Places of Work – changes today and yesterday

Since, 2000, The Museum of Work, has organized working life conferences and has become a well-established meeting place between researchers and professionals.

The working life conferences, arranged by The Museum of Work, usually attracts a wide range of people from universities, municipalities, trade unions and the public.

The conference in 2023 is planned to take place 16-17 November and it is estimated that approximately 75 people will attend the conference. What is a workplace today and how is work done?

For many white-collar workers, the pandemic has brought about an extensive digital transformation in a short time, not only in how work has been moved to digital platforms and hybrid forms of meetings, but also a greater change from physical offices to work more at home.

Possibilities to meet across geographical distances and flexibility on the one hand, but also more loosened boundaries between work and leisure.

Within labor occupations, during the pandemic, the difference has become increasingly large between different occupational groups in where work can be performed, but also a significant difference in the risk of infection.

The design of physical workplaces and the digital work environment includes, both today and historically, urgent questions about the work environment and health.

How can employers ensure a good working environment, when work takes place in places other than the workplace, and that work is carried out?Digital monitoring of work is, in a broader perspective, about how data is stored, who owns the data and how the data is used.

The development of chat bots such as Chat-GPT raises new questions about, among other things, the increased difficulty in evaluating what credible sources are and what is “fake news”. How is working life today affected by this societal development, what future opportunities and risks can we discern?

What can we learn from previous technology shifts?