Accelerated technology adoption, Covid-19, global data availability, AI are affecting the way people work in organizations. This is radically transforming organizations' demands and employees' offers.
The move from a production economy to a service economy is shifting employment towards jobs that are either richer and more abstract (Parker, 2014) or jobs that are less qualified and routine driven (Kalleberg, 2011), while the number of middle-level positions are failing, due to the advancement of technological developments. Businesses with a global reach, virtual teams, and temporary contracting with internal colleagues, or third parties, on specific projects, are transforming the way people work.
Unsurprisingly, in this flux and social, decentralized, connected and unsecured job context, characterized by an abundance of job activities which are not intrinsically stimulating (Gagné & Deci, 2005), employees are challenged to find meaning in their work.
According to Gallup, in 2019 about 52% of American employees were "not engaged" in their work, meaning that they were psychologically unattached to both the work and the company.
They committed time to work, but not much else.
Their energy and passions did not come with them to shape their work life.
Although the trend for engaged employees actually improved in the last few years, the majority of people are still either dissatisfied or disengaged, or they cannot make sense of their work.
But making sense of work is of fundamental importance. People do actively seek meaning in their work (Pratt & Ashforth, 2003) however, they find significant challenges in their pursuit.
Either surviving or thriving at work...
Disengaged employees often perceive that they are stuck at work. They cope with challenges passively and adapt to the work environment. They shape their job to minimize day to day complexities, avoid problems and just make it through the day. They feel like: “At work, I am just a number.", “ My company does not care about me..”, “Nothing can be changed here. Why bother?”
On the contrary engaged employees can craft a meaningful and purposeful work-life. They can make sense of their work tasks, their relationships at work and they find meaning in what they do. Typically these employees answer questions about their work in these ways:
“With my job I make the world a better place”, “I make a difference just because I can”, “I am inspired by / I inspire my colleagues”
... but still job crafting
Interestingly both thriving and surviving at work imply shaping the work environment. All employees - actively or passively - craft tasks, relations and the meaning of work. All employees are job crafters who try to make sense of their environment and maximize wellbeing/minimize discomfort. We believe that a person-centered approach to work begins with becoming aware job crafters and owning and making sense of the responsibility each one of us has into defining the work environment and our experience at work.
A client I worked with few years ago told me "it is what it is". No. We do not believe that. We believe that it is what we make of it and we have a responsibility to ourselves as employees, managers, business owners to find solutions that allows people to bring the best of themselves at work.
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