A Service System Perspective of Work
More broadly and abstractly, service is being viewed as the process of doing something for another person (or entity) that is beneficial. Think of it as the act of helping another. So, for an employer, for example, that could be the number of hours of “work” produced.
In what has become known as service-dominant logic, or S-D logic, service (singular) is the focus. To explain this better, let’s view “work” through a service science lens by expanding our view of business output to allow for a much more holistic view of how to increase employer profit.
First, we should view “work” and all of its intangible and tangible artifacts a service provision. Let’s take a moment and expand on this thinking. In a larger societal sense, “work” leads to economic growth and worker well-being. Economic growth is easier to measure than worker well-being; however, service science attempts to recognize both. By using a service-system, we are more easily able to recognize the interactive nature of “work” in delivering the outcomes that markets, communities, or even societies are looking for.
A service view of “work” recognizes the relational nature of exchange between employers, workers, and suppliers such as education and training providers or assessment and testing companies. Solution providers, therefore, need to develop an architecture of participation where stakeholders connect and collaborate through a shared vision. This means solution providers must focus on collaborating, sensing, responding, and learning from the journeys of “work” experiences.
The solution, therefore, is a market network platform where strategy is increasingly about joint ventures and collaboration in a system of open innovation and co-creation of value that is worker well-being. A shared vision of worker well-being pulls the development and placement of ability towards best-fit and pushes the implementation of employer strategy towards increased profit.
Dominant logics of how to succeed are hard to change. But in times of turbulence and upheaval, it is important to be receptive to changing frames of reference and alternate ways to be responsive to new logics. “Work” is experiencing one of these turbulent upheavals where it is difficult for human capital leaders to separate the noise from the signal. At Placement Loop, we are suggesting that an increasingly audible and clear signal is emerging that provides a strong message: The “product” of “work” is a co-created service to improve worker well-being.
