Work is the transfer of energy from one place to another or from one form to another. It can increase the potential energy of a mechanical system, change the thermal energy of a material, or create electrical energy in an electronic device. Work can be measured in units such as the joule, newton-metre, erg, watt-hour, litre-atmosphere, or foot-pound.
In physics, work is the energy transferred when a force acts over a displacement. It is the product of the force strength and the distance displaced, or W = F
The SI unit of work is the joule, named after 19th-century English physicist James Prescott Joule. It is defined as the amount of force required to exert a given amount of displacement over one second. It is also the amount of time it takes for an object to move a given distance.
Redefining work should not be seen as a one-off project to fix a process or correct an inefficiency. Instead, companies should engage in an ongoing cycle of opportunity identification and problem-solving to continuously deliver more value to internal and external customers and partners. This will require a change in management systems, work environments, leadership capabilities, organizational cultures, compensation systems, and human capital practices.
There is a point at which work will yield diminishing returns, such as when a person becomes so fatigued they can no longer perform effectively. It is important to arrange one’s schedule so that difficult work can be undertaken in large blocks of time without interruption.
For example, if a person must spend several hours every week working on a complex research project, they should ensure that this work is performed during the same four or five hours a day that are free of distraction. Ideally, these hours should be contiguous.
It is also important to consider the type of work being done and whether or not it should be done by an individual, or if it should be outsourced to an automated system. For example, if the task requires a great deal of creativity and imagination, it might not be appropriate for an automated system to do the work. On the other hand, if the task is repetitive and can be accomplished by an algorithm, it might be more effective to outsource it to a robot. Such tasks can be considered as “drudgery” or unrewarding, but if they are the only ones available, they may need to be accepted for financial reasons. On the other hand, if a robot does the job more effectively, it could reduce or even eliminate drudgery and improve quality of life in the long run.