How do you define a "menial" job? Unskilled, short-term, unvalued, replaceable? Well those definitions have been changing for some time. These days, there are not so many menial jobs any more.
How about street sweeping? In the movies you see the sweeper with his brush and cart shuffling along the gutter. Walk down Collins Street any day and you will see a smart council employee in fluorescent jacket riding a nifty little vacuum machine, skilfully dodging pedestrians and reaching all the autumn leaves, while communicating with base on his mobile.
Or take the drudgery of stacking supermarket shelves. A closer look at the assistant sees a computer tablet in their hand, a barcode scanner in their pocket and a look of deep concentration.
What about shop assistants? The girl in Sportsgirl or the boy in Bunnings have control of a sophisticated computer system at their register where they can search the entire country for stock - and give advice about the colour of the frock or the power of the drill.
Ambulance drivers are no longer stretcher bearers, they are highly trained paramedics and MICA resuscitators.
So if your idea of menial workers pictures sad groups of drop-outs and illegal immigrants washing dishes in the kitchens of hotels, you need to know that this work segment is rapidly changing.
In modern marketing-speak this is now called "entry-level work", the first foot on the ladder of a career path. For the most part, it has not been the result of conscious foresight and planning but the social continental shift forced on society by the development of technology.
To put it simply, companies require higher technical and digital skills for almost every job, including those that previously required low knowledge and training.
And fortunately, because of all the "wasted" time spent fiddling with computers, video games, mobile phones and on-line shopping, even our traditional drop-outs emerge with surprisingly high levels of these technical skills.
The job of a new employer, then, is to point the worker to the assigned task and train them for the extra steps connecting what they need to do with what they already know.
Menial work has been rapidly disappearing in the construction industry too. The hob-nailed booted and boozy builder's labourer is fading into the past. Rather than leaning on a shovel, these days they are driving the back-hoe or dogging on the crane. And of course they need to be up to date with OH&S regulations.
It's in the interest of employers and unions to continually push them to increase their skill levels - both for their value in the workplace, and the income they can command. Through TAFEs, unions like the CFMEU, and other bodies, they are offered scores of short courses - six days or two weeks, say - in dozer driving, scaffolding, crane operation and the like. They add them like scout badges and each increases their worth.
I like to reminisce about student days and the awful jobs I would do for the few bucks they paid. Any downturn in a trading period and you'd be thrown out. This was the way for many menial workers, still is for some. But the world has changed.
A company can no longer afford to hire and fire on a whim or a month's poor returns, because these days even a menial job needs a level of skills and they still take time and training to acquire. So maybe those phones and computer games do have a value, making work more efficient - and workers less menial.
ray@ebeatty.com
Blog: themarketeer-raybeatty.blogspot.com
