Better Work: Conclusions and Recommendations

Abstract

Good work is crucial for our well-being but is under pressure from the application of new technologies, the use of flexible employment contracts and the intensification of work. In this book we have argued that achieving better work – good work for everyone who can and wants to work – is a crucial mission for policymakers, employers and labour organizations. In this final chapter we advance recommendations for how the government and other stakeholders can promote better work for more people.

Good work is crucial for our well-being but is under pressure from the application of new technologies, the use of flexible employment contracts and the intensification of work. In this book we have argued that achieving better work – good work for everyone who can and wants to work – is a crucial mission for policymakers, employers and labour organizations.

In this final chapter we advance recommendations for how the government and other stakeholders can promote better work for more people, including for those who would like to work, or work more, but are currently not doing so. We summarize our findings from the previous chapters (Sect. 8.1) before presenting our recommendations (Sects. 8.2, 8.3, 8.4 and 8.5).

1 Good Work Is Under Pressure

The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy advised in 1981: “If work is to retain its central position in society, the option of improving the quality of work must always be available: one of the main lessons of the substantial rise in prosperity during the 1960s was that welfare is not just a matter of higher consumption levels.”¹ Some four decades later, human labour remains central to the organization and performance of our economies and to our well-being as individuals and societies. The International Labour Organization² continues to champion a “human-centred agenda” that privileges investment in human development and workplace well-being. “Decent work for all” is now among the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, to which governments and companies worldwide are committed (see Chap. 1).

Governments, academics, professional and employers’ organizations, trade unions and citizens around the world have been discussing the changing world of work. Concerns often revolve around what technological advances in robotics and artificial intelligence will mean for the quantity of work available to humans, and what increasingly flexible labour arrangements mean for income security. This book has broadened this discussion by focusing on the quality of work.

Paying attention to the quality of work is crucial because good work benefits individuals, the economy and society as a whole. While work provides people with incomes to live on, it also provides satisfaction, social status and self-esteem, the feeling that we are contributing to society. But to truly benefit individuals and society, work must meet certain requirements (see Chap. 2). From the international scientific literature, we distilled three key criteria for work to be considered “good”, which align well with the needs of the Dutch service and knowledge economy and with the stated wishes and expectations of the population:

• 1. Control over income. Good work provides fair wages and long-term financial security.

• 2. Control over work. Good work allows workers sufficient autonomy to make the best use of their abilities and provides an inclusive and supportive social environment.

• 3. Control in life. Good work allows sufficient time and space to combine work with care responsibilities and a private life.

These three criteria are the necessary preconditions for work to be considered “good”. If they are not met, both workers and work organizations suffer, leading to social costs down the line (see Chap. 2). When work is not good, people are disinclined to stay in their jobs; they may also fall ill, which today increasingly means mental illness. Fully 17.5% of Dutch workers reported suffering from symptoms of burnout in 2018.³ By European standards, this is far from exceptional. Almost half of all sick leave in the Netherlands is work-related – the result of workplace stress, emotional exhaustion, or problems with colleagues, managers and clients (see Chap. 6). The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment estimates that unfavourable working conditions are responsible for almost 5% of the total burden of disease in the country. The result is both higher healthcare costs and lower productivity.

Good work is important not only for the well-being of workers, but for the effective functioning of companies and institutions, and for social cohesion and the economy at large. Good physical and emotional health increases workers’ productivity; committed and engaged workers means greater initiative, innovation and organizational performance.

1.1 We Could Do Better

According to recent research by the oecd⁴ and Eurofound,⁵ the Netherlands is often mid-table in international indices tracking the quality of work (see Chap. 1). This is partly because income security has declined, with 36% of Dutch workers now without permanent contracts. Opportunities for on-the-job learning have stalled, which does little to enhance security of employment over the life course (see Chap. 3). Almost half of all workers claim that they lack sufficient autonomy in the workplace, and their numbers are rising regardless of their level of education. Growing numbers are feeling perpetually rushed at work and/or that their jobs are emotionally draining. Firms and institutions in the Netherlands as they are currently organized are thus not always bringing out the best in people (see Chap. 4). A tenth of Dutch workers report an imbalance between their private and working lives (see Chap. 5).

Good work in the Netherlands is not evenly distributed, with stark differences along educational, occupational, gender, health and ethnic lines. Quality of work is thus an issue of distributive justice, one with the potential to undermine social cohesion should current trends continue (see Chap. 2). The most obvious division is level of education, which is clearly correlated to quality of work. There are also stark differences between occupations. Those suffering the most from the combination of increased workloads and a lack of control over their work includes public-sector professionals such as teachers, nurses and police officers.

Surveys of public opinion find that the Dutch have high expectations of their work: their jobs must provide income and security, cordial relationships, interesting tasks, opportunities to develop their abilities and to achieve something in life. At the same time, most do not want work to always come first and expect to have time and space for a private life as well (see Chap. 2). Although most people in the Netherlands claim to be satisfied with their work, things could clearly be much better.

1.2 Good Work is At Stake

The three macro-level trends we have addressed in this book – the automation, flexibilization and intensification of labour – clearly have the potential to affect the quality of work. They can make work good or better for some people, bad or worse for others, or have no impact at all. In some cases, they exacerbate existing divisions, such as between people with and without disabilities. In other cases, they give rise to new divisions, for instance between professions.

The introduction of new technologies such as robots and artificial intelligence can cost jobs; combined with the flexible labour market, new technological applications can push down wages. But technology can also have positive effects for workers; much depends on the efforts to support human-machine complementarity and whether workers in the face of changing tasks have opportunities to learn on the job. While technology can be used to ruthlessly monitor workers and turn them into mechanical appendages, it can also create opportunities for people to work more independently or to assist them into the workforce. Depending on how and why it is applied, technology can both improve or undermine work-life balance.

Flexible work is widespread in the Netherlands; more than a third of workers do not have a permanent contract. The consequences are becoming increasingly apparent as new dividing lines emerge. The self-employed professionals who enjoy autonomy in their working lives tend to be male, older and well-educated; the flexible, temporary workers whose income security often depends on the welfare state are more likely to be female, young and formally less educated.

The negative consequences of flexible work can be limited by welfare state arrangements as well as employer investment in workers. The self-employed in the Netherlands are largely excluded from the social-security system, denied access to everything from occupational disability benefits and labour-force reintegration schemes to training and leave. Temporary employees are generally denied meaningful say over their tasks and have limited opportunities for on-the-job learning and professional development; not knowing whether they will have a job in 6 months, they have few incentives to offer ideas on how to improve their work. Flexible workers with little control over their working hours often find that their jobs disrupt their personal lives. Workers with temporary contracts face greater difficulties building up decent lives with a home and family than employees with permanent positions.

The intensification of work can undermine the quality of work. The increasing pace of work and its emotional toll have been an issue in the Netherlands for some time, with almost 40% of workers claiming they frequently or always have to work hard and fast, and over 10% reporting that their work is emotionally draining (see Chaps. 1 and 4). Professionals in healthcare, education and the police who must deal directly with patients, clients and members of the public are affected most by the growing demands, while burnout disproportionately affects women and university graduates. The intensification of work also creates additional difficulties for people with occupational disabilities, those returning to the labour force after an absence, people with difficulties at home and those who have little control over their work (see Chap. 6). Whether the intensification of work is detrimental thus largely depends on whether workers have sufficient autonomy – freedom to shape their own activities in the workplace.

1.3 Room for Better Work

The negative scenario is not a fait accompli. Speaking at the launch of the Global Commission on the Future of Work, ilo Director-General Guy Ryder stated that “the future of work is not decided for us in advance. It is a future that we must make according to the values and the preferences that we choose as societies and through the policies that we design and implement.”⁶ In its report for the Netherlands Independent Commission on the Regulation of Work, the oecd likewise concluded: “the future of work will largely depend on the policy decisions countries make”.⁷

The Borstlap Committee⁸ in its 2019 advisory report to the Dutch government underlined that national actors can still give direction to the labour market. Despite facing similar pressures from globalization and new technologies, European countries continue to differ in their labour codes, tax regimes, and embrace of flexible work and self-employment – a product of their national institutions, histories, choices and preferences. What the labour market looks like – now and in the future – largely depends on our priorities and decisions.

1.4 Good Work for All

Knowledge and service economies rely on human capital. As the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy argued in its 2013 report Towards a Learning Economy, the Netherlands, if it wants to invest in its earning power, needs to nurture, develop and mobilize all the human capital at its disposal. Especially in light of demographic change, this means all people: young and old, male and female, healthy and unhealthy, whatever their educational attainment.

We can manage the automation, flexibilization and intensification of work in such ways that more people will have good jobs. Algorithms and robots can take over routine and disagreeable tasks while good forms of flexible labour – greater flexibility for employees and by employers – can make it easier to cope with demanding jobs or to combine work with private life.

2 More Control over Income

The Netherlands has never had so many people in work. This at least was the case on the eve of the Covid-19 crisis. But although unemployment is low by European standards, too many people remain side-lined from the labour market. Given the loosening of relationships between employers and workers and the need to invest in human capital, the Netherlands needs to renew its social-security system and reintroduce an active labour-market policy attuned to contemporary realities. This section explains how this could be done.

2.1 Prevent Unfair Competition Between Workers

The flexible labour market has become synonymous with uncertainty. Any modern economy needs a degree of flexibility which can be useful, even necessary, to cope with peaks and troughs, absences from illness and the unique requirements of specific projects. When making a film, it makes sense to hire a temporary production assistant, a freelance screenwriter and catering staff through an agency. But at primary or nursery school, parents and children need familiar faces. Employers need to offer contracts appropriate to the nature of the work.

With temporary work now so widespread in the Netherlands, it is doubtful whether the benefits still outweigh the economic and social costs (see Chap. 3). But as these costs are borne primarily by flexible workers and by society, individual firms do not include them in their cost-benefit analyses when considering whether to create permanent jobs.

Working people on different types of contract should not be competing against each other. Eliminating such competition requires regulation; a start has been made with the 2019 Work in Balance Act which raises employers’ social-insurance contributions for temporary workers and mandates transition payments after firms terminate or fail to renew a temporary contract. Higher costs for flexible work are also meant to encourage work organizations to enter into alliances to offer their employees greater security and to make permanent staff more widely deployable across a pool of organizations (see Chap. 6).

The principle of the level playing field should also apply to the self-employed. The Dutch government has proposed introducing minimum rates for freelance work and granting collective bargaining rights to the self-employed, both currently banned under competition law. The Authority for Consumers and Markets announced in 2019 that it will allow freelances to agree minimum rates between themselves and to enter into their own collective agreements.⁹ What this means in practice remains to be seen.

Freelance workers can now leverage their benefits that accrue from the tax code to compete with regular employees.Current deductions are meant to enable freelances to take out insurance against occupational disability but the windfall for employer payroll costs has unintentionally swelled the number of the self-employed (Chap. 3). The Netherlands needs a model of social security that does not encourage such unfair competition but provides security for all workers.

2.2 Develop a System of Contract-Neutral Basic Insurance and Benefits

The social-security system created in the Netherlands after the Second World War was tailored to members of the active workforce (then primarily men) either having permanent jobs or being unemployed and thus entitled to make claims on the system. This model no longer suffices. The flexibilization of the labour market means that today’s workers are more likely to have a succession of employers or clients and to juggle learning, work and care responsibilities throughout their active lives. This requires collective guarantees for all workers regardless of the type of contract they have. Social insurance and benefits need to be linked more to individual citizens and less to their form of employment or to specific agreements between employers and employees. Everyone should be minimally insured against all risks from old age to incapacity to work; on top of these standard arrangements, people would be free to take out additional insurance. Such a system would be an answer to the flexible labour market, although the government must remain alert to any new inequalities arising between people who can and cannot take out additional cover.

With a system of basic insurance and benefits, people would invest more in themselves, would dare to take risks, would be able to start families earlier and would be healthier overall (see Chaps. 2 and 3). Provisions would go beyond traditional social-security benefits – the state pension, occupational disability benefit and so on – to include allowances for care, education, on-the-job learning and other combinations of education and work. Investment in personal and professional development is essential to any modern, universal system of social security. Working people must adapt to changes in the labour market and must be supported to do so.

It is in the public interest that everyone takes part in this new contract-neutral form of social security. Like employees with permanent contracts, the self-employed and flexible workers would be entitled to basic security and benefits, with the choice to insure themselves more comprehensively. There are many reasons why everyone needs to participate. It is impossible to predict whether freelancers doing booming business now will still be so lucky 10 years from now, or whether they will have enough of a cushion by then to support themselves in case of a setback. The Corona crisis offers a clear illustration. The self-employed are hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns. The course of a life rarely runs entirely to plan; a divorce or disability can quickly cause wealth to evaporate.

If self-employed individuals were free to opt out, unfair competition could persist. Those most likely to opt out would be self-employed professionals with high incomes and low occupational risks who have the least to gain from such a collective system. Allowing them to opt out would drive up premiums, raise the question of why only the self-employed can do so, and undermine public support for the system. The self-employed worry about both the consequences of occupational disability and the costs of compulsory insurance; any new system must be attractive for them. If everyone participates, economies of scale will keep the costs in check (see Chap. 3).

The post-war welfare state is no longer adequate for today’s world of work. What is needed is a modern system of risk-sharing and protection for all categories of workers. This means that the responsibilities placed on employers, working people and the collective need to be reallocated. Some responsibilities such as paying for parental and care leave are more appropriately borne by the public purse. In other cases, employers should have more responsibility: who for instance is better placed to ensure that workers are adequately supported to reintegrate after long-term illness or have the time and resources for professional development? Employers should be less responsible for matters more logically arranged collectively, and more responsible for matters directly related to work.

2.3 Update Active Labour-Market Policy

The changing labour market is side-lining vulnerable workers. To improve income security, more needs to be invested in guiding people into work and from one job to another. Given current demographic projections and the predicted structural shortages of labour, any exclusion of people who can and want to work (more) must be combatted. This requires a renaissance of active labour-market policy (see Chap. 6).

First, guidance to job seekers needs to be more individually tailored. While financial incentives may suffice for those who are already employable, they are largely ineffective for people who have genuine difficulties finding work. Regardless of the benefits they receive, people without work need more opportunities for serious training. The long-term unemployed need more intensive personal coaching, which currently often takes place in a vacuum without enough attention to serious language training or healthcare. Guidance also needs to continue after the entitlement to benefits ends.

Second, getting as many people into work as possible requires intervening in the supply of jobs. While many jobs have been created in recent decades, many unemployed individuals do not fit the vacancies, and this cannot always be remedied through the right training or better matching. The intensification of work, which has pushed some people out of the labour force (see Chap. 6), requires investment in new approaches that transcend traditional supply and demand thinking. Work organizations can create tailor-made jobs – technology-assisted positions in which robots or other digital aids help integrate individuals into the workplace. Another promising approach is Individual Placement and Support (see Box 6.5), which focuses on both the individual and the workplace and involves continuous supervision from employers, managers and colleagues. Employers need certainty when hiring; they too need to be supported through clear guidance and simpler long-term financial compensation packages. To combat revolving-door unemployment, it is reasonable to make state support conditional on companies entering into long-term commitments rather than only offering temporary contracts.

Third, employers and the government should be more pro-active in helping people remain in work and, when necessary, to switch to new work. Workers must anticipate changes arising from new technologies; employers should help them through perpetual on-the-job training and retraining. The Employee Insurance Agency and local authorities should get involved earlier when people are at risk of unemployment or burnout, rather than – as currently – waiting until they have to pay out benefits.

Finally, active labour-market policies need adequate funding. The Dutch economy has the downside that it excludes those unable to satisfy its exacting requirements. Funding for active labour-market policies have been steadily declining over the past decades; far more should be allocated than the 0.7% of gdp spent in 2016. Denmark, for example, devotes 2% of its gdp to active labour-market policies (see Chap. 6).

2.4 Good Basic Jobs for People on Benefits with Few Opportunities

As work is vital to human well-being, the default safety net should not be benefits but the right to a basic job. Creating these jobs is the final element in the approach we propose so that all those currently “distanced” from the labour market can find a way into work. A wage imparts self-esteem and feelings of belonging to society much more than benefits ever can (see Chap. 2). Work is so important psychologically and socially that people who can work should no longer be side-lined with payments for doing nothing.

Local governments in the Netherlands, including those in The Hague and Amsterdam, have been creating basic jobs for some time. Similar schemes exist in Sweden and Germany, while debate over comparable forms of work creation has reappeared in other European countries such as Belgium and the uk. Basic jobs must offer vulnerable people the security they lack in the regular labour market and protect them from the “permanently temporary” employment trap. This means continuity and permanent contracts. People entering or re-entering the labour force after long periods on benefits typically need support in multiple areas of their lives. Basic jobs are not necessarily designed as paths into regular work. The framework for assessing their success should also consider other goals such as social contact, a sense of belonging, gains in health and self-esteem.

The ultimate question is what value society places on everyone being able to have better work. It will probably be necessary to rely on the public purse to keep some people working. While basic jobs may eventually pay for themselves through lower costs for healthcare and social security, they are, first and foremost, meant to contribute towards our well-being.

3 More Control Over Work

Ensuring that people gain greater control over their work is an often-neglected aspect of good work. Greater commitment is required from all sides to take advantage of the opportunities for innovation and productivity opened up by new technologies (see Sect. 7.3). At present, the responsibility for adjusting to change largely falls on individual workers. But better work requires companies and institutions to change as well, to organize work and allocate powers and responsibilities in different ways. This section explains how this could be done.

3.1 Develop a Programmatic Approach to Good Work

To realize the economic potential of emerging technologies, innovations in the workplace must complement innovations in technology. Better collaboration between workers – and between humans and machines – will lead to better work as well as productivity, which in the Netherlands has been stagnating.

This programmatic approach encompassing workers, technology, training and care will require coordination between multiple government ministries: the Ministries of Finance; Social Affairs and Employment; Economic Affairs; Education, Culture and Science; and Health, Welfare and Sport. Promoting good work will require all kinds of “soft regulation”: publicity campaigns, setting goals and standards, establishing frameworks, making recommendations, disseminating information about best practices, education and training for managers and staff, accessible advice for employers and employees, benchmarking, making binding agreements (good work codes) initially on a voluntary basis, subsidizing companies to hire external expertise, and so on. The government, employers’ associations and trade unions also need to pressure employers to report annually on the quality of work they offer, and what they are doing to improve it (see Sect. 7.3).¹⁰

Good work organizations are the key to improving the quality of work. Trade unions and employers need to focus more on social innovation in the workplace – on structuring work organizations in a way that brings out the best in people. In an economy that depends on “human capital”, this is in everyone’s interest. As companies and institutions come in all shapes and sizes, a programmatic approach to good work will have to be multifaceted, mobilizing professional organizations, academic institutions, industry bodies, local authorities and so on. Companies and institutions without the capacity and expertise to choose or develop suitable applications of technology should be able to turn to experts for help.

Any programmatic approach to better work must focus on creating “work communities” that support employee engagement. The introduction of robots, cobots and AI into the workplace makes collaboration, problem-solving, asking questions and other human skills all the more important. While this may make work more interesting, these are also the aspects of work that are the most psychologically demanding. As routine tasks are automated, it is important to guard against cognitive or mental exhaustion as the job now only consists of intensive duties.¹¹ Here again, it is important to have access to labour experts and other specialists who can help design new jobs and keep work functions practicable.

Because contemporary jobs can be subject to numerous far-reaching changes, it is important not to wait until they disappear before offering workers opportunities for professional development, training and retraining. The Netherlands’ recently instituted individual learning rights do not go far enough as those most in need of further training are often the least likely to receive it (see Chap. 3). Both formal and informal on-the-job learning opportunities need to be better integrated within work organizations than is currently the case.

Initiatives in other countries can serve as inspiration. Finland formulated its own vision of good work early on: to have “the best working life in Europe in 2020, with the highest labour productivity and the greatest joy at work”.¹² The Finnish Centre for the Advancement of Technology – now Business Finland – has been supporting socially innovative firms since 1983. In Belgium, the Social and Economic Council of Flanders has taken the lead in promoting good work.¹³ With employers’ associations and trade unions worried about intensifying work, the council launched a “feasibility index” to guide policy. A 2016 study found that “psychological fatigue”, “well-being at work” and “work-life balance” had deteriorated since 2013; only “learning opportunities” were meeting expectations. The regional government and its partners agreed on a plan to turn the tide, focused on the “innovative work organization” (see also Box 2.6).

3.2 Strengthen the Position of Workers

Working people can shape and enforce better work. The more say workers have in their company’s employment practices, the more likely they will have meaningful control over their work. The position of workers within companies, in collective bargaining and in corporate governance needs to be strengthened (see Chap. 4). One way is to strengthen the position of the trade unions in the collective-bargaining process. Good worker representation and organization is ultimately in employers’ interests, as is recognized by the Dutch employers’ association awvn.

Workers can also gain power within structures of governance. Highly visible initiatives in France, the United States and the United Kingdom have sought to reserve more places on company boards for staff or trade union representatives (see Chap. 4). Such possibilities already exist in the Netherlands. The staff councils of firms of a certain size have an “enhanced right of recommendation” in one-third of appointments to the supervisory (non-executive) board; better use of this prerogative could be made in practice. As investors have recently amassed sway over corporate decision-making, the idea is to restore the balance between the interests of different stakeholders, with greater weight for the interests of workers.

Existing legal frameworks, such as the Staff Councils Act, should facilitate better work for all workers, including those on temporary contracts and the self-employed. Staff councils have a broad range of statutory duties including the exercise of advisory rights in reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions and a right of consent when decisions concern the quality of work. Their broad remit requires that staff councils be sufficiently resourced.

Finally, greater support should be given to existing and new forms of business and organization in which workers themselves hold the reins. These include self-organizing platforms for gig workers, freelance work communities, firms in which employees share in the profits and decision-making, social enterprises and co-operatives. Supporting such initiatives – particularly when they encounter legal or fiscal hurdles – will give workers more opportunities to shape better work for themselves.

4 More Control in Life

Workers need to be able to look after their children, while the ageing population means that parents and partners in need of care are becoming more common. The world of work is going to have to pay more attention to the world at home. Dutch policies have largely focused on the right to work part-time – an important criterion for good work. But working part-time must be a real choice, not a compulsion due to full-time jobs being unavailable or too demanding, or due to the lack of quality childcare or elderly care. Work-life balance in the Netherlands is still largely seen as a private matter which people must arrange for themselves. Given the coming structural shortage of labour, the country must invest in making work and care responsibilities easier to combine. This section explains how this could be done.

4.1 Invest in Good Care Facilities for Children and the Elderly

The Netherlands is caught in a “part-time trap” with care for young children and the elderly organized to facilitate part-time work. If the number of hours people work is to be a genuine choice, the government must invest in affordable, quality childcare accessible to all. While it has been known since the 1990s that early-years childcare is at least as important for child development as school, the quality of Dutch childcare is still not up to standard. It is expensive, especially for middle-income earners; the personnel are often poorly qualified and there is high staff turnover. Quality, development-oriented public childcare would help parents who want to work longer hours.¹⁴

There is an ever-greater need for accessible, quality care for the elderly and the chronically ill. Particularly in light of the ageing population, it is essential that the policy emphasis on informal care-giving does not come at the expense of professional care in the home. More and more working people are looking after partners or parents on a regular basis. If especially those with full-time positions are to remain working, the government will have to invest in social-care infrastructure that includes support for working informal care-givers so that their work is not adversely affected by the situation at home.

4.2 Make More Working Hours Easier to Secure

People sometimes work part-time because their jobs are so mentally or physically exhausting that a full-time position would leave them drained. Some employers such as homecare providers, cleaning firms and distribution centres no longer offer full-time work. Other workers, especially people with occupational disabilities, are denied extra hours even when they are keen to work them (see Chaps. 5 and 6). While the 2016 Flexible Working Act stipulates that workers can ask their employer for more as well as fewer hours, the right to work more is overshadowed both in policy and legal enforcement by the right to work less. Increasing one’s formal hours should be made easier, not least as it can signal that a person is regularly working excessive overtime or that an employer is unnecessarily creating new part-time jobs when it has staff who would like to work more. The collective agreement for the disabled care sector stipulates that employers are obliged to offer their employees a contract with extended hours if, on average, they have worked in excess of 10% more than their agreed hours during the previous 12 months.¹⁵ In general, work should be organized, arranged and supported in such a way that it can be undertaken on a full-time basis.

4.3 Provide Long-Term Paid Care Leave

People need financial certainty and control over their working lives to take care of ailing parents, young children or sick partners. Their numbers will only increase in the future. Working people today generally have other responsibilities – sometimes a range of more or less permanent, often unpredictable, care obligations (see Chap. 6). The Dutch solution – encouraging part-time work – means that informal care-givers do so on their own account. This means that those who work part-time and care for a chronically ill partner are at high risk of poverty. Long-term paid leave is part of the social-care infrastructure needed to ensure a future of better work.

If everyone is to have a chance to care for their loved ones, collectively-funded long-term paid leave arrangements are essential – certainly for new parents and informal care-givers. Here the Netherlands lags behind many other European countries (see Chap. 5). In Germany the period of government-funded parental leave is 14 months, which the parents can divide between them. In Sweden it is 16 months, with the government paying a basic allowance, topped up by employers. In both Sweden and Germany, the labour-force participation rate is at least as high as in the Netherlands. While arrangements for paid informal care leave across Europe leave much to be desired, the ageing workforce means they will soon be as necessary as parental leave.

Such collective schemes should be open to the self-employed, as they are in Sweden. At present, the self-employed in the Netherlands find it almost impossible to access provisions of this kind. Employers’ organizations and trade unions need to negotiate more comprehensive arrangements for care in their collective agreements, including allowances for informal care-giving. Flexibility at work, including flexibility in working hours, is crucial to allow caring for sick parents or partners.¹⁶ Fewer people doing more work in the future will only be possible if jobs are better tailored to workers’ care-giving needs.

4.4 Provide More Control Over Working Hours

Employers are increasingly asking their staff to be flexible at work. New technologies often make these requests seem natural. Many employees work overtime, voluntarily or otherwise, because they cannot complete their tasks within the allotted time (see Chap. 6). Others are answering work e-mails from home, late at night after the children have gone to bed. Employers need to ensure that they allow their staff to lead uninterrupted private lives. Control over one’s working hours is crucial, and the blurring of the boundaries between work and private life can keep employees from recovering properly. In the interests of both the work organization and workers’ health, it is essential that overtime be limited and that a clear line be drawn between work and personal life. This line should be made clear in employment contracts and collective agreements,¹⁷ especially for workers who lack individual bargaining power. The new collective agreement for the disability care sector stipulates that workers are entitled to be unreachable on their days off.¹⁸

5 Better Work as an Objective of Public Policy

Over the past century, the Dutch state has been involved in every period of major technological change by enacting legislation on social security and working conditions and by subsidizing research and small and medium enterprises.¹⁹ This remains the case today. In the final analysis, the government – as legislator, enforcer, funding body and employer – has a responsibility to promote better work (see Sect. 7.3). Coordinated action by national and local authorities is necessary to ensure that good work becomes possible for everyone, including those currently on the margins of the labour market.

The government must keep good work high on the public policy agenda. By doing so, it will set a benchmark for the rest of society. An obvious first step would be to include progress towards better work in the national Monitor of Well-Being, published each year since 2018 on Accountability Day when the national government and its ministries present their annual reports to Parliament. Figure 5.5 shows how this data could be transparently presented. In the accountability debate in the House of Representatives in 2019, Prime Minister Mark Rutte promised that his Cabinet would “explore whether the Monitor could be more extensively used during the policy cycle itself”.²⁰ Coverage of the three dimensions of good work – income security, control over work, and work-life balance – in the Monitor of Well-Being would ensure that good work for everyone receives the attention it deserves from policymakers and stakeholders.

The government is needed to enforce labour-market legislation and regulations (see Chap. 4). While the Social Affairs and Employment Inspectorate has previously focused on wage payments and compliance with flexible work regulations, the broader pursuit of good work requires a more intensive, wide-ranging role for regulatory and enforcement bodies. At present, the inspectorate still focuses mainly on physical working conditions and the observance of health and safety regulations,²¹ and pays scant attention to issues such as control over work and psychosocial complaints. Although the existing legislation on working conditions provides a starting point, it merits review for how the law could be modernised to better protect income security, workplace autonomy and work-life balance. As with the renewal of the social-security system and active labour-market policies, consideration should be given to how inspections and regulation can help improve the quality of work.

5.1 The Government Spends Public Money and Is an Employer

The government spends large sums of public money which it can use to indirectly support better work. What is the point of the government imposing temporary contracts on its security, cleaning and catering staff? The government does not close buildings or canteens overnight, or stop cleaning and guarding them. So why does it employ people on terms that imply it might?

When awarding contracts, the government can encourage or oblige suppliers to employ members of vulnerable groups. Sustainable or socially responsible procurement means attention not only to the price of goods and services, but to how their purchase affects society and the environment. The government can set an example by demanding that tenders be competitive not only in price, but in quality of work.

As an employer in its own right, the government should set an example in its personnel policies. Especially public-sector workers in education, the police, healthcare and social care combine relatively low pay with ballooning workloads and diminishing workplace autonomy (see Chap. 3). From general practitioners to primary-school teachers, university staff to homecare workers, many are struggling with symptoms of burnout (see Chap. 4). And it is not only the employees who are affected: the services and amenities they deliver are vital to us all. Publicly financed work needs to be valued, organized and funded differently, placing greater trust in workers and their collaborative abilities. The government should be the first to start using the programmatic approach proposed above to improve the quality of work for public-sector professionals.

5.2 Finally: Better Work Is everyone’s Concern

Providing good work for all is a social mission for everyone. While new technologies, flexible labour markets and the intensification of work threaten to undermine the quality of work, they also have the potential to create better work and enhance our well-being as workers and citizens. Employers, governments, industry organizations, trade unions and even individual citizens as workers, colleagues and consumers all have a role to play.

In this book we have analysed what good work is and why it is important, where the Netherlands currently stands and how improvements can be made. We hope that policymakers, researchers, employers, trade unionists and ordinary citizens everywhere may draw inspiration from this analysis.