pubTalk: Where research meets practice. A blog produced by the Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center.
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Greetings! My name is Bjorn Arneson. Throughout this academic year, I'll be serving as a research assistant in the Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center and assisting in the delivery of a couple public affairs courses. In addition to that, however, I'm working to complete my own degree program in public and nonprofit leadership and management.
To that end, I am currently taking three courses that address "work" from three different angles: Labor Economics (APEC 5511), Strategic Human Resource Management (PA 5104), and Sociology of Time: Age, Work, and the Gendered Life Course (SOC 8590). I am quite interested to see how these three perspectives on labor and work interact with each other and am eager to apply material learned in one course to the other two.
Prior to enrolling at Humphrey, my working experience has been in very small (<8 employees) music-related nonprofits. Our working rhythms were very seasonal, and I'd hardly describe either of them as "typical" 9-5 jobs. In some ways, this rhythm was liberating; in other ways, infuriating. Throughout this semester, I'll be blogging about how changing information technologies, sensibilities about work and family, and our conceptualization of time inform how public and nonprofit organizations may recruit, compensate, and retain an effective workforce.
I'm certainly learning as I go, and I hope that you'll help me. Please ask questions in the comments--I'll try to give an intelligent answer (or at least point you in the direction of one!). Happy pubTalking.
pubTalk: Where research meets practice. A blog produced by the Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center.
Send us your news, events, and ideas for posts.
Comments
I've been thinking a lot lately about flexibility in the work place and the rise of telecommuting or "working from home." In several of my jobs, I have had this option and also found it liberating and at times frustrating and distracting. I have argued that I can spend 8 hours a day putting in face time at the office that doesn't necessarily equate productivity. When I work from home, if I stop working, then I stop counting the hours forcing me to log only productive hours.
Yet there is something to be said for the structure of an office and the environment creating a mental shift from home to work. Sometimes working at my kitchen table means that I shift quickly from work to home - "Oh look the dishes need to be done" when I'm stuck on something for work and need a break from the computer.
Culturally, I think we are shifting but still kind of see "working from home" as less productive than being in an office - and perhaps less professional. (I may or may not still be wearing pajamas when I start working at 9:00 a.m. some mornings.)
Last night in my education policy and the state legislature class, we had a guest speaker from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. She is a lobbyist -and a Humphrey grad- and focuses a lot of her advocacy on workforce issues. She said something that kind of shocked me in connection to my own working from home experiences -
"If your job doesn't require you to physically be there, then it's not secure."
Suddenly this notion of out-sourcing felt more close to home. Is this as applicable to public and nonprofit jobs? Is this more of a response to the cultural shift regarding work ethic and productivity? It has definitely made me stop and think about this issue more. I don't have the answers to these questions yet...which also means there are more dishes to be done.
Posted by: Ann Lindstrom | September 30, 2008 12:48 PM
Finding a good balance when you work from home can be difficult, especially if you aren't disciplined. I find myself becoming distracted with non-work related issues at times. And working in your pajamas doesn't make you feel professional, either! In fact, I will put on a shirt and tie sometimes while sitting at the computer at home. When you feel professional, you come across different. This is especially crucial if you do a lot of talking on the phone with clients.
Posted by: Jeff R. | December 6, 2008 7:47 PM