Meaningful Work
According to an essay published by the Work Foundation, the notion of ‘meaningful work’ is a relatively new phenomenon that would have made little sense to our forbears. Author, Stephen Overell says: “The way people talk about ‘fulfilling their potential’ in a job could only happen in the modern world of work – it is simply not something that would have been said a few generations ago. Meaningful work rests on the rise of individualism and identity as pressing concerns for large numbers of people. It speaks of huge and perhaps excessive expectations of working life – the historically unusual sense that fulfilment occurs, or should occur, in the everyday, ordinary business of going to work.
“People are very different – what is meaningful to one person may not be meaningful to another, and what someone finds meaningful at the age of 23 may not be how they feel at 43. Nevertheless, meaning is unmistakably in the air of the 21st century culture of work.”
While meaning can be hard to find it seems that those working in veterinary practices have a head start.
According to the Work Foundation essay, the discovery of meaning in work relies on balancing three sets of motives. They are moral motives – the idea that the ‘ends’ of work are worthwhile; compensation motives – including money but also status, authority, responsibility and the appropriate use of skills and abilities; and craft motives – the desire to do a good job for its own sake. The good news is that for those working in practice, there seems to be plenty of meaningful work particularly when considering these sets of motives.
For further information please visit: www.workfoundation.co.uk
Joanne Webster, a professor of parasitic diseases at the RVC, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
