# Characteristics of Work

## Overview

What do you think of when you think of work? Probably, like most people, you think first about going to a place where you specifically do something for pay. You physically go to work, travelling to and from your home and spending an agreed amount of time at a venue, where someone tells you what needs to be done and you proceed to do these tasks.

There are, however, other ways to think about work. You might like to think about your own life and the different examples of work that you come across every day. There's the train or bus drivers, the support staff who keep their vehicles working, and the office staff who make sure the accounts are paid. You might also see a security guard, riding the bus or train at special times to make sure that problems are kept under control, or a volunteer on their way to help out at the local food bank. All these people 'work', but they approach their job differently.

Let's find out more about what work is.

Most people 'work', but they think of it in different ways. There is no universally accepted definition of work, no simple phrase that covers all situations. However, here are three suggestions that will help you to understand the nature of work.

1 | Work is an activity that produces value for other people.
2 | Work is a social activity that produces the goods society requires. It's also an activity that binds individuals into the patterns of interrelationships from which society is built up.
3 | Work is any activity that is directed towards the production of goods and services which typically have a value in exchange, and which is carried out for a valuable consideration.

Note that this definition of work does not really include voluntary or unpaid work - it may be that we need to think more widely when we are looking at the characteristics of work.

Let's think about these three definitions.

Work produces value for other people. In other words, you need to provide a service or make something that will give value. This can be something that a person buys (such as a pair of shoes or the services of a dentist), or it can be something that is provided voluntarily (such as meals on wheels).

Work is a social activity. You might meet and make friends at work. If you don't work, you may miss out on meeting people, or you might find that you have difficulty filling your day. Some people who have recently retired find that one of the most difficult parts of the transition from full time work is the loss of social contacts. Many people identify strongly with their work. When you meet someone new, you often begin the social contact with a question like 'What do you do?'

Work is typically directed towards production for consideration. You usually get paid to produce something. Put another way, if you do something, you should get value in return, which could include the satisfaction you get from doing voluntary work.

For people who work on a contract basis, work is what they do during that contract. Others have more conventional jobs, where they work regular hours and have wages paid into a bank account every two weeks or so. Some people make little distinction between work and non-work - this is particularly true of people who work from home, or who have their own business that they run from their car. One such person might say 'The only time we are not working is when we are sleeping. And we don't do a lot of that. It's often two o'clock before we get to bed.'

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