Better Work tool

Along with the Baaningenieurs, CIAO has recently developed the ‘Better Work tool’, to facilitate inclusive and participative work (re)design by optimally involving employees in sustainably organising work in a better way. It enables professionals to redesign work in close collaboration with teams within an organisation. Using this online tool, staff can indicate how they experience their own tasks and give opinions on whether these tasks may be suitable for redesign. Their answers are gathered and anonymised, and can be displayed in tables, showing differences and similarities in task experience, and allowing for a discussion among the team (moderated by a redesign professional) whether there are alternatives for the current distribution of work.

The Better Work tool is part of CIAO’s Inclusive Work Redesign tool, which is in turn an aid to our Inclusive Work Redesign method. This method aims to combine inclusion and sustainable employability by developing an alternative division of work which allows inclusion of people with some kind of disability or other issue that prevents them from finding and keeping sustainable work. Through this alternative division of work, professionals can focus on tasks that really matter to them (tasks they were specifically hired/trained to do and that usually energise them), while tasks that don’t pertain to their job description (tasks that often drain these professionals’ energy) can be combined to create new jobs that are suitable for people who cannot participate independently in the current labour market. It’s important, however, to make sure that both groups of people perform tasks that are meaningful and necessary to the organisation. In other words, if tasks that the professionals want to give up are actually entirely unnecessary to the organisation, it’s better to stop doing them altogether than to simply have someone else do them, as everyone wants to do work that is meaningful.

This new division of tasks may also make it easier for organisations to stay afloat in times of labour shortages, as they won’t need highly skilled professionals for every job or opening, and current employees may feel more energised by their jobs and, thus, are less likely to burn out or leave due to high workload and work pressure.

The Better Work tool has already been tested in several types of organisations, producing positive results. The Inclusive Work Redesign method as a whole is also used by advisors and professionals of the Dutch employee insurance agency when advising organisations on how to become more inclusive. The method can help organisations to solve various HRM related issues, as illustrated above.

Please note that while the Better Work tool is an online tool, it is a part of the Inclusive Work Redesign tool, which is an offline application in accordance with the European GDPR. Any data gathered using the Better Work tool can only be viewed using the IWR tool. The tools are available in Dutch, English and German, but should only be used by trained professionals. While our training programme is currently only available in Dutch, we are open to providing training and workshops internationally. For more information, please contact fpn-ciao@maastrichtuniversity.nl.