Is job security an anachronism?

Stressed: the way we work has fundamentally changed.

When I was a kid growing up in the 1960s one of the biggest events of the year was the picnic held by my father’s workplace. The local cooperative society, known simply as “the Co”, ran buses for employees and their families from our hometown of Terang in Western Victoria to the Port Fairy foreshore.

There followed a barbecue lunch and picnic games such as egg and spoon, sack and three-legged races. Late in the afternoon we would transfer to the wharf and board a fishing boat for a joyride on the bay. Maybe 30 people or so including kids without lifejackets would happily bob about on the water. If you positioned yourself correctly, the water would spray into your face. It was thrilling! And in the evening on the bus ride home there’d be singing: When Irish Eyes are Smiling, Pack up Your Troubles…

Not only did “the Co” run an annual picnic for employees but there was Santa for kids at Christmas. And later in January it was the Co that ran the best float in the town’s Australia day parade down the High Street, past the war memorial to Goodall’s garage.

Each autumn my father and two of his mates would borrow the Co’s flat-tray truck on a weekend, drive out into the bush, cut wood (with the landowner’s permission), and deliver a load to each household. For weekends thereafter I would sit on the woodheap and watch my father split and stack wood for the winter. Later, my mother also started work at the Co, serving in the ladies (fashion) department. Our quality of life immediately transformed with a second income.

The Co was an institution in the township. It was the largest employer. I am sure there were tensions but to me, as kid, everyone seemed happy. Everyone had a place; everyone was valued. A generation or two later, downsizing, automation, the loss of markets, ownership restructuring and the pursuit of diversity have combined to refashion the way we work. Back then, “the Co” was like a kindly fatherly figure. Fast forward to today and the model of the employer supporting, reinvesting, helping its employees has changed. That culture came out of the war and the Great Depression. It is still there, in places, but it’s much less likely to be in the form of loaning a truck to collect firewood. It is more likely to be in the form of facilitating study leave or investing in training.

Modern workplaces are dealing with a more transient workforce. It is highly unusual for someone to work in one organisation for their entire career. Casual and gig-economy jobs may suit the flexibility needs of some, but they also introduce the issue of insecurity. I knew money was tight as a kid but I never considered the possibility of no income, of destitution.

I wonder whether coming out of the pandemic there might be a new set of values driving workplace behaviour. Post-pandemic workers will surely look for meaning in the workplace. They will ask: does this employer, this workplace, align with my core values? And what positive contribution does this kind of work make to society? Employers, on the other hand, especially in a competitive labour market, will surely focus on employee support programs and skills development.

The bit that is missing, I think, is the opportunity to fuse employers, workers and their families. Seeing parents in their work setting laughing and engaging with their colleagues is a powerfully binding force. Not just for the workplace but for the next generation of kids formulating their expectations of security in the world of work.