Revelations from "The New American Workplace"
By Mark Harbeke

As the saying goes, you can’t know where you’re going without looking at where you’ve been. Many workplace-related studies take this approach, looking at how working conditions have changed over a fixed period of time, or – more prominently of late – how much CEOs make compared with the average worker (a number that has, incidentally, increased almost 1000 percent over the last 40 years, according to the Economic Policy Institute). Today the most accurate barometer for where work and workplaces are at and where they’re headed may be the sequel to a government report that was issued over 30 years ago.

The result of a task force commissioned by President Richard Nixon’s secretary of health, education and welfare, 1973’s Work in America contained “explosive” findings at the time, a recent Fast Company magazine article explains. The book pointed to such trends as the alienation and disenchantment of blue-collar workers and all workers’ quest for a respected and useful social role. It also successfully predicted the retirement dilemma that the Baby Boomer generation and others face today (although it framed the discussion in terms of workers’ desires versus their financial readiness to retire).

Last month the follow-up to Work in America, The New American Workplace, was published. Featuring new research by the original report’s authors, James O’Toole and Edward E. Lawler, III of the University of Southern California’s Center for Effective Organizations, the updated report is less academic and more urgent in tone than its predecessor. Among other conclusions, the authors argue that, “America cannot look to its large, global corporations to provide enough new, good jobs.” Instead, they point to entrepreneurs and “High-Involvement” (HI) small businesses as the harbinger of the best new jobs.