By Aerolito research team.

How will we work in the future?

This question frequently comes up in the discussion spaces we occupy and seems to be fundamental. Urgent, even, given the moment we live in. However, many of the answers to it end up being simplistic, binary. Remote x In-person. Platform x Traditional Model. Flexible Schedules x Rigid Schedules. Here we want to take the conversation to other places, perhaps less concerned with providing answers and more committed to looking to the future.

After all, futures are not just in the field of there, they also exist in here. We say this because futures impact our actions today, whether through assumption or planning, fear or enthusiasm, expectation or even the lack thereof. Undeniably, we all have feelings about futures that end up affecting our actions in the present, which, in turn, impact the construction of those futures. Therefore, it is necessary to think about futures from their contexts, even if we decide to break with what exists and create something entirely new or reinforce — and even rescue — the practices we believe in, so that they remain in the future. We can only do this from a reference point: the context in which we are inserted. Through it we can understand where we want to get to and from it we can follow possible paths.

The same thing happens when we think about ourselves futures of work, to reach the future we need to start from somewhere and this text will be the starting point. At first, we will look at the work itself and understand what we are talking about when we talk about this topic. The objective here is to lay the foundations that will help us envision futures.

Our starting point: what, after all, is work?

Working is the act of transforming. It is important to understand that there is no value judgment in this statement, when talking about transformation we are not referring to a life purpose, to an inner transformation arising from the meanings and values that are constantly added to the work. The meaning is less glamorous (and less motivational), it concerns understanding work in its reciprocal influence: the act of working modifies the environment in which we are inserted and, in the same way, we are modified by this environment. Every worker ends up modifying a part of reality and, at the same time, changes based on it, it is a reciprocal act.

The bus driver who daily carries people between different parts of the city not only transforms the urban environment, but also transforms himself by realizing the different (and often harsh) realities of the people he transports. The company's social media, by communicating and establishing relationships on social platforms, transforms society's perception in relation to the brand it works for, at the same time as it transforms itself by understanding the subtext of its operations and the role that such technologies have in maintaining, building and, why not, destruction of reputations.

We attribute meanings and are signified through work. Following this logic, we can say that work is part of culture, after all, culture, in a tweet, can be defined as the symbolic and material field of human activities. Thus, when we talk about work, we are undoubtedly talking about culture and, consequently, about the current production model: capitalism.

We say this because, it is only through this triad — work / culture / capitalism — that it is possible to propose a definition for the work and this definition will help us reflect on the futures we envision.

By definition, work can be understood as: exclusively human action, use value generator, builder of subjectivity it's from social relationships.

Let's do it by steps:

1. Exclusively human action: no matter how much living beings produce, human beings work in a universal way, not only out of necessity, but also because the work they perform means meaning. It is important to say that giving meaning is not related to having a purpose in life, the point is that for us, humans, at the end of the work process we seek a result that existed in our imagination from the beginning, and therefore ideally. Hence the meaning.
   
   Even so, as we well know, the organization of the production system led to a rupture between the subjective meaning and the objective meaning of the result of work and, consequently, of the entire work process: which defined a meaning completely unrelated to what should be conferred by the subject who produced it.
   
2. Use value generator: from our workforce we generate and add value to the things we produce.
   
3. Builder of subjectivity: work undeniably plays a visceral role in our identity. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, when asking this question we expect an answer related to work and profession, even if this is a question about what the person wants to be. This logic probably remains, when you introduce yourself or talk about yourself, you mention your profession, because it means us. There are so many connections between identity and work that we construct part of our subjectivity, our social world, based on work relationships.
   
4. Social relationship builder: as stated, labor relations were constructed by and, at the same time, construct the current mode of production. Capitalism, which, more than an economic system, constitutes itself as a cultural ethos, generates values that guide and organize people’s lives. And one of these values, without a doubt, is work.
   

In short: work means us as individuals and socially, but at the same time, in the capitalist situation, work becomes alien to ourselves. So often, for us, the inner motivation of our work — our desires and, consequently, their meaning — are radically transformed and emptied. Work becomes devoid of subjectivity and, with it, a significant part of our own identity disappears. O fatigue experienced by many in relation to work, even when they love him, highlights this.

Here are some questions, which will not be answered now, but which serve as input for us to reflect on the futures we desire:

How does work still express a considerable part of our identity? Our identity is multifaceted and, as seen, work is an important part of this construction, is this why we commonly connect who we are and our value with our productivity? Understanding that, in many cases, working is survival, is there, in fact, a direct relationship between personal satisfaction and work? Furthermore, do we need to have personal satisfaction at work? Or can we leave satisfactions to other areas of life? Even though many have the privilege of satisfying each other professionally, what are the limits of this relationship? What values is the work linked to? Are these values changing? Do we have control over these changes?

The present: understanding work in the time we occupy

A study conducted by Aberje showed that 52% of Brazilian workers suffer from anxiety while at work. The same survey showed that 47% said they felt tired frequently, of this number, 22% claimed that discouragement and frustration contribute to exhaustion. Of the total number of workers interviewed, 89% consider the lack of empathy within companies to be a problem that deserves more attention.

Christian Dunker, psychoanalyst and intellectual on the transformations of life at work, in his latest texts It is interviews talks about how most companies have been managing the suffering of workers in favor of productivity, that is, they extract more performance through the suffering of these workers.

How does this happen? Dunker states that we started to see work almost as a game. Where you lose or win, they become structural logics of strength at work, as if having one thing compensated for the lack of the other and vice versa: whether when very low salaries are offered and illusoryly compensated by an emotional salary; or when salaries are high, but with them comes a hostile and abusive work environment; Furthermore, many of us find ourselves in a state of alert, trying to prove ourselves so that we don't get fired, but the rules of this game are not always clear, which generates fear and uncertainty.

Even if the problem lies in the logic as a whole, you have probably already experienced the following situation: you were given more work than you could do in your working time, even though you already knew it, you worked excessively to deliver it and, finally, You felt guilty about working too much or not being as productive as you wanted. According to Dunker, this is a movement of predation. This constant uncertainty generated by the companies' own logic puts us on alert, makes us produce and when exhausted we feel guilty. It is important to say that we are not saying that this is a conscious movement planned by companies, but that, although unconscious, it actually happens and, unfortunately, we have become accustomed to this reality.

There is a naturalization — and, in some cases, romanticization — of production during illness. In this context, coupled with the distancing of subjectivities, discussions about purpose no longer seem to fit. As stated in Aberje's research, we see an increase in people who are discredited and looking for other paths.

We can use a working model that works as an example to explain what we are talking about: the platform model.

At one point, the platform model proved to be a possible alternative to the reality in which we live. The possibility of managing your own work, organizing your schedule in the most convenient way, being able to decide how and when to work, seemed to be a path to freedom and autonomy for the worker himself. It turns out that this story didn't end there.

In fact, on the one hand, digital platforms are an opportunity to generate income and access the job market with greater autonomy, on the other, the platformization of work is, for many, synonymous with precariousness.

We bring this example because, yes, although it may seem contradictory, different work models can be precarious or sustainable, provided or devoid of meaning, sustainable and fair platformed work is possible, just as precarious platformed work exists. An example of this can be the Brazilian company AppJusto, analyzed and interviewed by the Aerolito team. And she is not alone in this movement. The English startup Collective Benefits and the Brazilian Trampay represent a movement to provide labor benefits to those operating in the platform economy.

Whether improving the current system or creating a new one, it is essential to think about alternatives.

What other alternative paths can we think of for this reality? What new work models can meet the needs of workers and, at the same time, strategically meet the needs of companies?

This text proposes to be the starting point, not the arrival point. So that, based on the uncertain present we live in, added to the recent precariousness, we can speculate on the future of work and search for new directions.

Transformations in work models are constant, different paths can be taken when we talk about futures and it is these futures that we will talk about in the next texts in this series.

And for you, how can we reimagine the futures of work?

Follow the continuations of this exploration over the next few weeks.

Article originally published on the blog Aerolite