit organisations less. At a time when Far Eastern people, in particular, are out-working and out-studying us and so poised to ‘eat our lunch’, as New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman, puts it, we simply can’t afford to burden ourselves with such self-indulgent notions.

As Amy Chua warned us, in her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Penguin, 2011) the economic future belongs to the industrious and diligent. If our children don’t study until midnight, and we don’t work till we drop, we’re going to lose the world economic war, and our living standards will plummet.

According to this view, seeking a ‘better’ balance than the market produces between assignments of power and influence, and work and home life is like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The modern world is intensely competitive. The only societies than can be expected to prosper are those with a strong work ethic.

So which argument is right? Time will tell, but my money is on the ‘opportunity’ argument, for two reasons.

First, the new work patterns that are emerging as people choose to work less, strike a different balance between work and home life, share jobs, retire early, or gradually (what Garrick Fraser, calls the ‘glide path’ http://executivealumni.com), will lead to better allocations of human resources, and make is easier for ability and talent to move to higher value uses.

Second, as the excellent Simon Kuper has pointed out (‘What are we working for?’, Financial Times, February 15/16, 2014), the current debate about the future of work in western economies is a sign of affluence, not of decadence. Working less and more flexibly is the reward for economic success, not a herald of economic failure. It is what economic growth is for. As Asians approach western living standards, they will choose to work less and more flexibly just as we have done.

We’re adaptable creatures. When we’re poor, we dedicate all of our energy, time and ability to escaping poverty. When we’ve succeeded we find we have more choice, and some of us choose to work less.


Find a short biography of Tom Lloyd's on the CCEG website HERE, along with his professional blog on business and management.

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[The views and opinions expressed in this blogs by guests or members of the CCEG are those of the author, and not of the CCEG or the University of Northampton Business School]


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