The Meaning and Function of Work

What People Say About Work

In 1974, Studs Terkel published "Working," a book featuring oral histories of Americans and their jobs. This book captured sentiments about work, its relation to social status, and its impact on personal identity. The reflections may still resonate today. Some people like their jobs but feel others don't respect them. Others seek meaning in unchallenging roles.

Books like "Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs" (Bowe, et al, 2000) and Suzanne Skees' international books such as "My Job: People at Work Around the World" (2016) remind us that workers desire challenge, respect, and a sense of caring from managers and colleagues. This doesn't always require high pay, as illustrated by a retired schoolteacher working as a store greeter who focuses on spreading goodwill.

Meaning of Work

Work is any activity providing value to people beyond immediate friends and family, typically within organizations like businesses, schools, hospitals, churches, or nonprofits. While home activities require effort, the focus here is on work outside the home, which shapes identity, communicates interests, and indicates social status.

For many, work is more than just a paycheck. It involves relationships, self-worth, self-development, and using skills to help others, contributing to the community. While jobs may have dull or stressful days, the activities serve a larger purpose.

Understanding how work fulfills people is crucial for management. Management involves planning, organizing, directing, and controlling employee activities with resources to achieve organizational goals. A challenge for management is transforming distasteful jobs into meaningful situations which satisfy individuals while contributing to productivity and effectiveness. Organizational behavior aims to create meaning, motivation, and employee development through management activities.

This course will cover theories on employee motivation, team effectiveness, job performance, and human resource management, based on research in psychology, sociology, and other social sciences.

TERMS TO KNOW

  • Work: An activity that produces something of value for people outside of our immediate friends and family.
  • Management: The process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the activities of employees in combination with other resources to accomplish organizational objectives.

Functions of Work

Work is important for organizations, but also for individuals. The most important serve the following functions:

  • Economic Need: Work provides income to support oneself and family.
  • Social Need: The workplace offers opportunities to meet people and develop friendships.
  • Status: Work provides social status in the community. Occupation indicates how one is regarded based on societal standards. Status depends on the company's reputation and the position held. Status often transcends organizational boundaries.

Work can be a source of social differentiation and integration.

  • Identity: Work is a source of identity, self-esteem, and potentially self-actualization. It provides a sense of purpose and clarifies one's value to society. Work binds individuals to reality and the human community.

Work contributes to self-esteem by:

  1. Providing opportunities to demonstrate competence.
  2. Reassuring individuals that they produce something of value.

Without work, individuals may feel they have little to contribute and are of little value to society.

Without these aspects, individuals may experience alienation, including feelings of powerlessness, meaninglessness, and normlessness.

When work is challenging, individuals find meaning in their activities. If work lacks challenge, employees may not apply themselves, jeopardizing productivity. This concern has led managers to explore how behavioral sciences can address problems of people at work.

Summary

Work has meaning beyond income, serving as a source of identity, self-worth, relationships, and purpose. Organizational behavior studies how to create these meanings at work, fulfilling individuals and providing value to the organization.

The course will address:

  • How organizational structure and change impact work
  • How diversity can create a motivating organizational structure
  • How personality impacts job performance and teamwork
  • The importance of perception and attitudes about work
  • How learning can positively impact performance
  • Employee motivation theories and application of those theories as a manager
  • The elements of a high-performing team
  • The importance of effective decision-making
  • The traits and behaviors that make a good leader

By the course's end, you will understand organizational success and how managers can use human psychology and group dynamics to help workers succeed and make work rewarding.

TERMS TO KNOW

  • Alienation: Feelings of powerlessness, meaninglessness, and normlessness.
  • Management: The process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the activities of employees in combination with other resources to accomplish organizational objectives.
  • Work: An activity that produces something of value for people.