The word "work" needs rework!

The word 'work' is so ubiquitous that we instinctively assume that we know its meaning. Look at any dictionary, and you would find work is defined as an activity involving mental or physical effort done to achieve an outcome or result. Such a definition has its origins in the early industrial revolution- a derivative from advances in scientific management.

?Any which way you look at it, work came to be understood as expending energy to get to output. Over the last many years, organizations have pushed the employees to work more, expend more energy to drive productivity, and enhance output. The side effect of such an interpretation of work is when employees feel drained and burnt out. Work becomes a chore, a necessary evil.

?Something interesting happened during the pandemic. We could step out of the hamster wheel and reflect on what work really means to us. McKinsey reports that 32% of those who left during the great resignation went to gig careers. Another survey reported that 33% of those who left their jobs did not have an alternative lined up. This shows that people are re-evaluating their equation with work and their organizations.

Before F.W. Taylor and his scientific management, work had a different meaning- work was a craft performed by an artisan. Work was, therefore, an expression of the 'artist.' In the past, work was a person's identity- with surnames in many parts of the world depicting the person's work. But as work was conceived during the scientific management era, it was splintered and atomized to drive productivity. Any decision-making and ownership from work were now separated from the worker and given to the supervisor- and workers became mere tools of productivity. The worker lost all intrinsic relationship with work- it became a pure transaction- something a worker did to earn money. Work became a means to make money, not meaning.

However, the pandemic questioned that transactional equation with work. Workers started questioning if that was all there was to work and their life. Work had been reduced to a day-after-day slog from morning to night that fed the stomach but left the soul dry for most. The pandemic was a wake-up call.

?Is it time to redefine work- make it more about making meaning than money? In the wake of the pandemic, employees want to work to be a positive experience- one they feel gives them purpose and dignity, one that evokes them to perform at their best. Money, therefore, becomes a consequence of work, not its objective. When organizations reframe work as a meaning-making experience, with making money resulting from that experience, the worker becomes less of a tool, and work becomes more of a calling and source of growth and fulfillment. When organizations try and drag workers back to the old paradigm of work as an incessant drive for productivity, they are trying to fit square pegs in a round hole- and hence forcing employees to quit to pursue that which gives them meaning, lifts their soul and bestows an experience that gives them a?sense of joy for pursuing their?passion.

What do you think?