What happens when you feel your work has no added value? The American anthropologist David Graeber made the term 'bullshit jobs' famous with his book of the same name: jobs whose work would not be missed if it were no longer done. Wikipedia But what does work like that do to your engagement?
Pointless work
For a while, I worked at a company where three times a week I did the following: go through a pile of paper files, and then check in the digital file whether any new information had come in. It regularly happened that I had the same file in my hands about ten times without anything at all coming in. I found it terrible. And despite all the digital possibilities, this kind of work still happens a lot.
How many people find their work pointless?
Graeber thought that a large share of working people consider their own job pointless. Dutch economists Robert Dur and Max van Lent investigated, using data from 100,000 workers in 47 countries. About 8% consider their work socially useless and another 17% are doubtful about its usefulness. Almost everyone considers it important to do useful work, and those who find their work useless suffer from it. Dur & Van Lent
So it is not the majority, but it is a sizeable group. And for those in it, it gnaws at them. Fundamentally, everyone wants to contribute something. I believe that 'working for the money' is not enough for a great many people. Now that most of us have the basics, such as shelter and food, well sorted, pointless work gnaws all the more. What do you actually mean to society? What satisfaction do you get from your work?
Wake-up call
I have read many stories of people who got burnout and in hindsight see it as a wake-up call. Only after that burnout did they realise that they got no satisfaction from their work, and they started to follow their heart. I also regularly speak to entrepreneurs who started their own business after burnout and want to work in a different way. Contributing to society is always part of that: adding something, making someone else's life or the world a little better.
But why wait for the wake-up call of burnout? It is probably possible to do more valuable work within your current job too. You do first need to be aware that you get (too) little satisfaction from your work, and know what does give you satisfaction. Sometimes you can adapt your work yourself so it suits you better, for example with job crafting.
Working according to your values
'Valuable work' contains the word 'value'. To be able to do valuable work, it is important to know which values matter to you. Questions you can ask yourself:
- How do you want to live?
- What is important to you?
- What gives you satisfaction?
- What makes you really angry?
If the work you do doesn't fit your values, it will never make you engaged. Work engagement requires motivation from within. Engaged people experience their work as useful, meaningful and inspiring. UBES manual And you don't become motivated from within by something that doesn't suit you.
If you want to be engaged and work well with others, you need to know your own values, and those of your colleagues. Those values are the foundation you can build on. So: what is the added value of your work?
Also read purpose gives your work value.
About this article: written by Lucienne de Bie and updated by the editors of Alles over bevlogenheid.
