The Love-Hate Relationship With Our Jobs
How do you feel about your job? This question is regularly asked in surveys of American Workers. In VOCA’s 2024 study, we found that 60% of the respondents were pleased with their current work. Yet, this past November, Gallup saw that number decline, with over 50% either looking for or hoping for a new opportunity.
Americans have a love-hate relationship with our jobs. We love them sometimes, hate them other times, and underneath it all, we live a deep conviction that we must have a job. At VOCA, we hear these stories over and over:
“My job is sucking the life out of me.”
“I think I’m burned out.”
“I am facing a toxic culture in my workplace.”
“I need a change–a different job, maybe even a different career.”
What are we to make of this negativity, and what is the antidote?
Two Tired Approaches to “The Job”
Working for the Weekend
Sometime in the last century, work became known as a necessary evil, something you have to do so you can do what you want to do. Popular songs captured this: 9 to 5, You Can Take This Job and Shove It, and Working for the Weekend. The Rage Quitting phenomenon of the post-pandemic job landscape picked up these themes. In this world, work is not about creating value, serving others, or expressing yourself. Work is merely a transaction: you find the best deal for yourself. There is no joy at work except when the working day is over.
Workism
Workism is a term coined by Derek Thompson in an article for the Atlantic. Thompson suggests that:
For the college-educated elite, work has morphed into a religious identity—promising transcendence and community.
It also promises security. In other words, work is the center of life, delivering all the anchoring realities that religion traditionally delivers. Thompson postulates that work cannot deliver on these promises and leaves people miserable.
From our vantage point on our business consulting side, we see economic headwinds, employee churn, reduction in force initiatives, rapidly changing market conditions that change the value of employee equity, and personal politics ruining any utopic vision of work. As we say, “Even if you find your dream job, it won’t be your dream job forever. The institution or market will change, and you will grow and evolve.”
For workism types, joy comes from winning–landing the big project, closing the deal, getting the bonus, and renegotiating a better package at your present firm or a new one. If you don’t enjoy your job, find another. Joy is constantly threatened and very temporary.
Here’s the conclusion: traditional approaches to work leave us lacking joy on the job. But that’s not the end of the story.
A Work Universal
In our annual research study, Life@Work, we strive to honor the diverse experiences of “the job” among the working population. Our bias is to assume that the dynamics experienced by tech CEO are different from those of a service worker, that your generation impacts what you expect from your career, and that we need to listen carefully to each group to have a robust understanding of what people are living as they go about their careers on a daily basis. With this bias for honoring diverse perspectives, we were shocked by this year’s findings to discover that the source of joy at work is universal: helping other people.
When we asked respondents what their most significant source of joy was, here’s what we found when we broke out their answers:
By generation: All of them listed helping others. It was strongest for Boomers and weakest for Gen Z but still the top source for all generational cohorts.
By gender: It's stronger for women than for men, but “helping others” is still the top source for both.
By race: We tracked Black, White, Asian, Latino, and Multi-Race. The top source of joy for each one is helping others.
By industry: The following listed helping others as their top source of joy. Finance, Christian Ministry, Education, Government, Hospitality, Retail, Transportation, and Science. Information Technology and the Manufacturing/Construction/Ag group listed helping in their top three.
By job type: Senior executives, VPs, managers, sales and marketing professionals, service providers, licensed professionals, degreed professionals, individual contributors, and admins are all listed as helping as number one. Craftsmen and Line Workers included it in their top three.
Should We Be Suprised?
Jesus taught, “Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the 2nd greatest commandment.” (Luke 10:27). He said, “It is more blessed to give than receive.” (Acts 20:35) and reflecting on Jesus’ generosity, Peter said, “each one of us has been given a gift with which to serve others.” (1 Peter 4:10)
Who do you need to help to experience this joy bump at work? Our findings are agnostic regarding this question. You can help your customer, client, student, or patient. You can help a colleague. You can help a vendor or service provider in your organization. Creating a positive impact by assisting another person in some observable way will bring you joy at work.
How to Bring Joy to Your Work
So how do you do this, how do you “help others” on the job?
Reconnect with the human impact of your industry: Most work is people work; it has an impact on others and is meant to. Sometimes, in the helping profession, the challenges and bureaucracy can eclipse the good work being done every day. Sometimes in business, we get distracted by financial performance (which is still important) and forget that we are delivering a product or service that brings positive value to our customers, it matters to them. Perhaps a going-to-work mantra, reminding us who it is we serve and why it matters, is worth creating and repeating each day:
I help people manage their money so they can be stable and generous.
I help companies find the best people for open positions on their teams, bringing opportunities to individuals and fresh talent to teams.
I help students reach their full potential.
I help people in distress find hope and a plan.
Ask for feedback: One of the reasons we don’t know how we help people is because we don’t ask. I was advising a consultant in a very technical industry who craved knowing his work was making a difference. We created a simple procedure where he could ask clients how well he met their needs and what the results meant to them. This request for feedback gave him a window into how his very technical, intellectual work, was helping people.
Look at the people around you: Take some time to notice the people you work with. What are their stresses and challenges? How could you bring them some relief? What are their strengths and the situations where they shine? How can you give them specific feedback to celebrate those capacities? Most of us spend most of the day unnoticed. A little noticing can go a long way to impacting your coworkers.
Look for the people no one else seems to appreciate: In every work situation, there are invisible and disliked people. How can you see and help those no one else will? The doorman, the custodian, the delivery person, the new team member who struggles to fit in. Sometimes, helping simply requires walking across the room to someone no one sees. Then, you assist them with a task or give them specific praise.
Keep an impact journal: Whether at the macro-scale of your industry or the micro-scale of small, add a line for private acts of kindness to your daily journal to capture how you have helped others. You will find your joy begin to multiply.
Joy to the Work For Now
In the short term, finding ways to help others is the key to joy in your work. But this doesn’t mean you should never change jobs. In truth, every work assignment is temporary. Organizations change, we change, and eventually, we stop working as we age. And the truth is, if you’re in a very limiting or difficult situation, even in a good but not great situation, God may lead you to take the step of faith to find a new role where you can grow in your skills and help others more profoundly. I am not discounting this possibility.
But what we want you to hear is that none of us has to do joyless work. Joy is just a personal touch away, and there are always other people connected to our work.
Jesus, our rescuer and leader, said he came to give us joy that is overflowing. So no matter where you find your place of employment or what career path you are on, I say: Joy to your work.
For more on how to have joy at work, watch this video on the "Gift and Grind of Work."
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