Personal Fulfilment: In the Workplace?

At the recent Battle of Ideas conference work strand ‘The changing meaning of work – from work-life balance to unemployment’, Stephen Overell from the Work Foundation suggested that meaningful work had shifted from the purely economic sense of ‘a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay’ or the broader vocational sense of public service to something more subjective - a quest for personal fulfilment that is not necessarily progressive.

He sees this new inwardness in how we see work as a reflection of the gradual evolution of social values: greater affluence, education, rapid rise in professional and managerial work in the 20th century and a dominant culture of expressive individualism.

Finding satisfaction in one’s work is not new. A job well done, whether it’s stacking shelves, maintaining a well kept filing system or producing a well crafted report can give one immense satisfaction. Having a good employer, likeable colleagues and a nice working environment make work a pleasanter place to be but none of these things provide that sense of fulfilment we seem to crave today.

Craftsmen or artists may come closer to a sense of personal self-expression and fulfilment in what they do. Not long ago, a sense of vocation – a calling to public service – provided an adequate sense of fulfilment for many nurses, doctors, teachers, social workers or civil servants.

So what’s changed?

Stephen Overell sees the loss of meaning increasing since the 1970’s with the decline in the concept of vocation, the ethos of public service and self-sacrifice. Without this meaning can seem ‘self-interested and solipsistic’ and the search for meaning in work today is therefore not necessarily progressive.

I agree with Stephen about the loss of the ethos of public service but I also believe that this is linked to a bigger picture: the narrowing of the public space in which people were able to find fulfilment and meaning beyond the limitations of the workplace.

During the 1980’s and early 1990’s, I and my colleagues were involved in political campaigns: in support of the miners and Irish Freedom, against racism and imperialist wars, for womens rights and abortion on demand. At work we organised around the trade unions in town halls and on picket lines.
Our identities were defined by our political ideals. Personal fulfilment was a collective endeavour.

One may have shuffled papers or stacked shelves at work but outside of work, one could be addressing a rally, organising a march or protest or being interviewed on the television or radio.

Work was a material means to a more fulfilling end. Perhaps we need to recreate our public space with new visions of the society we want and forget about trying to seek personal fulfilment at work.