 Welcome to chapter eight in this chapter. We will talk about decent work It's part of part four and it's the only chapter in part four of the book and It's the first part of the book where we actually talk about outcomes for employees Which is a bit weird if you think about it And since the entire book is about human resource management, so it's about people but in the previous chapters It was always about employee motivation employee productivity employee, you know characteristics that organizations need and need to take into account In this final chapter, I will pay attention purely to the outcomes of human resource management for people's lives So decent work After this clip you will understand why a separate section on the workers perspective is needed and What human resource management can do to bring about a good quality life for people But also how human resource management can sometimes harm individuals. I Will explain what decent work is and why we could perceive it as the minimum standard of good quality work I will also show some research evidence for the dimensions of Decent work and I will also raise the debate whether decent work is actually a theory or a policy So let's have a look at the outcomes for employees So what makes life good? What is the quality of life if you ask the word health work if you ask the world health organization? They will say that a good quality of life constitutes of being healthy so feeling well no diseases of having a Good social network being happy with your family and friends having time to enjoy them And finally to feel mentally well, so feel happy in general Individuals are perfectly capable to indicate how they perceive their Stand on the ladder when it comes to quality of life So the picture you see here is part of the World Health Organization's questionnaire Investigating how people rate their quality of life when it comes to their own health Social well-being and psychological well-being so are they live living at this moment? the worst possible life or the best possible life and Of course, you can try to understand With statistics which people are relatively better off So who perceive the who are the people who perceive their lives to be relatively good And who are the people who perceive their lives to be really bad and? Bottom line that brings to us to a view like this So it's called a systems model that means that your quality of life depends on where you live in the world Depends on your demographic characteristics depends on your country's environment and A lot of things that close or buy also impacts within countries within the system how you How you feel how you score on the definitions of physical mental and relational or social health? As you can see family and friends are important your community is important your education Whether or not you're part of a legit religious community and work Work is one of the things here But if you look at it at it in a closer way You will realize that work actually will impact all of the other domains as well For example if you have a job that forces you to work over 60 hours a week how much time will be left for family and friends So work is one of the things that is really essential in the realization for a good quality of life for individuals So work is a central part of our lives And I have a few examples of authors and literature that Explockates how important work actually is I like this one by William Faulkner noble prize-winning author and He claims that one of the saddest saddest things is that the only thing men can do for eight hours a day Day after day is work. You can't eat for eight hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day Nor make love for eight hours a day. All you can do for eight hours a day is work Which is the reason why men makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy So this quote kind of already demonstrates that there is Maybe joy, but also a lot of frustration in work that is maybe detrimental to the quality of life another example that Provides an example of why work can be devastating so I picked this one is a poem from a collection of worker poems from Workers in Chinese factories. So these are people that lived on the countryside before and they moved to these big cities to work in Factories making long hours The being really like a commodity rather than a person This poem they'll read in a second is a suicide note It's of this Li Xiuying and he is He came from the countryside to a big Chinese city with the dream to do something with literature to to be in the library so But he didn't find any time to work on his career and his ambitions and he felt more and more depressed and it ended in in his suicide so the poem is clear about The about this condition and it's related to work. So it reads I swallowed an iron moon. They called it a screw I swallowed industrial wastewater and unemployment forms bent over machines our youth died young I Swallowed labor I swallowed poverty swallowed pedestrian bridges swallowed this rusted out life. I can't swallow anymore Everything I've swallowed rolls up in my throat. I spread across my country a poem of shame This is what work can do. I'm going to end in a more positive note Work can also be a source of joy. So this saying is contributed to Confucius It's hard to verify if it's true, but there are many sources on the internet that say it's a quote by Confucius Who claims to have said if you choose a job you love you'll find that you will never have to work a single day of your life So there are two ends of the extreme illustrating what work can do to individuals it can be a source of Unhappiness and it can be a source of happiness so it can be both Not to humor resource management. What can humor resource management do to make? the employee outcomes a little bit more positive than the suicide note side What we can distinguish in humor resource management is the so-called high road the low road and I'm going to make a plea for the decent road The high road is the road where everybody is Extremely happy you do a job that you love you never need to work a single life and humor resource Management has 100% facilitated that The low road these are the examples of of exploitation It's the picture you see here is child labor and this kid should go to school, right? So in a little bit more detail the two extremes when it comes to humor resource management on the one hand Investing in employees make sure that works provide social relations that you can make friends That there's room for personal growth and development that you can work on your strengths and that you can do the things you like That you have decision-leditude that you can organize your own work and that you can do the things that you're good at In those kind of humor resource management systems work will bring engagements They will bring motivation and they will bring well-being to employees in the low roads. This is characterized by employer Using people as means to make production In the low road there are no investments in people low wages and the work provides nothing except for a very precarious work conditions very long hours Unsafe conditions the safety as you could see in the picture before No regard for the well-being of or the health of employees and for sure the pay is also not good In this case work on can lead to exploitation and exploited people. They are There they are exhausted they don't have the Power to get out of this situation anymore, which includes a load of health risks So these two extremes You could read from the HRM literature the question is are all Employers capable of offering this high road and making sure that there's this wonderful environment where everybody's nice and that you can combine work and private life Well, the answers probably no unfortunately, but we need to set To mark somewhere between this high and this low road and one attempt there is to mark the decent road So what is the least? Organization should do to ensure that their workers have a decent life. So a decent quality of life The decent road is characterized by the following decent jobs are those that provide men and women with opportunities to obtain work that allows earning a decent income Under conditions of freedom equity security and human dignity so these words I will explicate them a little bit later, but it means that there is Your values for who you are You can go Leave the job if you like you are treated like the others. There is a safe environment And you're treated with human dignity. So you're another means but the organization values you as a person Decent work is seen as the minimal standard for work conditions that allow a good quality life And it's not something that we just invented here. It's actually something that is promoted by the United Nations so if you know the sustainable development goals and then the eight one of that is called decent work and economic growth And it says literally to promote the inclusive and sustainable Economic growth Employment and decent work for all. So there's a strong belief that when Countries across the globe Invest in decent work for their population for their working population that will eventually Bring benefit to countries as well So why why does decent mark a decent work and economic growth method the claim of the United Nations is the following Sustained and inclusive economic growth can drive progress create decent jobs for all and improve living standards So there they see this clear connection between offering decent jobs and the quality of work The ILO the international labor organization Acknowledges this and sees it as a way out of poverty So full and productive Employment and decent work for all including women and young people is the most effective route out of poverty the good thing for human research management is it is that it kind of gives you a A route map how to address these minimal standards You by taking a worker a worker centered perspective So what I will do in the next slide is Explicated what the what decent work is which dimensions there are and which one are under the under the influence of an organization and which one are maybe More under the influence phase of a society So decent work who is responsible there are two key actors who can Contribute to decent work and these are the ones that oversee work. So at the highest level The state has a role So especially when it comes to availability of decent work the regulations Social security a national Negotiations with with representatives of workers. This is something that should be organized at the national level However, at the organization on the job level, there are responsibilities from managers who can look after the quality of work conditions Let me dive into those two Levels So at the national level First and foremost the opportunities to work. So is it possible for everybody who wants to work to obtain work? This is to do with the labor market policies at making sure that people with a distance for the tour label market, for example are Promoted that's employed that they become attractive for employers It has to do with with combating youth unemployment. So opportunities for work The second one basic human rights. This has to do with following up labor laws So abolish all the work that has been objected in International conventions on basic human rights. What does it mean fight slavery? Make sure that people are not kept at their jobs by taking away their passports. It sounds really like a far away nightmare But we are aware that these kind of conditions also in Modern Western countries still exist. So fight those The third dimension is social security. What happens if somebody turns ill when the main Income provider of a family turns sick so which regulations does a country have to Protect workers against different contingencies of life such as the old age pensions Disability the death of the breadwinner and and also unemployment. So these things are not human resource management. These things are They need management so to speak but then on a higher level on a state level or even maybe on a European level So just a few examples to Illustrate how important these things are So the every caste still suffering from a huge youth unemployment and also This is is mentioned as one of the reasons why there are still so many conflicts and societal Tensions happening The example in the right upper corner about social security What happens if you if you if you turn ill if you become disabled for some reason So do you still have an income? Can you still work? And also the reports of course for Especially migrants. They are a particularly vulnerable group when it comes to This disease terrible work conditions and slavery so reports from the Middle East about slave camps in Libya they are known and it's very difficult to combat This is on the state level. Let's turn to the company level So at the company level there are Five dimensions of decent work where human resource management can create a Good quality life for employees. So We have productive work equity and work dignity at work Security at work and the social dialogue and explain briefly what these of these are and you can also read in the book So productive work means that you have a job that provides you with sufficient income to live a decent life. So if you your job provides you with an income Which is insufficient for example to pay the rent or to You know to buy the food then your work is not productive and then it's not a decent job there are instances Where people have to combine multiple small jobs in order to have a sufficient income in the perspective of a decent work agenda These are undesirable jobs. So part-time working is Only okay When it is it when it still leads to sufficient income to two workers Equity in work has to do to do with discrimination So we discussed this in in chapter 7 when we talked about the first diversity and inclusion So basically everything there make sure that people feel included and not excluded Dignity at work means that the employer acknowledges that Employees have a life outside work and that they have time to enjoy that life and that they have The opportunity to sometimes be a little bit flexible about the working times for example to To take care of a sick child Security at work has to do with safety So organizations need to make sure that the work environment is safe and finally social dialogue means that Employers should organize that employees have a voice in the organization So this refers back to chapter 6 where we talked about the power of workers This is recognized as one of the conditions for a decent work environment so to come back to The decent work and quality of life from the highest level for so the national what what can countries do There's a lot of research evidence why this is important As we know from research as being unemployed leads to definitely a lower quality of life It is we reported that people feel That they have less value that they have all kind of mental problem. They develop mental problems and Being unemployed is also shown to relate to more unhealthy behaviors the basic human rights there's of course is very difficult to do research to into really These people are trafficked for for sex work for example for Work be used as slaves really difficult to to research populations But we know that these people are extremely vulnerable and that it leads to all kind of mental health issues apart from from people who have been abused of course can also have a physical problems Social security is or it was obvious that During the COVID-19 pandemic those countries who had a social security system that helped People to survive when everything was in a lockdown they performed better eventually than countries that who did not have so so having some social security is really important to to keep a Good level of national stability There is also plenty research evidence for the Quality of work dimensions that happen in organizations So for productive work Equality and work dignity at work security at work and social dialogue We have abundant evidence that all of these are important to employee well-being. I Refer to the book to have a closer look at these So finally, what do we know? What this is recent work agenda? We know that decent work and the dimensions based on scientific evidence Is important for the quality of life? So we know that the dimensions of decent work are valuable. They are well-chosen. I Want to make one important note? It's not a theory as such So it has it is the outcome of a long debate across countries between countries So you can imagine there's a lot of politics and policymaking and debate involved in the definition of all that of the dimensions so For sure. Yes, it's informed by theories and there's plenty evidence and of course there are moral considerations Why the decent work agenda is important? But remember it is Not a theory what we need to understand why The dimensions are important We need to use additional theories and these theories have informed a decent work agenda and in the next clips I will talk about stress theory and I'll also talk about the moral perspectives of work that also Are part of the decent work agenda? So we are the at the end of the clip so by now, you know why work matters for the quality of life of individuals and That's human research management can have multiple forms and it can be exploitative and it can be ugly United Nations are promoting decent work to advance quality of life work will work and They use the vehicle of decent work as the minimum standard of work that allows for a decent life There are eight dimensions Which of its three more referred to a national systems national policies policies and five Directly relate to human research management and organizations There's an abundance of research evidence that these dimensions bring better quality of life. However Remember decent work is a policy framework and it's not a theory as such. Thank you