Wholly devoted to work
My dad recently shared with me a podcast in which guest Caroline Chen discusses her new book Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley. Her primary research finding — that work has become the primary place where we find meaning — continues to consume my thoughts.
As Chen explains, while religious and civic organizations used to be the primary source for our sense of identity, purpose and social belonging, increasingly the workplace has stepped in to meet these basic human needs. And, with that, we’re finding our sense of meaning at work.
We see this in the language we use around work and management. It’s become quite devotional in connotation, with words such as passion, mission, purpose, fulfillment, sacrifice becoming commonplace in our job descriptions and vernacular.
It also manifests in our actions. When looking into a devotion to practicing yoga, Chen found that the driver was actually along the lines of “I do yoga so that I can become a better [job title].” The broader conclusion is that our time and energy spent in pursuits such as mindfulness, health, and fitness are now outcome-driven so that we can be more productive, are ready to show up for work, and can handle more stress.
The companies we work for promote devotion. As their most valuable asset, knowledge workers can be “maximized” by capturing their discretionary effort, which happens when they internalize the mission of the organization as their source of meaning. Furthermore, an approach of corporate maternalism — providing meals, laundry, haircuts, childcare, social life, retreats, etc. — allows employees to shed extraneous worries in favor of more mindspace dedicated to work.
And while there are many good-intentioned folks pushing for more human-centered, fulfilling workplaces (myself included), these efforts often must be justified according to capitalist priorities such as their impact on efficiency and the bottom-line. This results in a fair amount of performative care, where actions and priorities align with a different set of values than messaging.
While there was a wealth of interesting insights, what was most striking to me was the arc of emotions that I experienced throughout the discussion.
And my takeaways are this:
At a community level, this is bad. Relying on work institutions as our primary source of meaning is equated with significant decline in civic and community participation. Those privileged to work for an employer who provides a sense of meaning as well as meets their material needs tend to opt out of the broader community, increasing social inequality and the disparity between the “haves” and the “have-nots”.
At an individual level, this can be good. We all deeply desire a fulfilling life and with so much of our time spent at work, there’s tremendous gains in finding meaning in our work. All the better, that our organizations are encouraging us to do so and providing tools to help us hone in on/harness that. On the flip side, there’s a danger of work becoming the only source of engagement, making for a relentless topic of conversation or train of thought, or the work family eclipsing the family we share a home with.
At the organization level, we need to develop a sense of curiosity (and perhaps some healthy skepticism). How might we reap the personal benefits while rectifying the negative impact on the community? To discover opportunities and move forward with more intentionality, we can ask questions such as:
To what extent are these organization programs tied to or motivated by capitalist priorities of efficiency and impact on the bottom line?
Where am I finding belonging and purpose now vs where do I want to be finding them?
When work feels like family, how will we recognize if/when we’re being exploited?
In a culture of frequent job hopping, how and why does this devotion persist across organizations?
When our companies take care of everyday responsibilities so we can focus more on our work, to what extent are we losing touch with real life experiences of those who don’t have this privilege?
Admittedly, we’re left with many more questions than answers. As a designer, that’s a signal to me that we’re at the beginning of discovery and have a lot more to learn as we start to intentionally address this trend.