Better Work

Front matter

Research for Policy

Monique Kremer Robert Went

Godfried Engbersen =

Foreword

This book is an adapted translation of a report on the quality of work published by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). In addition to its three named authors, Arnoud Boot, Djurre Das, Patricia van Echtelt, André Knottnerus and trainees Sam van Dijck, Willem van den Hoogen, Youssra Ouahabi, Anne van der Put, Janneke Rooijakkers and Robin Simonse contributed to the text.

The work draws on scientific research, reviews and evaluations, policy reports, working visits, and conversations with academics, policymakers and stakeholders including employers, employees and the self-employed. It further draws on the presentations, expert meetings and discussions around the WRR publications Mastering the Robot and For the Sake of Security.

The professional portraits in this book make use of pseudonyms but are based on real people and their working days. They were compiled by Jelle van der Meer, Djurre Das, Patricia van Echtelt, Monique Kremer and Robin Simonse.

The authors wish to thank Paul de Beer, Bernard ter Haar, Peter van Lieshout, Janneke Plantenga, Frank Pot and Rob Witjes for critically reviewing and commenting on draft texts.

The Hague, The Netherlands Monique Kremer Robert Went Godfried Engbersen

Contents

L Titra CGH, aen ease i edi wR eRe RS 1.1 Three Major Developments: Automation, Flexibilization

112 Flexibilization of Wok «nne eaner erneer

1.3.1 The Quality of Work as a Distribution Issue wara ties

Part I Good Work: Development and Current Status

32. Social Security and Insecurity assess sers wide A Bede

3.5.2 How New Technologies and Flexible Contracts

3.6 Conclusion: Control over Income Requires More Security and Less INCGUAING orssnerrarsrnrmardrerdnkenhers dds

4. Control Oyar Work o.246055640s 6 osbies who birot Rra NRE

A2 Autonomy as Achilles” Heel c.g seuss cgdedauneagoeeaees

4.3.2 Camaraderie in the Age of Flexible Work...

4.4 Differences in Control over Work: Education and Occupation... .

4.5 Who Is Responsible for Control over Work?...

4.6 Conclusion: Control Over Work Requires More Autonomy and CAMALABENE- «earned eb eee aR dd

Contents

Contents 5 Control im LB. cic ie Rhos entrer Re RHEE REGIE OS DAN. MMES EEE edes 512 Care for the BEEP a ista ace, vas Neen SAB TETE DAA. Good Work rn ennen ded WEET A PME attente er banen neste 5.3 Control Over Working Howes. EN ce ere ans 44 Blhreme Boundaries... artan reet nnen teek 5.5 Conclusion: Control in Life Requires More than Just Part-Time Work .… EN teerde 5.6 Part 1 — Conclusion: Work Could Be better... EN 5.6.1 Good Work in the Netherlands? 302 Dividing EiMS os oct eee ean ee karakter een 5.6.3 Three Core Developments . Mie hated Crue wee Rete te S64 Policy Oioees cao cccecscseesiieesss nebe ge

Part II Work for All

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102 103 103 105 105 106

111 112

Part II The New Societal Mission

7 Room to Choose Good Work... … cece cee eens 74. Globalization with Policy Space sicc cence steno eee daeeys ALL Vimer mid LOSS swan cakes visstek

7.1.3 Lasting Differences Between Countries .…

8.1 “Good Work Is Under Pressure: p orrrassrnesarnarard wines sl We Could Dé Betel ereen ven nam Beed

8.12 Good Work is At Stake... va. oe near aman wl

S14 Good Work or All, sr cavccsccusdadavagededudaw s

82 More Contiol over Income 24.0425. ever baeeharnrar ete

8.2.2 Develop a System of Contract-Neutral Basic Insurance and BEENS 42552406 648 eee Ren eeeedawnweses

8.2.4 Good Basic Jobs for People on Benefits with Few

83 More Control Over WOK, sn, aarnaast kink

8.4.1 Invest in Good Care Facilities for Children andthe PIG ecer rrei nee Ee

8.5.1 The Government Spends Public Money and Is an Employer „an enn neer en aar eters

Bibliography … eee

Contents

Chapter 1 A) Introduction Geek for

Max is a truck driver. He climbs into the cab of his truck between 5 and 6 am each day. When he arrives at a glass factory in Limburg at around 11 am, he must first wait for another truck to unload. Pausing the meter above his head, Max uses this time to work off half an hour of his break. Drivers must take a 45-min break for each 4.5 h they spend behind the wheel; they otherwise risk being fined. But for Max there is no rest. He uses this time to clean the truck’s tires, to loosen the tarpaulin and to fill in forms. While the much-touted self-driving truck may be safer, Max does not fear for his job in the short term. The individual loads and routes, combined with loading, unloading and other essential tasks, will make automating everything difficult. “Even if it comes to that, you’ll still need someone to check the machine.”

Bouchra is a homecare worker. She begins her daily rounds at 7.30 am. She can see on her phone who her next clients are and how much time she has with each: 15 min, support stockings for Mrs. A; 35 min, showering Mr. C. But you must never let clients notice that you are watching the clock, she says. No one likes that. Bouchra must deal with people with all kinds of health issues, mental as well as physical. “You shouldn’t do it for the money”, she says. “It’s for the heart.” Bouchra is delighted that she recently received a permanent contract, which has finally given her a sense of “stability and security”. “Maybe I can buy a house now.”

Max and Bouchra’s working days provide us with windows on two common professions. They also highlight three major developments in the world of work with repercussions for workers, businesses and institutions in the Netherlands and beyond:

— Automation: new possibilities created by robots and artificial intelligence have far-reaching consequences for the nature and amount of work people do.

— Flexibilization: although the rise of flexible contracts in the labour market has created employment, it also means job and income insecurity for workers and their families.

© The Author(s) 2021 1 M. Kremer et al., Better Work, Research for Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78682-3_1

— Intensification: having to work more intensively, faster or under greater emotional stress places heavier demands on workers, in the workplace as well as at home.

The central question of this book is how the automation, flexibilization and intensification of labour are affecting the quality of our working lives. Good work for everyone who can and wants to work, we argue, is of urgent concern for governments, public institutions, businesses and organizations representing workers and employers. Good work is important for both individuals and for overall prosperity — for the economy to take full advantage of the possibilities offered by new technologies, and for society so that everyone can participate.

1.1 Three Major Developments: Automation, Flexibilization and Intensification

While the future of work has received ample attention from academics, governments, citizens and civil society organizations,' most studies focus on two developments: the emergence and application of new technologies and the rise of the flexible labour market. This book covers these two developments as well, and adds a third: the intensification of work. We introduce them in turn below.

1.1.1 Automation: Robots, Cobots and Algorithms

The first development is the emergence of technologies that allow the digitization and robotization of labour, with far-reaching consequences for the scope and nature of work. Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee? argue that we have entered the “Second Machine Age” in which it is possible to automate not only physical but also intellectual tasks.” This is due to growing computing power, improved sensors, big data, the use of algorithms (artificial intelligence), output technology such as 3D printers, robots and “cobots” — collaborative robots that work together with people. New technologies also enable platforms such as Uber and Airbnb to act as online intermediaries between the providers of work and individuals willing to carry it out.

'The German government’s white paper Future of Work 4.0: Reimagining Work (Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, 2017), the UK government’s The Future of Work: Jobs and Skills in 2030 (UKCES, 2014) and the Nordic Council of Ministers’ The Nordic Future of Work (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2018) are but a few examples.

> Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2014).

3See also Baldwin (2019).

Ll Three Major Developments: Automation, Flexibilization and Intensification 3

Although the gig economy* remains in its infancy in the Netherlands — involving 34,000 people or just 0.4% of the working population’ — it is already posing fundamental questions about the position of workers and the quality of work. What does it mean to have an algorithm as your boss? Who is responsible for Uber drivers or Deliveroo riders who become incapacitated?

Discussion about these new technologies has evolved in recent years, with wild speculation about millions of evaporating jobs giving way to more nuanced and realistic appraisals. Fears of a robot apocalypse in the foreseeable future have proven unfounded, with some reports even predicting a shortage of human workers able to do all the new work created by new technology. For the most part, people look set to share their workspaces with robots and algorithms. Still, many jobs will change under their influence — as will the demands placed upon workers.

It may be a cliché, but new technological possibilities create both opportunities and threats (see Fig. 1.1). Will robots in the workplace leave humans side-lined and disempowered? Or will new technologies lead to more interesting tasks for humans? How we apply new technology is not a given. Technology does not just happen to us; there is room for human agency and decision-making.

1.1.2 Flexibilization of Work

The second development changing the world of work is the decline of permanent contracts and the rise of flexible work. While employment levels in the Netherlands were rising before the Covid-19 pandemic, the country is a European leader in the use of temporary contracts. The proportion of the self-employed — freelances and sole traders, officially classified as “self-employed persons without staff’ — is high, twice that of Germany. Although the United Kingdom also has high rates of self-employment, fewer workers are on temporary contracts (see Figs. 1.2 and 1.3). The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in a 2019 report voiced its concerns about the extent of labour flexibilization in the Netherlands. On average, the OECD claims, “job quality tends to be lower among non-standard workers... and non-standard work results in significant inequalities between workers”.°

While there were “only” one million flexible workers in the Netherlands 15 years ago, their numbers surpassed two million in 2018 when Statistics Netherlands (CBs) recorded 985,000 temporary employment contracts, 556,000 on-call and casual workers, 308,000 agency workers and 149,000 “unspecified hours” contracts. An additional 1.1 million people were self-employed. Adding these categories together, 36% of the active workforce in 2018 no longer had a permanent contract (see Chap.

*“In the gig economy, people are hired and paid per individual job (taxi ride, meal delivery, cleaning session, repair). The platform then charges a commission for each agreed job it has mediated” (Frenken & Van Slageren, 2018).

You are

Paid care-free your own boss leisure time

The global market is

Robots Network _ your feet do the work Pa up ibiliti possibilities Dowhar you are good at

Growth of

New jobs network

BUSINESS AS USUAL Alienated Jobs lost by network Professions replaced by micro-tasks

Exploited Robots by network do the work

Stress and loss of privacy

Job and Significant income inequality insecurity

Fig. 1.1 Robots and platforms: opportunities and threats Source: Kool & Van, Est, 2015

3, Fig. 3.1). Almost everyone in the Netherlands is now familiar with the uncertainty of flexible work, either personally or through a colleague, partner, neighbour or child.

This uncertainty often means that people cannot or dare not start a family or find a home of their own. Almost no one chooses a temporary job if a permanent position is available. On the other hand, many self-employed individuals — this is the positive side of labour flexibilization — are happy with their work and are less at risk of burnout.” It has also become easier for people to switch between positions over the course of their careers, moving for instance from a temporary job into a full-time position and then reverting to part-time to take on freelance assignments. This “hybridization” of work means that people can simultaneously occupy several

Ll Three Major Developments: Automation, Flexibilization and Intensification 5

25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 — Belgium — Germany ===" The Netherlands — United Kingdom — Denmark — France =— Sweden

Fig. 1.2 Temporary employees as a percentage of all employees in the Netherlands and other European countries, 1998-2018 Source: Eurostat (Labour Force Survey)

different positions in the labour market or change course over their careers to accommodate their family lives and care-giving responsibilities.

Attitudes towards flexible labour are changing in the Netherlands. When the self-employed are discussed in policy texts, ornithological metaphors abound.’ A few years ago, the freelance worker was a “free bird” or — due to their supposed prowess at innovation — “the goose that lays the golden eggs”. But more recently, they have become the “cuckoo in the nest”, exerting unfair competitive pressure. No bird represents them all; the self-employed flock is diverse in its plumage. But although most self-employed individuals claim to be satisfied with their work,’ only some can spread their wings financially. Many are scratching out a living near the poverty line.

Criticism of temporary work is mounting. The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis points to unfair competition and increasing inequalities caused by labour market flexibilization!® while the oEcD has called on the Netherlands to rein in tax incentives for flexible work.!! Critics argue that flexible work should no

8 See, for example, the introduction to the Dutch interdepartmental policy study on “self-employed persons without staff’ (Rijksoverheid, 2015).

° Eighty-one percent of self-employed individuals are satisfied with their work, compared with 79% of people with permanent employment contracts (CBs, 2017b).

erts” of

of

1998 2003 2008 2013 2018 — Belgium —— Germany ===: The Netherlands = United Kingdom — Denmark = France =— Sweden

Fig. 1.3 Self-employed individuals as a percentage of all employees in the Netherlands and other European countries, 1998-2018 Source: Eurostat (Labour Force Survey)

longer be seen as inherent to business operations but as a means to cope with peaks and sickness — and only when it suits the nature of the work.

The oEcD concludes that the flexibilization of the labour market alongside declining trade union membership has undermined the bargaining power of workers. While employees on personalized contracts can still cause collective embarrassment — and new forms of solidarity and action are emerging in the platform economy and among freelance workers'* — individualized work is not conducive to collective bargaining. If all workers strive for individualized contracts, there will be little collective action. With platform companies, flexible jobs and self-employment, the traditional relationship of mutual responsibility binding employer and employee is no longer self-evident. It necessitates a thorough review of who is responsible for the risks and necessary investments in the new world of work.

12 See also Kremer et al. (2017b). 13 OECD (2018a); see also AWVN (2018). 4 See van der Meer (2017), Vandaele (2018).

1.1 Three Major Developments: Automation, Flexibilization and Intensification 7 1.1.3 Intensification of Work

The third trend is the intensification of work — the change in its pace and nature. Consider home care workers who have less time with each client although many have complex problems, IT system administrators who must complete all their reports as a matter of urgency, and primary school teachers who now have many additional non-teaching tasks such as administration and catering to children with specific needs, not to mention their increasingly vocal parents.* In recent decades, both men and women in the Netherlands have been working longer and longer hours (Chap. 5). And their work has become more intensive.

What does the intensification of work look like in practice? We distinguish between two forms. In its narrow, quantitative definition, the intensification of work means that people have to do more work in the same allotted time.'° The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research finds that it creeps in slowly and insidiously: in 2008, some 34% of the workforce said they “often” or “always” had to work fast to complete their allotted tasks in time; by 2018, it was 38% (see Fig. 1.4).!” While excessive workloads have recently become a focal point of dissatisfaction in the Dutch public sector, the problem does not end there. The latest collective agreement for the security industry also includes reduced working hours to ease the burden on security guards. Many employers now see combating excessive pressure from work as their number one priority.!® More and more people are taking work home or putting in overtime because they cannot finish their tasks during normal working hours.!”

The intensification of work is a broader issue than time alone. The nature of work has changed as well, with more workers having to more often deal with clients, customers and colleagues. A growing number of people thus experience work as more emotionally demanding (10.7% in 2018 versus 9.4% in 2007; Fig. 1.4). While professionals in education and healthcare suffer the most, a broad spectrum of workers report greater emotional strain — from the ICT systems administrator who has to juggle conflicting demands to the security guard facing an increasingly aggressive public.”

Working intensively is not necessarily a problem; it can make jobs more varied and challenging”! But if it goes too far or lasts for too long, it can threaten the wellbeing of workers and their families.” Whether workers are able to cope largely

5 van den Groenendaal et al. (2020).

16 Korunka and Kubicek (2017).

'8 van Echtelt et al. (2019b).

' Not in table. van Echtelt et al. (2016), see Chap. 5. van den Groenendaal et al. (2020). This working paper was commissioned by the wrr for the report underlying this book.

21 See, for example, Johnson et al. (2018).

2 See also Fried and Heinemeier Hansson (2018).

— Frequent or permanent heavy workload — Regular lack of autonomy and time pressure — Burnout symptoms — Frequent or permanent emotional distress

Fig. 1.4 Trends in the intensification of work, autonomy and burnout symptoms, 2007-2018 Source: NEA 2007-2018 (TNO/cBs), Houtman et al. (2020)

depends on the support they receive from managers and colleagues, including the extent to which they are able to organize their own tasks. Although more and more people in the Netherlands are educated to higher levels, autonomy at work is declining (Fig. 1.4) — a contributing factor to the rising incidence of burnout. Although the intensity of work has long been a focus of Dutch labour policy, it now seems to be taking a higher toll than ever before.

While new technologies can intensify work — in for example just-in-time manufacturing” — it is also a product of the shift towards the service economy, which puts a premium on social skills and teamwork.” In the words of Amy Edmondson: “few individuals simply do their work and then hand the output over to other people who do their work, in a linear, sequential fashion. Instead most work requires people to talk to each other to sort out shifting interdependencies. Nearly everything we value in the modern economy is the result of decisions and actions that are interdependent and therefore benefit from effective teamwork!” As individual employees have more and varied tasks, cooperation in the workplace becomes necessary. While this

For example, the parcel service DHL in Bergen op Zoom has been experimenting with “smart glasses” that project the employee’s assignments onto the lens. Productivity has increased by 10%, meaning that staff must move more items in the same time. The staff council has stipulated that working in this way must be limited to no more than 6 h a day (Heuts 2017).

van den Berg et al. (2018).

25 Edmondson (2019).

1.2 Better Work as a Societal Mission 9 can make work more interesting,” it also demands much from the working person as a colleague.

Technological developments are also blurring the boundaries between work and private life. More and more people are reporting that they can be called in at any moment, including on weekends and holidays; others feel compelled to check e-mail outside of their formal working hours. We will examine the causes and consequences of this intensification of work and what can be done to counter it.

1.2 Better Work as a Societal Mission

The automation, flexibilization and intensification of work have consequences for the amount of work people do and who participates in the paid workforce. Paid work for all has been a central Dutch policy goal since the 1990s.” The European Commission has likewise sought to increase employment levels across the European Union, with the Lisbon Strategy in 2000 proclaiming a target employment rate of 75% by 2020. This target has long been achieved in the Netherlands, which now has one of the highest levels of employment in Europe. In the fourth quarter of 2019, some 316,000 people in the Netherlands were registered as unemployed, amounting to 3.4% of the workforce (seasonally adjusted).

Although the Netherlands has created many new jobs in recent decades, there is still not work for everyone. Many remain side-lined in the labour market, including 1.6 million people on benefits; while not all can work, one million would like to work or work more. This group includes people with occupational disabilities, whose participation in the workforce actually fell between 2003 and 2017, from 45.6% to 38.2% (Chap. 6). This is in part a side-effect of the Netherlands’ intensive, high-productivity economy, which excludes less productive workers. That many people are side-lined in this way has major repercussions. A job is not only a set of tasks; employment provides people with income, self-esteem and the feeling that they are part of society.

This involuntary side-lining has negative consequences for the economy and society. The economy grows when productivity increases, when we work more hours or add more value per hour of labour. If people who wish to work are prevented from doing so without good reason, we all lose out. This is why the WRR in its 2013 report Towards a Learning Economy” emphasized that everyone is needed to help build the economy — the more so because demographic changes will likely lead to structural labour shortages in the future.

6 See, for example, the study of “dirty work” by Deery et al. (2019). The wRR report Work in Perspective made an important contribution towards this (WRR, 1990).

*Swrr (2013a). A summary in English can be found at: https://english.wrr.nl/publications/ reports/2013/1 1/04/towards-a-learning-economy

The slogan of Dutch labour market policies since the 1990s — “work, work, work” — needs updating, to focus on the quality of work. But what constitutes good work? Although perceptions here have changed as educational levels have risen and women have entered the paid workforce, we can distil from the sociological, economic and psychological literature and from international comparative studies”? three basic conditions for good work: (1) control over income, an appropriate wage and income security; (2) control over work, sufficient autonomy and social support in the workplace*’; and (3) control in life, good work-life balance. If work is accompanied by constant insecurity, we cannot describe it as good. The same applies when people have no control over their working lives, or if they have lost their work-life balance.

The automation, flexibilization and intensification of labour potentially have major consequences for the quality of work. Although technology can turn workers into mechanical appendages, there is no need for it to do so. Flexible working arrangements, when one can be called in to work at any time, can be hard to combine with caring for young children. But again, it does not have to. The question is how we can — now and in the future — create good work for as many people as possible. As David Coates writes, “Work is good for us, but work is only really good for us if it is ‘good work’ ”*

1.3 Concerns About the Quality of Work

Dutch workers are generally satisfied with their jobs; three-quarters even say they “greatly enjoy” their work.” Asked the lottery player’s question — “What would you do if you won a large sum of money?” — most answer that they would keep working.” The “bullshit jobs” made famous by American anthropologist David Graeber™ is not yet an issue in the Netherlands, where only 5% of workers doubt the importance of their work.”

But dissatisfaction is rising.” Statistics Netherlands reports that strikes have reached their highest level in two decades,’ with bus drivers, airline pilots, teachers, home care workers and university lecturers among those who have resorted to

?° Such as OECD (2016a) and Eurofound (2017).

For example, opportunities for participation and learning (Pot, 2017b). There is limited, although growing, interest in this area among European policymakers (Pot et al., 2017).

32 Wennekers et al. (2019).

de Beer and Conen (2019).

“There were 32 strikes in the Netherlands in 2017, more than in any year since 1989. 150,000 people took part, the highest number since records began in 1901. Logistics and manufacturing

1.3 Concerns About the Quality of Work 11 industrial action. While some protests are classic wage disputes, others focus on workloads, especially the burden of overtime and administrative duties. In recent walkouts, primary-school teachers have been demanding “a fair salary, less work pressure”. Theirs are not “bullshit jobs”, they say. But they do have too many “bullshit tasks” within their jobs. What they want is the freedom to do their jobs well.

Disturbing exposés of contemporary working life are all-too-common. In Hired,’ British investigative journalist James Bloodworth reveals what it is like to be an order picker at Amazon, where he worked undercover. The company monitors employee activities, including toilet visits, with digital wristbands. Breaks are limited and there are penalties for reporting sick. Zero-hour contracts are the norm and almost no one has a permanent job. Similar reports have been published in the Netherlands about what it is like to work for the taxi service Uber and online retailer Bol.com, in the meat-processing industry and in logistics.”

More work does not necessarily lead to less poverty. The proportion of the Dutch population classified as “working poor” has been rising since 1990.*° In 2014, this applied to about 320,000 people (4.6% of all workers), of whom 175,000 were wage-earners and 145,000 were self-employed.

1.3.1 The Quality of Work as a Distribution Issue

Higher-skilled persons do not always have good jobs; lower-skilled persons do not always have bad jobs. There are, however, structural differences between these groups. Paul de Beer finds that lower-skilled people in the Netherlands, in both absolute and relative terms, were more likely to be employed “in 2016 than a person with similar characteristics (age, gender, domestic situation, origin) in 1990”. But there was also a downside: “the chances of this person being in flexible employment and on low wages were higher in 2016”.*! The oEcD notes in its report on the Netherlands that “non-standard work results in significant inequalities between workers. Workers on non-standard contracts earn less, suffer from higher insecurity and are less likely to participate in collective bargaining and training”.

There are further concerns about the declining quality of work. Workers today have less say over how they perform their duties; in other words, their autonomy at work is declining (Fig. 1.4). Although occupational health is generally good, the were the sectors most frequently affected; the greatest loss of working days was in education (CBs, 2018e, 2019a).

38 Bloodworth (2018). Or see, for example, Adler-Bell (2019, August 3).

® See Van Bergeijk, 2018. Investigative journalism platform Investico recently published Uitgebuit: Het verhaal van de Nederlandse werkvloer (Exploited: the story of the Dutch workplace; Woutersen, 2019).

proportion of employees reporting symptoms of burnout shot up from 11.3% in 2017 to 17.5% in 2018.* Although widespread across the working population, burnout is more common among the better educated. While work is a fine remedy for poverty, depression and poor health, it can also make you ill.

Public-sector professionals have been sounding the alarm about their working conditions — their wages being too low and their workloads being excessive — for some time. Especially teachers and healthcare staff want more autonomy to do their jobs well. The Professional Ethics Foundation has highlighted the mistrust police officers, teachers and nurses face from their superiors, which manifests in excessive control and enforced record-keeping.“ What is at stake is “the recognition of one’s own professionalism”.*

Although job satisfaction in the Netherlands generally remains high, many people when asked the “lottery question” say they would continue working, but with the caveat “under different conditions”. What workers want most is the space to do their jobs well. Compared to two decades ago, workers today have higher expectations. As well as good colleagues, they want jobs that are interesting, which allow them to make the most of their abilities and which give them a sense of achievement (Table 2.3).

Although not everyone needs to be ecstatic at work,“ there are sound reasons to pay more attention to well-being in the workplace. Good work is about mutual engagement between employers and employees and about bringing out the best in people, with long-term benefits for workers, businesses,“ the national economy and society. Better work improves occupational health, reduces absenteeism and encourages innovative workplace behaviour. Contented workers come up with creative ideas to improve products and services — all essential for a flourishing economy.