BE THANKFUL FOR WORK AT THANKSGIVING

An edited version of this article first appeared on Bloomberg Work Shift

Do you feel valued, like an individual worker, or do you feel un-thanked, or worse, like a turkey who votes for its own Christmas some of the time?

For anyone wondering how to turn gloom into optimism, there is a surprising opportunity to relaunch the kinship and community of the workplace by borrowing something from home: Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has been a national holiday in the US since 1863, and except for when it was briefly named “Franksgiving” after Franklin Delano Roosevelt changed the date in 1939 to try to boost sales after the Great Depression — it’s about not working. In the US and many countries around the world it’s an annual holiday: very few workplaces — even fully remote ones — are open for business on Thanksgiving.

That said, plenty of people celebrate Thanksgiving with at least a handful of colleagues because friendships form at work that can be as strong as family and in some cases a proxy for it.

There’s a scene in Amazon Prime’s show Bosch, based on the Michael Connelly detective novels, in which the hero detective Harry Bosch and colleagues gather around turkey and trimmings. They wisecrack and argue, everyday tensions are put to the side while they serve, eat and drink. I’m guessing your own family Thanksgiving may be a little like that, too. It isn’t just that work for some is like family (for plenty it isn’t) but that it conveys a similar interdependency and intimacy which we can all recognize.

The plate-sharing of Thanksgiving is a great equalizer. This is something to build on when trying to recreate fractured workplace communities. Lack of connection is often at the heart of why work appears to be so unpopular. Data published in September 2022 by research firm Workplace Intelligence and logistics company Airspeed showed that 96% of executives said that “if their employees felt more connected to each other it would boost their motivation and productivity.”

It’s why so much cutting-edge workplace and office redesign puts socialization at the heart of bringing people back to offices. In their book Unworking: The Reinvention of the Modern Office Jeremy Myerson and Philip Ross say that “food and drink needs to take center stage as the means by which to encourage attendance and interaction.” Thanksgiving’s origins for centuries have been highly tied to work and giving thanks for the food produced and harvested — by workers. In modern times, Japan formally created its Kinro Kansha no Hi after the World War II to celebrate production and workers’ rights. Creating and enabling community spirit is key to restoring confidence in the workplace.

Data released by Workplace Intelligence conducted with think tank Workforce Institute shows the scale of the problem when workers feel disconnected from meaning or belonging. Some 45% of employees across 10 countries don’t want to work anymore, 77% want to spend less time working and “more time doing things that matter to them” and 46% wouldn’t recommend their company or profession to any young people they care about.

Not the whole picture of work

And yet, this isn’t the whole picture. Yes, people are disaffected but not necessarily by work itself, just badly managed work, or badly paid work or inflexible work. In fact, the same dataset shows that 84% of those surveyed would still work, even if they won the lottery, and just under one third of them would work the same hours. How do we explain this apparent contradiction, and does it let managers off the hook if the majority of people want to work anyway?

The political philosopher Hannah Arendt never believed there was a contradiction about people wanting to both live and work. In The Human Condition, published in 1958, she called for a sense of “vita activa,” namely focusing on labor, work and action, rather than a life of mere contemplation, or “vita contemplativa.” She noted that “the human condition of labor is life itself.”

This may be unfashionable and unwelcome news to those arguing today for anything from universal basic income to a limit on working days to no work at all. But now is a good time to be thankful for the rewards of work: It gives us more than pay, it gives us meaning.

But no, it doesn’t let those off the hook who foster disconnection at work. Togetherness takes effort and time — just like preparing the Thanksgiving meal. But showing your team that you’re grateful for them and that you understand they are actually grateful for the work, too, well that brings you all nicely together.

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