What is “good work”? It is a question that Matthew Taylor has been trying to answer during the course of his review for the Prime Minister on modern employment. With publication of the review’s findings due shortly, Taylor, the chief executive of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, has been travelling up and down the country to find out.

While he has stressed that his review will focus on the low-paid and stamping out exploitation, Taylor, a former adviser to Tony Blair, said in front of the Trades Union Congress last week that it will encourage, not discourage ways of working flexibly. Flexibility is not in itself bad. As Taylor pointed out, most workers who are not in a full-time job value it.

Take Tesco, for example. Britain’s biggest supermarket is piloting a new way for store managers to organise their staff that ensures supply always meets demand. Technology first rolled out 18 months ago at seven Tesco stores means managers can use a tablet to see how many of a store’s employees are working at any one time.

They can also see who is on lunch break, who has called in sick and who is available to work if demand picks up, all on a screen in their hands. Today Tesco is using this technology in 200 of its stores to try to ensure staff have schedules that suit their lifestyles, not the other way around.