This article argues for what sound like great upsides to flexible hours (yay naps!) without criticizing any of the individual or societal effects. What do you guys think? Would you prefer flexible hours or a regular schedule? How else could the implementation of exclusively flexible work be exploitative?
Saturday 19 December 2015
Flexible Hours for Millennials
As we've discussed endlessly in class, the labour force is changing and as graduating students, we will be at the heart of it. Neff and Castells both predict that in the new economy, flexible work hours will replace the 9-5 hours that have been the norm since the industrial revolution. Neff analyzes the ways in which this type of work can be exploitative - temporary, unstable, lack of job security, few governmental benefits - and she explains that there are a few reasons we accept these forms of exploitation. One of these reasons is a lack of options, and another is the way literature and business media presented what is essentially capitalist propaganda for how great flexible work is. While Neff was writing about the 90s, this trend continues as flexible work is increasingly essential to the growth of the digital age, which is exemplified by this Mashable article (it also appeals to us as young consumers of digital media through it's Clickbait-like format).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think that our experience at University has developed our time management skills in such a way that these flexible hours could, for some prove to be a success. Knowing where you will be for the next 8 hours is always a horrible thought, so having flexible hours whereby you can fit your life in around your work, or are you living around your work? With the implementation of technology, individuals are constantly working away through the automation of their devices. Many users are left unaware that every time they causally check their work email, they are in fact working. Having a device in constant real time improves efficiently, however blurs the distinction between work and leisure.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely rather a 9-5 schedule. Half of the appeal of graduating for me was the fact that I could graduate to a more scheduled lifestyle and separate my (school)work life from my leisure time.
ReplyDeleteIt stresses me out to think that if I work a flex schedule, my life will never be free of work stress..ever..again, because I would constantly have to be thinking about work, even if I wasn't at work. I hate it.
This was such a great informative article.The creativity was excellent and this was very impressive.
ReplyDeleteจีคลับ