Added up, work will take up a full 14 years of our lives – that’s 14 years of 24/7 work. And during those 14 years our employers and clients expect us to occupy ourselves with whatever they deem important or necessary.
And considering the amount of time we’re expected to do work, it stands to reason that we would ask a lot from work in return. We want to get paid for it, want to be given the opportunity to learn and grow as individuals. And, through the doing of work it to be fulfilling and give our lives purpose.
However, I’m of the opinion that this will inevitably lead to disappointment. For most of us, anyway. Our employers, the organisations that give us work, their priority isn’t helping us find our purpose. Organisations and companies have shareholders, growth targets, cost efficiencies and customer satisfaction to worry about. At best, employees and contractors can expect to be fourth on a company’s list of priorities. Which, therefore, makes it odd that we would look to organisations to provide us with our life’s purpose when employees feature so modestly on their list of important things to worry about.
Work wasn’t always that important
The idea that work might be fulfilling rather than just painfully necessary is a strikingly recent invention.
The School of Life
Before the Industrial Revolution work was done out of necessity. Work provided people with food, shelter, and clothing. It was a chore, things to be done, not to be enjoyed. Which saw people do as little of it as they could, preferring to spend most of their time with family and friends.
And there were direct and tangible rewards that could be linked back to the work people did. In an environment where work leads to concrete outcomes the reason behind why work has to be done is self evident. You plough and plant seeds and months later you harvest potatoes and have stew. Simple.
In this equation to expect much more from work is counterintuitive. The reward in doing the work is tangible and the outcomes understood.
Work then gets weird
After the Industrial Revolution, the reward for work changes. Work is now done in exchange for a wage or a salary. And we start to receive these at the end of the week or the month and the relationship between effort and the size of the reward are uncoupled. Furthermore, we receive money for our efforts which, strictly speaking, is a conceptualisation of something valuable. This means we no longer see the direct rewards for our physical and intellectual efforts.
In fact, the rewards that we are given for work today are so removed from what we do, studies show that getting a pay increase or a promotion are unlikely to make us any happier than what we already are. Once you earn a salary over a certain threshold; US studies claim this number to be US$75,000 for people working in the United States, there isn’t all that much more happiness to be had by earning more money.
In fact, for many people, the money they get paid by an employer feels more like a debt being repaid than a windfall. This is because the act of getting paid doesn’t improve your life. It merely helps maintain the status quo. Your life the day before you receive your paycheck compared with your life the day after you’ve been paid aren’t all that different. It’s not the same as not having potato stew and then having potato stew.
So, we yearn for more money and the next promotion, thinking that this will deliver the potato stew we all so desperately want. And, even if we’ve read the research saying more money won’t make us happier, it is difficult for us to fathom how making $1 million a year won’t make us happier.
And then it all gets confusing
Many believe that work places are meritocratic; that the harder they work, the more they contribute the more likely they are to be promoted or recognised for our efforts. And let’s be honest, this seems reasonable. However, this again has been found to be untrue. Work places aren’t meritocratic. Instead they are mostly cronyistic or technocratic. Promotion is based on connections within an organisation and perceived expertise.
Despite this fact, most of us still commit to working long hours, to never saying ‘no’, to being ‘first in, last out’, to do the jobs nobody else wants. All the while thinking that, that will put us on the road to promotion and more money.
And as our lives become more consumed by work. And as competition for promotions grows more intense with fewer positions and more rivals, we worry. We grow anxious at the idea of having to put in more hours. Others consider their families and wonder how much more ‘family time’ they will have to miss out on in the name of having to get ahead at work. And as they consider these factors they quite reasonably look to work to compensate them for the sacrifices they feel they have to make.
‘If I have to sacrifice so much, then work owes me meaning’
And here we are. We work more hours than we’re contracted to knowing that we won’t be recompensed for that time. So we hope that our sacrifices are recognised with a promotion or a bonus. And when these don’t come our way, we look at our work, what we do, and we say we want it to mean something. We want it to be fulfilling because we cauterise the parts of our lives that give our lives meaning.
Is it any surprise then that employees demand more from the companies? I suspect most employee survey resemble a list of demands. Employees want more training, more opportunities for growth, more challenges (despite already working 60 hour weeks), more work/life balance, more leave, more flexibility. But, consider what employees are really asking for in these surveys. If you read the subtext, their wish is for more purpose, more meaning. People want to understand that the sacrifices they’re making for their employers won’t be for nought. Many people who work today would be happy knowing that their work directly helps the company they work for. And that by making their contribution they ensure the company thrives, and helps their colleagues stay employed.
What most of us want is to know that what we do makes a difference. That the sacrifices we make matter and that, at the end of the day, we aren’t doing a bullshit job.
Why larger organisations will struggle with this
The reason companies struggle to impart this level of meaning to their employees’ work is because they aren’t set up for it. The level of personal feedback required to show an individual that they matter to the company is rare.
During the COVID pandemic, many workers got a glimpse of what they’re missing out on outside their working lives. Lockdowns allowed people to spend more time with their families, to have more time to themselves during the day, and in some cases to realise that what they were doing with their lives no longer worked for them. The companies that will benefit most from this new-found employee clarity are those that can offer their workers real purpose and opportunities for genuine growth. Fulfillment at work is going to become more important. Allowing people to do jobs that make a difference without being obstructed by banal bureaucracy and office politics will be what employees will demand from companies over the next decade.
Many employers are going to have to take stock of where their employees feature on their list of priorities. And many employees are going to have to define for themselves what they truly want from their work. Because there’s a future coming where, in an interview, someone is going to ask you what you want from your career. And you’re going to be expected to know.