Time and Control in Contemporary Work
Henrik L. Lund, Centre for Work Life, Roskilde University, Denmark
Abstract
When we study and describe changes in the world of work we naturally make use concepts
developed from work life research. ‘Time’ and ‘control’ are two old core concepts within work
life research related to psychosocial work environment. But when we conduct empirical
studies of contemporary work it is often difficult to apply these concepts with their original
content. Hence it is the aim of the paper to re-launch the concepts time and control with some
new content that is better applicable to contemporary work characterised by paradoxical
tendencies were empowered workers experience strain and joy at the same time. Focus of the
paper will be the mutual connectedness between the concepts ‘time’ and ‘control’.
As point of departure the paper present empirical findings from the TiGa-project1 showing
that the temporal structuring of work erodes workers’ control in much of contemporary work.
In order to be able to understand the impact of the temporalities for workers who have
control but often do not feel in control, we studied how time is negotiated, allocated, used and
labelled qualitatively by the employees’. What we saw in our six case studies was that time
conflicts, due to an increasing amount of social interactions, coordination and general
complexity of work, made it difficult for the workers experience a sense of control despite lots
of influence. The temporal orders of work were very individualised. Hence there was a lack of
collective rhythms, norms, breaks and meetings in work. The high demands in work were not
problematized by the workers however the lack of time was.
In traditional work Taylorism and bureaucracy was – and sometime still is – the enemy of
employee control. Today the temporalities of work e.g. lack of routines, rhythms and clear
roles is the main enemy of employee control in modern work where workers are empowered
by self-management, team organization, self-chosen work hours. In this new work life there is
a huge difference between ‘having control’ and ‘being in control’. It is necessary to take the
concept of ‘time’ into consideration when we study workers control because the way work
has developed, the concept of ‘time’ becomes a key to understand the actual degree of
employee control. However the way we study time and work cannot be reduced to work time
and the issues of placement and length of the workday. We cannot study control without
taking the qualities of time into consideration. Hence to understand control we must study the
qualities of time by looking into common routines, habits, breaks, norms and meetings that
occur through the inter-personal relationships. Therefore work life research can make use of
time sociology concepts to understand and study how control is gained and lost in
contemporary work. By the use of empirical findings and inspiration from time sociology the
paper will contribute to the conceptual development of ‘control’ and ‘time’ in work life
research.
1
Time in Boundaryless Work