Find more meaning at work

Hello, please let it work.

I am Bethan, an assistant research and career editor at FT, and today I am standing for Isabelle.

Today is Spring Statement Day. This means great excitement at Fort. We gather around newsroom television broadcasting big speeches, relying on documents to discover hidden details from announcements, and eagerly file live blogs. The sandwiches and coffee are brought to the desks of people who cannot separate them from the computer.

As for the statement, Rachel Reeves has increased defense and capital expenditures, but also has £7 billion in welfare and sectoral cuts by 2030.

FT coverage has everything you need to know. In the meantime, I have been thinking about ways to create meaning in the workplace.

thought? I’d love to hear it – line me up at bethan.staton@ft.com

what do you mean?

Many years ago, when my friends and I were thinking about what to do with our lives, many of us wanted more than a corporate grind. We wanted to work in a better role, to cooperate with intellectual issues and to express our creativity. I hope that our work makes sense.

Fast forward ten years or so, we are quite older and listened a lot. Some have discovered true success in their roles in charity, public services and academia, while others are tackling daily dysfunction. There are few opportunities for growth, and there are probably discrimination and bullying. Times are long and can be paid poorly. In some cases, the daily reality of the supposed purpose-driven work feels, at the end of the day, not that much value.

Yesterday I thought about this after a conversation with Tamara Miles and Wes Adams where a meaningful work from a new book will be released next month. It aims to help leaders “fire the passion and performance of all employees” by creating an environment where people find value in what they’re doing, regardless of what they’re doing.

The author was inspired by his first job to write a book. Miles began his career in advertising. She responded to the agency and said, “I went through the work in such a way that it was deeply meaningful and completely meaningless” – even if she was doing the same job. Meanwhile, Adams was surprised by the value he found in the role of hospitality.

“We were asked, isn’t it a meaningful job about nonprofits? Doesn’t it have to be purpose-driven?” he says. He concluded that there is no meaning in work that is ostensibly all about making the world a better place or enacting certain values ​​and passions. “Not so. If you know where to look, you can have meaningful moments at work every day.”

The books by Miles and Adams are based on this principle. It serves as a playbook about how leaders are done, claiming that leadership is one of the most powerful mechanisms for motivation and appeal.

They say the starting point is in three CSs. You belong, belong and feel connected to the community, or the people around you. Contributions, or understand that you are making an impact. You can try, learn and grow. “The community says it’s important here, the contribution says what I do, the challenge says my growth is important,” explains Miles.

In the book, she explores how employers at work, from Chick-fil-A to Hubspot, created these factors for staff. Approaches include creating psychological safety, hosting social events, funding for training, and creating a culture of support through value-driven employment.

One of the things that hit me about Miles and Adams’ books is not a grand suggestion about the purpose of our work, but rather it focuses on small-scale values ​​and how we do it. This may seem somewhat counterintuitive, especially for people (like me) who grew up hoping to find jobs that they are interested in or passionate about.

When Steve Jobs begged his 2005 graduate to “find what you like,” he captured the sentiment that was widely shared at the time, especially among middle-class educated young people in the US and Europe. Work should express our interests, have a positive impact and become part of our identity. It should not only be a job, but a purpose.

That’s not unreasonable. However, as some of my friends and contacts have discovered, the purpose does not guarantee meaning and can have a dark side. Purpose-driven work can be bad, characterized by punishment, low wages, and punishing toxic bosses. *More likely to be characterized by such failures. According to sociologist Erin Chek, focusing on the “principles of passion,” or the fulfillment of our careers, can be the cover of exploitation that legalizes bad work practices, as meaning is rewarded well.

This observation has become a hot topic among many former vocational instructors. When daily friction, sadness and stress become dominant features in ostensibly meaningful work, they can feel rather meaningless. Nevertheless, those who do purpose-driven jobs often cultivate. They hope that the value of the big picture that originally drove their careers can give the value of their work.

However, the meaning of the workplace requires only a purpose. For example, you can achieve concrete outcomes and opportunities to develop yourself, and you need a collaborative work relationship, for example. In other words, community, contribution, ideals of challenge, Miles and Adams identify in their books.

Recognizing this does not mean abandoning the idea that our work should have valuable consequences. It is important that we feel we can delay what our organization is doing. And the central part of the author’s discussion is that it makes sense by properly connecting with the value of work. And leaders need to make it clearer.

But Miles and Adams’ books remind us that big ideas about purpose are not enough to give meaning to our work over the long term. We need to strive for smaller details, personally and for the teams we work with. We need to have a broader understanding of what shapes our daily work and what we do. How we work creates meaning and our work.

American workplace insights: workplaces are similar to the 1980s

This week, Kevin Delaney, editor-in-chief of Charter, a future media and research company for the job, shared a takeaway from his exploration of similarities between current landscapes and the 1980s American workers.

The starting point for this comparison is that the Trump administration has layoffs for federal workers and oversight restrictions, reminiscent of President Ronald Reagan’s public sector unions, particularly the Striking Air Traffic Controller’s shootings in the early 1980s.

As Kevin writes, Reagan’s aggressive tone encouraged private sector employers such as Phelps Dodge, International Papers and Homer, becoming more anti-union and contributed to the decline of American organised labor. So the question now is whether Trump’s White House’s relative unfriendship with workers will similarly spread to the private sector.

Kevin spoke with Kim Phillips Fein, a professor at Columbia University who specializes in the history of labor and capitalism. He said: However, Phillips Fein noted that the White House approach is “a lot more aligned with today’s employers” than Reagan’s approach. “Private sector employers already have a very hard-line attitude towards unions, in many cases and circumstances,” she said.

Last year, the percentage of US workers fell below a record low of 9.9% compared to 20.1% in 1983. However, Philips Fein observed that “the rage and dissatisfaction and lack of channels that are popular in the political election process” among workers have become stronger among workers, as they are now. Therefore, it could lead to an increase in worker organizations.

Five Top Stories from the World of Work

Welfare has been cut, 250,000 people are forced into poverty, and government welfare reform, according to its own assessment, will drive many people, including 50,000 children, into poverty. The minister says the cut is designed to bring people to work.

Side hustle, zoom waves and big casualization: how covid has shaped new ways of working, it’s been five years since we were all ordered to stay inside. The pandemic and associated lockdowns have particularly made a huge difference in the way we work. Our top journalists and experts have delved into what has changed.

A white-collar world without juniors? If AI works, what will be the entry level role? That’s a problem I’ve been hooked on for a while. Here, work columnist Sarah O’Connor is looking at how skills will evolve in the future, including chatting with Matt Bean, the author of Skill Code.

Thanks to the long-standing tax cliff edge, the £100,000 child care tax trap madness faces losing government support for child care when a parent’s net profit exceeds £100,000. This deep dive into the family sparked a lot of debate in the comments section (and in my home we were divided into sympathy for the country’s best earners).

This week’s Trump White House amateurism was accompanied by journalists being misinformed in highly sensitive government group chats. Part of the story is about professionalism and confusion, which is ultimately the workplace, despite having a higher interest than most of us.

One more thing. . .

Tonight I’m going to see Annie Elnow’s theatre adaptation. My reading group discussed the same book yesterday, so I’m particularly looking forward to it. It gave me ideas and made books and play feel like a collective experience – appropriately for a “collective memoir” that speaks of personal and political experiences as “us” rather than “me.” We had a hard time coming up with other examples of books that do this.

For thoughts on this, or any other tips on the world of work, drop me a line at bethan.staton@ft.com