Misplaced Pages

#19980

103-417: Remote work (also called telecommuting , telework , work from home —or WFH as an initialism, hybrid work , and other terms) is the practice of working at or from one's home or another space rather than from an office . The practice began on a small scale in the 1970s, when technology was developed that linked satellite offices to downtown mainframes through dumb terminals using telephone lines as

206-628: A Gallup poll in September 2021, 45% of full-time U.S. employees worked from home, including 25% who worked from home all of the time and 20% who worked from home part of the time. 91% of those who work remotely (fully or partially) hoped to continue to do so after the pandemic. Among all workers, 54% believed that their company's culture would be unchanged by remote work, while 12% believed it would improve and 33% predicted it would deteriorate. Gallup found in February 2023 that, among remote-capable employees in

309-670: A Wi-Fi -equipped laptop or tablet computers , smartphones , and desktop computers , using software such as Zoom , Webex , Microsoft Teams , Google Meet , Slack , and WhatsApp . In his 1992 travelogue Exploring the Internet , Carl Malamud described a " digital nomad " who "travels the world with a laptop, setting up FidoNet nodes ." In 1993, Random House published the Digital Nomad's Guide series of guidebooks by Mitch Ratcliffe and Andrew Gore. The guidebooks, PowerBook , AT&T EO Personal Communicator , and Newton's Law , used

412-488: A business-to-business service, with its userbase being predominantly team-based businesses while its functionalities are focused primarily on business administration and communication. Slack originated as an internal communication tool used within Stewart Butterfield 's company Tiny Speck , during its work on the development of Glitch , an online video game. These communication tools were initially built around

515-592: A career . Throughout history, work has been intimately connected with other aspects of society and politics , such as power , class , tradition , rights , and privileges . Accordingly, the division of labour is a prominent topic across the social sciences as both an abstract concept and a characteristic of individual cultures. Work may also present a threat to individual human happiness and survival, either through dirty, dangerous, and demeaning occupations or in extreme cases, from death by overwork . Some people have also engaged in critique of work and expressed

618-806: A corporate entity, the same workers can claim a larger share of the value created by their labor. While a union does require workers to sacrifice some autonomy in relation to their coworkers, it can grant workers more control over the work process itself in addition to material benefits. The need for planning and coordination extends beyond individual organizations to society as a whole too. Every successful work project requires effective resource allocation to provide necessities, materials, and investment (such as equipment and facilities). In smaller, traditional societies, these aspects can be mostly regulated through custom , though as societies grow, more extensive methods become necessary. These complex institutions, however, still have roots in common human activities. Even

721-559: A direct public offering to reach a market value of $ 19.5 billion. In July 2020, Slack acquired Rimeto, a startup specializing in employee directories and profiles, with plans to rename the service and operate it as a standalone app. Almost a year later, in June 2021, its functionality was launched as an optional feature within Slack named "Slack Atlas". On December 1, 2020, Slack and Salesforce announced an agreement for Salesforce to acquire

824-478: A family setting, like parenting or housekeeping . In some cases, the distinction between work and other activities is simply a matter of common sense within a community. However, an alternative view is that labeling any activity as work is somewhat subjective, as Mark Twain expressed in the "whitewashed fence" scene of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . Humans have varied their work habits and attitudes over time. As humans are diurnal , they work mainly during

927-424: A network bridge . It became more common in the 1990s and 2000s, facilitated by internet technologies such as collaborative software on cloud computing and conference calling via videotelephony . In 2020, workplace hazard controls for COVID-19 catalyzed a rapid transition to remote work for white-collar workers around the world, which largely persisted even after restrictions were lifted. Proponents of having

1030-530: A work ethic where work itself is seen as virtuous. For example, German sociologist Max Weber hypothesized that European capitalism originated in a Protestant work ethic , which emerged with the Reformation . Many Christian theologians appeal to the Old Testament 's Book of Genesis in regards to work. According to Genesis 1 , human beings were created in the image of God , and according to Genesis 2, Adam

1133-504: A U.S. Labor Department study published, millions of Americans ceased working from home by 2022, and the number of employers reporting teleworking decreasing to the level before pandemic levels. From August to September 2022, approximately 72 percent of private-sector businesses reported little to no telework among workers, compared to roughly 60 percent from July to September 2021. During the Information Age , many startups were founded in

SECTION 10

#1733093435020

1236-469: A combination of explicit information and detailed record-keeping, more tacit and situated knowledge developed through socialization. For example, the Hudson's Bay Company showed a variety of control mechanisms including selection techniques, information requirements, and direct local oversight through its distributed practices of socialization , communication , and participation. Managers found that "common sense"

1339-409: A common location or permanent because all collaborators of the group are at the common work site. Same location means that the coworkers can get to each other's workspaces with a short walk and communicate via face-to-face interactions. Also, during meetings or small group meetings, a major advantage of collocated work is that individuals are able to move from one meeting to another, simply by overhearing

1442-466: A conversation, seeing what someone is working on, and being aware of how long they had worked on it with or without progress. In addition, during these meetings, coworkers can observe someone's reaction by being able to see his/her gesture or glance. This allows for one to make sure that the group has common ground prior to moving on. Also, coworkers have access to common spaces for group interactions and have mutual access to significant shared information. In

1545-413: A fifth concept of organizational management was proposed. Organizational management is the "practices by which management activities are part of shaping the fundamental premises for collaboration without proximity" There are two types of work that explain the geographical distance between coworkers/collaborators. Collocated work is the case in which team members are at the same location. Distributed work

1648-427: A financial and human capital management firm. This integration allows employees to access co-worker information, organizational charts, benefits, feedback, and time-off requests within Slack. In March 2022, Slack introduced a new voice conference feature known as "Huddles". Within a Huddle, users have the capability to mute or unmute themselves, share their screens , draw on a shared screen, and invite others to

1751-504: A geographically distributed workforce argue that it reduces costs associated with maintaining an office, grants employees autonomy and flexibility that improves their motivation and job satisfaction, eliminates environmental harms from commuting, allows employers to draw from a more geographically diverse pool of applicants, and allows employees to relocate to a place they would prefer to live. Opponents of remote work argue that remote telecommunications technology has been unable to replicate

1854-554: A highly-repetitive set of simple actions, like in mass manufacturing , complex machines can carry out much of the effort. The workers present will focus on more complex tasks, operating controls, or performing maintenance . Over several millennia, invention , scientific discovery , and engineering principles have allowed humans to proceed from creating simple machines that merely redirect or amplify force , through engines for harnessing supplementary power sources, to today's complex, regulated systems that automate many steps within

1957-404: A hostile workplace. Particularly intense forms of manual labor often lead workers to develop physical strength necessary for their job. However, this activity does not necessarily improve a worker's overall physical fitness like exercise , due to problems like overwork or a small set of repetitive motions. In these physical jobs, maintaining good posture or movements with proper technique

2060-563: A major organizational transformation. However, the implementation of remote work during COVID-19 was hurried, and new technologies and operating systems had to be implemented without previous testing or training. Organizations reported concerns about losses in culture and productivity whilst workers were more concerned about declines in social interactions, internet connectivity and increased workload. Additionally, 25% of remote-working Americans were resistant to employer mandates to return to in-office work. The abrupt transition to remote work during

2163-512: A narrow range of jobs, inherited from parent to child. In serfdom , a peasant has more rights than a slave but is attached to a specific piece of land and largely under the power of the landholder , even requiring permission to physically travel outside the land-holding. How institutions play out in individual workers' lives can be complex too; in most societies where wage-labor predominates, workers possess equal rights by law and mobility in theory. Without social support or other resources, however,

SECTION 20

#1733093435020

2266-424: A number of smaller hand-tools, designed to be held and operated by a single person, often without supplementary power . This is especially true when tasks can be handled by one or a few workers, do not require significant physical power, and are somewhat self-paced, like in many services or handicraft manufacturing. For other tasks needing large amounts of power, such as in the construction industry, or involving

2369-435: A particular goal. Because sustained effort is a necessary part of many human activities, what qualifies as work is often a matter of context. Specialization is one common feature that distinguishes work from other activities. For example, a sport is a job for a professional athlete who earns their livelihood from it, but a hobby for someone playing for fun in their community. An element of advance planning or expectation

2472-668: A peak around 2–3 days per week, an April 2023 survey of 1,000 office workers found a peak of five days per week required onsite. Requirements for fewer days were progressively rarer, culminating in 0% saying they must work onsite less than once per month. A May 2022 survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that 14% of working arrangements were fully remote, 24% were hybrid, and 46% were fully onsite. A June 2023 survey of 2,000 full-time workers found that 6% of working arrangements were fully remote, 46% were hybrid, and 48% were fully onsite. An Autumn Survey by ONS found that more than

2575-564: A private channel. Slack integrates with many third-party services and supports community-built integrations, including Google Drive , Trello , Dropbox , Box , Heroku , IBM Bluemix , Crashlytics , GitHub , Runscope , Zendesk , and Zapier . In July 2015, Slack launched an integration with Google Calendar. Later, in December of the same year, a searchable directory was introduced, consisting of over 150 integrations that users can install. In addition to these integrations, Slack offers users

2678-841: A quarter of working adults in Great Britain (28%) had hybrid arrangements. They found that those aged over 30, parents and managers and professionals were the most likely to log on from home. For those able to have a hybrid arrangement, the ONS said there were significant perks, including an average of 56 minutes saved from commuting, and spending an average of 24 minutes more on sleep and rest and 15 minutes more on exercise, sports and wellbeing. There are several key terms associated with collocated work and distributed work. The most important concepts are common ground, coupling in work, collaboration readiness, and technology readiness. This section will briefly define these four concepts. Common ground refers to

2781-525: A result of urbanization and industrialization , is unemployment . While the shift from a subsistence economy usually increases the overall productivity of society and lifts many out of poverty , it removes a baseline of material security from those who cannot find employment or other support. Governments have tried a range of strategies to mitigate the problem, such as improving the efficiency of job matching , conditionally providing welfare benefits or unemployment insurance , or even directly overriding

2884-493: A result of automation and the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence . For some, work may hold a spiritual value in addition to any secular notions. Especially in some monastic or mystical strands of several religions , simple manual labor may be held in high regard as a way to maintain the body, cultivate self-discipline and humility, and focus the mind. The contemporary world economy has brought many changes, overturning some previously widespread labor issues. At

2987-402: A sense, because of it", because work is something that corresponds to man's dignity and through it, he achieves fulfilment as a human being. The fall also means that a work ethic is needed. As a result of the fall, work has become subject to the abuses of idleness on the one hand, and overwork on the other. Drawing on Aristotle , Ryken suggests that the moral ideal is the golden mean between

3090-424: A separate question, 7% said their employer does not allow hybrid working. A March 2023 survey of 2,016 adults found a roughly even distribution of required onsite days per week peaking at two and three days at about 16% each. However, it found a large spike in five days per week, the most common response at over 35%. About 13% were required to work fewer than one day per week. Countering the above results suggesting

3193-416: A single industry. Some industries may be seen as more prestigious than others overall, even if they include roles with similar functions. At the same time, a wide swathe of roles across all industries may be afforded more status (e.g. managerial roles) or less (like manual labor ) based on characteristics such as a job being low-paid or dirty, dangerous and demeaning . Other social dynamics, like how labor

Remote work - Misplaced Pages Continue

3296-571: A study, researchers observed an individual describe something by drawing with his hands in the air. Later, someone referred to “that idea” by pointing to the spot in the air where the first person had "drawn his idea". Work (human activity) Work has existed in all human societies, either as paid or unpaid work , from gathering natural resources by hand in hunter-gatherer groups to operating complex technologies that substitute for physical or even mental effort within an agricultural , industrial , or post-industrial society . All but

3399-458: A team must be pooled together. To do so, the team must make sure that they are on common ground in terms of knowledge and representation of the problem. Care must be taken to note that to achieve common ground when collaborating, differences are constructively managed, rather than downplayed. This is because collaboration differs from compromise. Technology readiness is a company or groups willingness and ability to use technology. Companies require

3502-547: A technical infrastructure if they are going to adopt technologies in the company. In particular, they require the habits, including those of preparation, regular access, attention given to others’ need for information, in order to effectively use the necessary technology for distributed work. Researchers repeatedly see that failure of distributed work often results from attempts to introduce new technologies to organizations or communities that are not yet comfortable with technologies that are already in place. The following chart explains

3605-433: A third of all working days are remote, slashing corporate real estate expenditures, and up from 5% before the pandemic. Bloom believes quickly progressing technology has facilitated and will continue the trend, but drawbacks for some kinds of positions will remain. A September 2022 study surveyed workers from 26 countries in mid-2021 and early 2022. Its respondents work from home an average of 1.5 days per week. According to

3708-528: A wish to reduce or abolish it entirely, for example in Paul Lafargue in his book The Right to Be Lazy , David Graeber 's Bullshit Jobs , or The Abolition of Work by Bob Black. Real world programs to eliminate the economic necessity for lifelong work first emerged through the concept of retirement , and have more recently been extended to all adults through experimentation with universal basic income . Work can take many different forms, as varied as

3811-560: A work process. In the 20th century, the development of electronics and new mathematical insights led to the creation and widespread adoption of fast, general-purpose computers . Just as mechanization can substitute for the physical labor of many human beings, computers allow for the partial automation of mental work previously carried out by human workers, such as calculations , document transcription , and basic customer service requests. Research and development of related technologies like machine learning and robotics continues into

3914-494: Is also a crucial skill for avoiding injury . Ironically, white-collar workers who are sedentary throughout the workday may also suffer from long-term health problems due to a lack of physical activity. Learning the necessary skills for work is often a complex process in its own right, requiring intentional training . In traditional societies, know-how for different tasks can be passed to each new generation through oral tradition and working under adult guidance. For work that

4017-752: Is also available for the Apple Watch , allowing users to send direct messages, see mentions, and make simple replies. Slack is a freemium product whose main paid features are the ability to search more than 90 days' archived messages and add unlimited apps and integrations. They also claim support for an unlimited number of users. When freeCodeCamp attempted to switch its community of over 8,000 users to Slack in 2015, however, they experienced many technical issues and were advised by Slack support to limit their channels to "no more than 1,000 users (ideally more like 500)". That specific limit no longer applied by January 2017. In August 2013, 8,000 customers signed up for

4120-428: Is also common, such as when a paramedic provides medical care while on duty and fully equipped rather than performing first aid off-duty as a bystander in an emergency. Self-care and basic habits like personal grooming are also not typically considered work. While a later gift , trade , or payment may retroactively affirm an activity as productive, this can exclude work like volunteering or activities within

4223-420: Is compensated, can even exclude meaningful tasks from a society's conception of work. For example, in modern market-economies where wage labor or piece work predominates, unpaid work may be omitted from economic analysis or even cultural ideas of what qualifies as work. At a political level, different roles can fall under separate institutions where workers have qualitatively different power or rights. In

Remote work - Misplaced Pages Continue

4326-419: Is found to be a particular issue for users with large teams, who experienced issues with connectivity within the app, access to archived messages, and the number of users for a given "workspace". Slack has also been criticized for a retroactive 2018 change to its privacy policy, allowing access to all public and private chat messages by workspace administrators, without the need of consent from any parties using

4429-553: Is limited to messages from the last 90 days on the free plan. Slack allows communities, groups, or teams to join a "workspace" via a specific URL or invitation sent by a team admin or owner. A workspace can contain both public and private channels, with public channels being accessible to all members of the workspace. Both public and private channels can be converted interchangeably. Direct messages enable users to engage in private one-on-one or group conversations with up to nine participants. Group direct message can be converted into

4532-442: Is more specialized and technically complex, however, a more formal system of education is usually necessary. A complete curriculum ensures that a worker in training has some exposure to all major aspects of their specialty, in both theory and practice . Tool use has been a central aspect of human evolution and is also an essential feature of work. Even in technologically advanced societies, many workers' toolsets still include

4635-432: Is ranking them according to a criterion, such as the amount of skill, experience , or seniority associated with a role. The progression from apprentice through journeyman to master craftsman in the skilled trades is one example with a long history and analogs in many cultures. Societies also commonly rank different work roles by perceived status, but this is more subjective and goes beyond clear progressions within

4738-646: Is required for any effort outside of individual subsistence to succeed. At the level of a small team working on a single task, only cooperation and good communication may be necessary. As the complexity of a work process increases though, requiring more planning or more workers focused on specific tasks, a reliable organization becomes more critical. Economic organizations often reflect social thought common to their time and place, such as ideas about human nature or hierarchy . These unique organizations can also be historically significant, even forming major pillars of an economic system . In European history, for instance,

4841-494: Is the three-sector model or variations of it. In this view, an economy can be separated into three broad categories: In complex economies with high specialization, these categories are further subdivided into industries that produce a focused subset of products or services. Some economists also propose additional sectors such as a "knowledge-based" quaternary sector , but this division is neither standardized nor universally accepted. Another common way of contrasting work roles

4944-407: Is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life". Leland Ryken said out that, because of the fall, "many of the tasks we perform in a fallen world are inherently distasteful and wearisome." Christian theologians interpret that through the fall, work has become toil, but John Paul II says that work is a good thing for man in spite of this toil, and that "perhaps, in

5047-443: Is the term used to explain team members who are not in the same physical location when working on a project. There are many differences, similarities, benefits, and obstacles between these two types of work. In order to distinguish between collocated and distributed work, it is necessary to go into more detail. Collocated work is the case in which the team members are at the same physical location. This may be temporary due to travel to

5150-424: Is wrong since this encourages illiteracy, inhumane work and lower investment in human capital. In other words, there are moral and economic reasons that justify a blanket ban on labour from children aged 18 years or less, everywhere in the world. On the other hand, some scholars like Christiaan Grootaert and Kameel Ahmady believe that child labour is the symptom of poverty. If laws ban most lawful work that enables

5253-527: The Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol and included scripts designed to automate and organize file exchanges among its development team. By October 2012, Stewart Butterfield realized that Glitch was not going to bring necessary profits. As a result, he decided to change the direction of his company and repurpose the communication tools they had developed into a new product. In 2012, Butterfield decided to name their upcoming product "Slack", which he said

SECTION 50

#1733093435020

5356-420: The free markets of modern capitalist societies rely fundamentally on trade , while command economies , such as in many communist states during the 20th century, rely on a highly bureaucratic and hierarchical form of redistribution . Other institutions can affect workers even more directly by delimiting practical day-to-day life or basic legal rights. For example, a caste system may restrict families to

5459-451: The 21st century. Beyond tools and machines used to actively perform tasks, workers benefit when other passive elements of their work and environment are designed properly. This includes everything from personal items like workwear and safety gear to features of the workspace itself like furniture , lighting , air quality , and even the underlying architecture . Even if workers are personally ready to perform their jobs, coordination

5562-625: The European Union who were aged 15–64, usually worked from home. By country, the percentage of workers that worked from home was highest in Finland (25.1%), Luxembourg (23.1%), Ireland (21.5%), Austria (18.1%), and the Netherlands (17.8%) and lowest in Bulgaria (1.2%), Romania (2.5%), Croatia (3.1%), Hungary (3.6%), and Latvia (4.5%). In 2023, economist and telework expert Nicholas Bloom said about

5665-599: The Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 required each executive agency in the United States to establish policy allowing remote work to the maximum extent possible, so long as employee performance is not diminished. During the COVID-19 pandemic , millions of workers began remote work for the first time. Cities in which the population of remote workers increased significantly were referred to as Zoom towns . According to

5768-491: The U.S., 20% worked on-site, 28% exclusively remote and 52% hybrid. According to the United States Office of Personnel Management , 50% of all U.S. federal workers were eligible to work remotely and agencies saved more than $ 180 million because of remote work in fiscal 2020. A September 2022 study surveyed workers in mid-2021 and early 2022. Its 2,079 US subjects worked from home on average 1.6 days per week, similar to

5871-543: The ability to incorporate and customize chatbots known as "Slackbots". These chatbots can be configured to send notifications, reminders, or provide tailored responses to specific phrases, among other functions. Furthermore, Slack provides an application programming interface that enables users to develop applications and automate various processes, including sending notifications based on input, generating alerts for specific conditions, creating internal support tickets, and more. In March 2018, Slack partnered with Workday ,

5974-461: The advantages of face-to-face interaction , that employees may be more easily distracted and may struggle to maintain separation between work and non-work spheres without the physical separation, and that the reduced social interaction may lead to feelings of isolation. Between 1670 and 1826, management had to rely on trust and control to successfully manage distributed work. During this time, in addition to dispersed operations that relied heavily on

6077-671: The attacks, Slack added two-factor authentication to its service. On January 4, 2021, Slack suffered a significant outage that lasted several hours. From 10 AM ET until 3 PM ET, users could not log in, send or receive messages, place or answer calls, or use Slack connections. After 3 PM, most of the core features became operational, except for push notifications, email, and third-party integrations, including Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar . In 2022, Slack suffered widely reported outages on February 22, March 9 and July 26. On 31 December 2022, Slack announced that its private GitHub repositories had been compromised during

6180-461: The bottom end of the earning spectrum experience reduced remuneration. Utility bills also increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in an inconsistent manner. Utility bills for minorities and lower income individuals were more likely to increase because they lived in housing that was older, with less effective insulation and without energy-efficient appliances . The increase in electricity also came due to

6283-574: The call. In June 2022, Huddles received the additional functionality of video calls. Huddles are restricted to only two participants on free tiers, while paid plans offer the capacity for up to 50 participants. In March 2023, Salesforce announced the partnership with OpenAI to launch a ChatGPT integration for Slack and can be used for summarizing conversations, answering questions, or drafting replies. Slack provides mobile apps for iOS and Android in addition to their web browser client and desktop clients for MacOS, Windows, and Linux (beta). Slack

SECTION 60

#1733093435020

6386-417: The characteristics that contribute to achieving common ground that are inherent in various communication media. It is important to note that those who are remote complain about the difficulty of establishing common ground. This is because when individuals are connected by audio conferencing, it is difficult to tell who is speaking if you do not know the participant well. However, people with video can engage in

6489-428: The company for approximately $ 27.7 billion, marking one of the most significant tech acquisitions at that time. The acquisition was completed on July 21, 2021. On December 5, 2022, Salesforce announced that Butterfield was leaving Slack and would be succeeded by Lidiane Jones , an executive vice president at Salesforce. On November 13, 2023, Salesforce executive Denise Dresser was appointed to replace Jones, who

6592-565: The company for following several best practices in standing up for users concerning government data requests, such as requiring a warrant for content stored on its server, and awarding it four out of five stars in its 2017 "Who has your back" report; the EFF also criticized Slack for "a broad set of exceptions" to its promise to notify users of such requests, and for other privacy shortcomings. Slack has been criticized by users for storing user data exclusively on cloud servers under Slack control. This

6695-446: The coworkers need to share information and are rewarded for sharing it. It is important to note that one should not attempt to introduce groupware and remote technologies in organizations and communities that do not have a culture of sharing and collaboration. Common ground is often used in collaboration, where a team is out to solve a complex problem. In order to solve a complex problem, the different skills and perspectives of members in

6798-495: The creativity and adaptability of humans in their pursuit of livelihood. Individual workers require sufficient health and resources to succeed in their tasks. As living beings, humans require a baseline of good health, nutrition , rest, and other physical needs in order to reliably exert themselves. This is particularly true of physical labor that places direct demands on the body, but even largely mental work can cause stress from problems like long hours, excessive demands, or

6901-441: The day, but some occupations require night shift work. Hunter-gatherer societies vary their "work" intensity according to the seasonal availability of plants and the periodic migration of prey animals . The development of agriculture led to more sustained work practices, but work still changed with the seasons, with intense sustained effort during harvests (for example) alternating with less focused periods such as winters. In

7004-427: The decline of guilds and rise of joint-stock companies goes hand-in-hand with other changes, like the growth of centralized states and capitalism . In industrialized economies, labor unions are another significant organization. In isolation, a worker that is easily replaceable in the labor market has little power to demand better wages or conditions. By banding together and interacting with business owners as

7107-745: The deprived classes, the weakness of laws and legal supervision, the migration existence of child labour is very much observed in different parts of the world. According to the World Bank Globally rate of child labour have decreased from 25% to 10% between 60s to the early years of the 21st century. Nevertheless, giving the population of the world also increased the total number of child labourers remains high, with UNICEF and ILO acknowledging an estimated 168 million children aged 5–17 worldwide were involved in some sort of child labour in 2013. Some scholars like Jean-Marie Baland and James A. Robinson suggests any labour by children aged 18 years or less

7210-414: The early 1980s, branch offices and home workers were able to connect to organizational mainframes using personal computers and terminal emulators . In 1995, the motto that "work is something you do, not something you travel to" was coined. Variations of this motto include: "Work is what we do, not where we are." Since the 1980s, the normalization of remote work has been on a steady incline. For example,

7313-674: The early modern era, Protestantism and proto-capitalism emphasized the moral and personal advantages of hard work. The periodic re-invention of slavery encouraged more consistent work activity in the working class , and capitalist industrialization intensified demands on workers to keep up with the pace of machines. Restrictions on the hours of work and the ages of workers followed, with worker demands for time off increasing, but modern office work retains traces of expectations of sustained, concentrated work, even in affluent societies. There are several ways to categorize and compare different kinds of work. In economics, one popular approach

7416-406: The environments, tools, skills, goals, and institutions around a worker. This term refers to the general activity of performing tasks, whether they are paid or unpaid, formal or informal. Work encompasses all types of productive activities, including employment , household chores, volunteering, and creative pursuits. It is a broad term that encompasses any effort or activity directed towards achieving

7519-509: The extreme, the least powerful members of society may be stigmatized (as in untouchability ) or even violently forced (via slavery ) into performing the least desirable work. Complementary to this, elites may have exclusive access to the most prestigious work, largely symbolic sinecures , or even a "life of leisure ". Unusual Occupations In the diverse world of work, there exist some truly bizarre and unusual occupations that often defy conventional expectations. These unique jobs showcase

7622-651: The global average of 1.5 days per week. An April 2023 survey of 558 central London workers' requirements for onsite working found the most common response was two and three days per week at 26% and 21% of responses respectively. Fewer cited one, four, and five days, each making 8–11% of responses. Having no requirement was second-most common at 25% of responses. It also found that about 18% of vacancies listed by London companies in February 2023 were hybrid or remote, up from about 4% in February 2020. An early 2023 survey of 2,049 workers found that 35% must work onsite for two days, 33% for three days, and 33% always work from home. In

7725-688: The global average of 1.5 days per week. These results may vary based on the type of sample collected. Certain groups may have fewer office-workers, e.g., in more urban locations or industries requiring more manual labour. As such groups may find remote working impossible, their presence or absence in these samples may affect the analysis. A June 2022 survey of 56 offices found that 51% had no policy requiring office attendance, 18% requiring two days per week, 11% requiring three days per week, and 20% had policy set at team-level. A September 2022 study surveyed workers in mid-2021 and early 2022. Its 1,501 UK subjects worked from home on average two days per week – above

7828-509: The homes of entrepreneurs who lacked financial resources. A 2020 study of the then-ongoing pandemic estimated that 93% of world workers lived in countries with some sort of workplace closure. This figure was composed of: 32% living in countries with required closures for all but essential workplaces; 42% in countries where specific firms or worker categories had been closed; and 19% in countries with only recommended workplace closures. The extensive use of remote work under COVID-19 constituted

7931-419: The knowledge that participants have in common, and they are aware that they have this information in common. Common ground is not just established from some general knowledge about the person's background, but also through specific knowledge learned from several different cues that are available at the moment, including the person's appearance and behavior during conversational interactions. The figure below, shows

8034-444: The labor market through work-relief programs or a job guarantee . Since a job forms a major part of many workers' self-identity , unemployment can have severe psychological and social consequences beyond the financial insecurity it causes. One more issue, which may not directly interfere with the functioning of an economy but can have significant indirect effects, is when governments fail to account for work occurring out-of-view from

8137-416: The necessity of earning a livelihood may force a worker to cede some rights and freedoms in fact. Societies and subcultures may value work in general, or specific kinds of it, very differently. When social status or virtue is strongly associated with leisure and opposed to tedium, then work itself can become indicative of low social rank and be devalued. In the opposite case, a society may hold strongly to

8240-437: The number of Americans working from home grew by 4 million from 2003 to 2006, and by 1983 academics were beginning to experiment with online conferencing. In the 1990s and 2000s, remote work became facilitated by technology such as collaborative software , virtual private networks , conference calling , videotelephony , internet access , cloud computing , voice over IP (VoIP), mobile telecommunications technology such as

8343-502: The order in which various collaboration technologies should be adopted in organizations to allow the employees to become familiar with and learn each new technology. The list below shows the observed order in which various collaboration technologies were adopted and used in different organizations. As this chart shows, advanced technologies should be introduced in small steps. These key concepts are important because they help differentiate between collocated and distributed work. Later on,

8446-412: The other hand, loosely coupled work has fewer dependencies or is more routine. It is important that all group members establish common ground about the task, goals, and procedures before working, but this type of work overall requires less frequent or less complicated interactions. Collaboration readiness is a groups willingness to work together and share their ideas. Using shared technology assumes that

8549-533: The pandemic led to an increase in both physical and mental health issues among workers; a lack of dedicated workspaces and distractions from others in the home were common negative influences on health and well-being, while effective communication with coworkers was supportive of health and well-being. The transition also increased the amount of time that individuals spent sitting at a workstation by up to two hours more per day, yet, most workers indicated being as productive working remotely as compared to office work before

8652-527: The pandemic. Supporting workers to identify effective approaches for boundary management between home and work across physical spaces, social interactions, and use of time are critical. The transition to remote work during the pandemic highlighted the importance of access and equity among individual workers to support productivity and well-being. The remote work arrangement during COVID-19 was better for higher-paid and higher-management personnel in terms of productivity and reported well-being; whereas individuals at

8755-518: The people using their utilities at different times of the day. A study highlighted the behavioral changes and adaptations that occurred as they transitioned to remote work. It was found that while some educators adapted well to the new mode of working, many-faced significant challenges such as the lack of necessary infrastructure, including reliable internet access and adequate digital devices. This disparity often resulted in unequal teaching and learning experiences for both educators and students. Moreover,

8858-477: The platform for being "another utility we both rely on and resent". In 2017, Slack was recognized as the best startup of the year at the Crunchies Awards, organized by TechCrunch . The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has cautioned that "Slack stores and is able to read all of your communications, as well as identifying information for everyone in your workspace." They commended

8961-404: The poor to survive, informal economy, illicit operations and underground businesses will thrive. In modern market-economies: Labor issues: Related concepts: Slack (software) Slack is a cloud-based team communication platform developed by Slack Technologies , which has been owned by Salesforce since 2020. Slack uses a freemium model . Slack is primarily offered as

9064-423: The previous weeks, using stolen security tokens. Slack offers many IRC -style features, including persistent chat rooms known as channels, which are organized by topic, as well as private groups and direct-messaging functionalities. All content, including files, conversations, and people, is searchable within Slack. Users can express their reactions in the form of emojis to any message. Message history on Slack

9167-519: The proliferation of Slack and its competitors Workplace (launched by Facebook in 2016), Microsoft Teams (launched 2017) and Google Hangouts Chat and Meet (launched in 2018). In March 2015, the Financial Times wrote that Slack was the first business technology to have crossed from business into personal use since Microsoft Office and the BlackBerry . In 2017, New York magazine criticized

9270-422: The public sphere. This may be important, uncompensated work occurring everyday in private life; or it may be criminal activity that involves clear but furtive economic exchanges. By ignoring or failing to understand these activities, economic policies can have counter-intuitive effects and cause strains on the community and society. Due to various reasons such as the cheap labour , the poor economic situation of

9373-474: The same time, some longstanding issues remain relevant, and other new ones have emerged. One issue that continues despite many improvements is slave labor and human trafficking . Though ideas about universal rights and the economic benefits of free labor have significantly diminished the prevalence of outright slavery, it continues in lawless areas, or in attenuated forms on the margins of many economies. Another difficulty, which has emerged in most societies as

9476-511: The service within 24 hours of its launch. In February 2015, the company reported that approximately 10,000 new daily active users had signed up each week, and had more than 135,000 paying customers spread across 60,000 teams. By April 2015, those numbers had grown to 200,000 paid subscribers and a total of 750,000 daily active users. Late in 2015, Slack passed more than a million daily active users. As of May 2018 , Slack had over 8 million daily users, 3 million of whom had paid accounts. At

9579-604: The simplest tasks in any work require specific skills , tools , and other resources, such as material for manufacturing goods. Humanity has developed a variety of institutions for group coordination of work, such as government programs , nonprofit organizations , cooperatives , and corporations . Cultures and individuals across history have expressed a wide range of attitudes towards work. Besides objective differences, one culture may organize or attach social status to work roles through formalized professions which may carry specialized job titles and provide people with

9682-592: The study noted the psychological strain experienced by education workers, stemming from increased workloads and the blurring of boundaries between work and personal life. The necessity of establishing clear boundaries and providing adequate support systems was emphasized to ensure the well-being and productivity of education workers in a remote setting. A 2024 PNAS study found that remote work dispersed economic activity away from city centers, in particular in cities with high levels of remote work. In 2020, 12.3% of employed persons, including 13.2% of women and 11.5% of men, in

9785-424: The subtle negotiation that establishes local common ground- whether what was said was understood or not, whether the conversation can proceed or needs repair. Overall, the more common ground people can establish, the easier the communication will be and the greater the productivity . Coupling refers to the extent and kind of communication required by the work. Tightly coupled work is work that strongly depends on

9888-468: The talents of collections of workers and is non-routine, and even ambiguous. Components of this type of work are highly interdependent, meaning that the work requires frequent, complex communication among group members, with short feedback loops and multiple streams of information. This type of communication is very difficult in remote locations, mostly because technology does not support rapid back and forth conversations or awareness and repair of ambiguity. On

9991-453: The term "digital nomad" to refer to the increased mobility and more powerful communication and productivity technologies that facilitated remote work. European hacker spaces of the 1990s led to coworking ; the first such space opened in 2005. The new economy production no longer requires people to work together in the same physical space to access the tools and resources they need to produce their work and allows for distributed work. In 2010,

10094-403: The time of its S-1 filing for IPO , dated April 26, 2019, Slack reported more than 10 million daily active users from more than 600,000 organizations, located in more than 150 countries. In 2019, it was estimated that employees at large firms were sending over 200 Slack messages per week on average. From 2013 to 2019 the amount of time spent on work email had declined, which was attributed to

10197-611: The two extremes of being lazy and being a workaholic. Some Christian theologians also draw on the doctrine of redemption to discuss the concept of work. Oliver O'Donovan said that although work is a gift of creation, it is "ennobled into mutual service in the fellowship of Christ." Pope Francis is critical of the hope that technological progress might eliminate or diminish the need for work: "the goal should not be that technological progress increasingly replace human work, for this would be detrimental to humanity", and McKinsey consultants suggest that work will change, but not end, as

10300-662: Was derived from the phrase "Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge", replacing the previous codename "linefeed". In August 2013, Slack was launched to the public and continued to maintain compatibility with IRC , reflecting its origin. Additionally, it was also compatible with XMPP messaging protocols. In May 2018 however, the company chose to close down these corresponding gateways due to limitations inherent in those protocols. On July 26, 2018, Slack acquired HipChat and Stride from Atlassian , with plans to shut down both services in February 2019 and migrate their users to Slack. In June 2019, Slack went public through

10403-474: Was in turn replacing Whitney Wolfe Herd as Bumble CEO. In August 2024, Box and Slack announced an expanded partnership that introduced secure AI capabilities to enterprise content management. In March 2015, Slack announced that it had been hacked for over four days in February 2015 and that some data associated with user accounts had been compromised, including email addresses, usernames, hashed passwords, phone numbers, and Skype IDs. In response to

10506-428: Was not enough to encourage everyone to comply. In the early 1970s, technology was developed that linked satellite offices to downtown mainframes through dumb terminals using telephone lines as a network bridge . The terms telecommuting and telework were coined by Jack Nilles in 1973. In 1979, five IBM employees were allowed to work from home as an experiment. By 1983, the experiment was expanded to 2,000 people. By

10609-542: Was placed in the Garden of Eden to "work it and keep it". Dorothy L. Sayers has argued that "work is the natural exercise and function of man – the creature who is made in the image of his Creator." Likewise, John Paul II said in Laborem exercens that by his work, man shares in the image of his creator. Christian theologians see the fall of man as profoundly affecting human work. In Genesis 3 :17, God said to Adam, "cursed

#19980