Knowledge workers focused on the future

Where are we now, what is our goal and how do we achieve it?

The social elections are coming up. They mark the start of a new consultation period about what is important to you in terms of your job. During the elections, you will vote for the people you want to represent your voice for the next four years. This is no easy decision.

There are plenty of challenges we are currently facing. Knowledge workers experienced many changes over the last few years. In recent years, your executive network tried addressing these challenges. With the social elections right around the corner, we would like to look ahead with your input. Where are we now, what is our goal and how do we achieve it? Will you read along?

Choosing #timefortime

The question of how much valuable time we want and are able to spend on a job has been asked for ages. But it isn’t always easy to answer it. It does not only have a strong individual dimension, but theoretically trained employees also increasingly work on a project basis. As a result, the number of working hours you spend on a project becomes less important than the result in certain working places, especially for knowledge workers. This is an interesting evolution, that may not be as bad as it seems. Provided, however, that technological efficiency gains combined with more telework and less working time registration don’t lead to working more rather than less. Working time autonomy considering unpaid overtime and imbalance as the new ‘normal’ of knowledge workers, doesn’t entail progress. If that is the case, it might be better to navigate between an individual interpretation of working time and avoiding a potential negative impact on the working time of colleagues. Knowledge workers notice the added value of a new reduction of weekly working time. This reduction is made possible by the efficiency gains of the last decades. At the same time, they want to help ensure that this working time reduction doesn’t come back like a boomerang due to the structural tightness in the labour market.

We want to hear your opinion. We will gladly answer your concrete questions about work and private life. But we also want to bring your and your colleagues’ expectations to the social dialogue. We are convinced collective agreements will help us move forward together. We want to identify achievements on disconnection and share best practices leading to less but more high-quality work. We want to leverage academic expertise showing how a smart labour organisation makes working time reduction possible. This will allow us to make progress towards a healthy and manageable working time for knowledge workers in a contemporary and collective framework.

(R)evolutionary digitisation

In the near future, especially in today’s service economy, part of our work will continue to be taken over by digital applications and tools. The future will tell whether artificial intelligence and its specific applications are an evolution or a real revolution. But there is no doubt it will have an impact, especially on knowledge workers, whose skills will no longer be necessary or will be supplemented and strengthened by these applications. We aim to follow this trend closely and ensure that the result leads to an improvement of the working conditions across all levels, but also prevents job loss as much as possible and, if necessary, supports employees in the search for a new, adjusted job. We also want to maximise the use of new digital tools in our service and support, without pushing people away from human contact. Human connections are and remain crucial.

Involve freelancers as well

A growing group of employees is active on the basis of a self-employed status. United Freelancers, the ACV service for this specific group, explicitly connects with them via a platform intended to share knowledge and collaborate. We continue to fight against fictitious self-employment. But we offer high-quality support to all colleagues in the workforce: your status as an employee or freelancer is not the essence.

More sustainable consultations

The topic of sustainability is gaining in importance. A sustainable company policy is the objective of everyone involved with that company. It’s not only the objective of the management and stakeholders, but also of the employees and their representatives. ACV Kader aims to provide support in this matter. Because employee representatives will also be involved in the social dialogue on this topic. Just like they have been involved in economic and financial matters for decades, the social dialogue will have to report on the company’s approach regarding sustainability from 2026 onwards (and in some companies even from 2025 onwards).

Wage transparency will help us move forward

Roughly ten years ago, wage formation was in most cases a relatively easy and transparent process. In recent years, however, this process has become increasingly complicated, mainly due to the very complex income tax system. In addition, individual or group bonuses, profit shares and cafeteria plans are also increasingly added to the mix. These elements are now used in many companies and organisations in various forms and modalities. Sometimes, this results in new questions and concerns, which we would like to help answer. We want to do this to help individual employees who have questions about the impact of certain decisions, but also to help employees who increasingly risk becoming the victim of complex fiscal and parafiscal evasion possibilities. We remain committed to providing optimal support regarding wage formation. We feel supported in this matter by the European Union, which will demand more wage transparency from employers through new regulations. We can only applaud such initiatives.

Challenging internationalisation

In recent years, more and more knowledge workers from other countries have found their way to our companies, sometimes temporarily, but sometimes also for longer periods of time. Especially in larger companies, it was therefore considered normal that English became the working language despite all language legislation that is in place. This has resulted in new challenges, but also offers new opportunities. Without renouncing the Dutch language, we, as a trade union, will also provide more extensive services and support in English. Our first step in this regard is making our Never Work Alone Magazine available in three languages. But we want to extend this to concrete individual support for knowledge workers who speak a different language. International trade union work is gaining in importance. It offers a broader overview of what is important and what is happening in the rest of Europe and the world. Through our international network, we want to continue having an impact on the decision-making at a European level, which increasingly affects the way in which the work of knowledge workers and executives is organised.

Employment security through coaching

The labour market tightness we are experiencing in many industries and companies looks set to continue for some time. This strengthens the employees’ negotiation position. But it can also result in employees succumbing to the workload for lack of colleagues, the right to disconnect remaining a dream and working time reduction, which has yet again become an important topic, remaining an illusion. This is why we advocate, and work on, cross-sectoral reorientation. This way, we help ensure that employees find work where the need for employees is greatest, with good working conditions.

Employees can sometimes use a helping hand in the search for a great job that suits them. We continue providing this support through our Career Guidance Centre. The aim of this centre is to especially help young knowledge workers find their way. But members of our organisation who want to move towards, or grow in, an executive role or a role with more responsibilities can contact the centre for support and advice.

Working on high-quality leadership

Managers face many challenges in a quickly evolving working environment. They want to include their employees in new digital developments, bring colleagues of different generations and cultures together and promote a culture of continuous learning to keep everyone on board in a healthy way. Leadership deserves a high-quality framework more than ever. We gladly take this collective question of managers into account. Managers need professional training in leadership skills and change management of which employees experience the added value. They want professional advice and support to implement flexible healthy work environments. Leadership challenges deserve to be discussed during the social dialogue. By clearly formulating and refining the ambitions together, managers can create a work environment that encourages job satisfaction and employee engagement.

Social dialogue as leverage

In order to have an impact on all these matters, there is a need for good social dialogue in which knowledge workers and executives can voice their opinions. The legal definition of this groups is based on a relatively artificial distinction. To us, the essence is that each and every employee has the right to collective support taking into account the reality in the workplace. In concrete terms, this means that we want to fully and optimally support employees in collective consultations over the next four years, even though every effort is made in some companies and sectors to convince of them of the contrary. We are committed to an appropriate offer of education and training for employee representatives, but also to quick and personal advice for those who need it.

The first step towards strong consultations is identifying who you want to represent your voice. ACV’s candidates are getting ready to make a difference. Will you vote for them?