Meaning at work, a little history…
The world of work has not always looked like what we know today. In fact, one of the great transformations known in the workplace is Taylorism.
This great transformation was born in the 1890s and has its roots in Frederick Winslow Taylor, an American engineer. Taylorism took shape in a context where we wanted to maximize efficiency gains. We were in a social context where the standard of living was rising for the middle class and the working class. There was an expansion of assembly line work. At that time, the work was described as alienating. The work carried out no longer required intellectual skills . This is how Taylorism was born. We calculated the time to complete each task. Therefore, the worker had an allocated time to complete his task. Performance was at the heart of the organizations' concerns. They thought in terms of efficiency gains.
Brown -out or loss of meaning at work syndrome corresponds to a drop in power, to a loss of meaning.
Taylorism is marked by poor and very repetitive working conditions. There was a loss of the purpose of the work. The work no longer required thinking. Furthermore, this assembly line method of work was also established in the large Ford company. This is why we also speak of Fordism.
Fordism is a division of labor that aims for high productivity. In this phase, we aimed to reduce production costs in exchange for a salary for employees. We are intensifying assembly line work. Employee work is shortened to make it more profitable. We wanted employees to give their heart to the task in order to be fully productive. Fordism is considered the end of Taylorism.
Fordism wanted to increase the purchasing power of its workers so that they could consume more. We wanted to encourage mass consumption. It is therefore in this ideology that the stock market crash hit the economic world in 1929. With the Roaring Twenties, the war is over, the financial system works better, people spend en masse. Banks are going bankrupt. This crisis becomes financial and ultimately economic. So there are lots of people losing their jobs. It is the collapse of world trade.
Economic prosperity and search for meaning
The thirty glorious years were years of economic prosperity. This happened after the Second World War. This is strong economic growth. The government is investing in different organizations to restart the economy. State intervention is necessary. The thirty glorious years boil down to better control of the conditions in which work is carried out. We are seeing major social reforms and respite for the masses of workers. This is the appearance of trade unionism. We can also see improvements in working conditions.
The State is becoming a big employer, it is creating new careers. It’s the height of mass consumption. However, this is not without impact for work. There are now more regulated working conditions. The State regulates the relationship between employers and employees. We realize that without state intervention, people have too strong a thirst for enrichment.
There was now an opportunity to flourish, to do what you love. We can join a company according to our skills. However, it is the work of humans who adjust to machines. We are always looking for new recipes to be more productive. Workers are also asked to be specialized in one area. The work is more and more abstract. The worker must establish and act on the organization of work. He must find his own strategies. The worker is asked to self-regulate. We are asking for employee commitment and social commitment so that workers give themselves to their jobs. They must work for the good of the company. We ask them to do more with less.
The technological advent and bullshit jobs
Today, expectations are higher than ever as the population is more educated and technology makes it possible to work from anywhere. Even if the world of work today no longer resembles that of assembly line work at the beginning of the 20th century, the fact remains that repetitive tasks, the loss of the purpose of work and abstract work are nevertheless very present. And they create suffering in people.
Humans need to understand why they do their work.
Christophe Dejours said that work is “the organized activity by which humans transform the natural and social world and transform themselves”. When work no longer allows the worker to evolve, it loses its meaning. It was the anthropologist David Graeber who, in 2013, introduced the notion of brown out under the term bullshit job . Brown-out or syndrome of loss of meaning at work corresponds to a drop in power, to a loss of meaning. It designates the mental health pathologies which are the consequences. It results in a feeling of absurdity and uselessness.
The health crisis has revived this quest for meaning at work. Many workers experienced loss of meaning during this period, and still today. We only have to think of reduced social contacts, abstract work and tasks, increased administrative tasks, reduced sense of belonging to a group or team, etc. This health crisis has led to a profound questioning of the meaning of work. Could it be possible that this crisis has helped realign people towards meaning ? Because unlike bullshit jobs , “ when individuals manage to have an impact on the world through their work, when it does not threaten their ethical coherence and on the contrary it allows each person to develop their ability to act, work is meaningful and contributes powerfully to psychological well-being. » We can therefore see through history and our current knowledge about work that when it loses its meaning, the result is a form of suffering and an attack on psychological health. Conversely, when meaning is present, it is a powerful factor of psychological well-being and evolution.
And you, does your job make sense?
* In order to lighten the text and make it easier to read, the masculine generic is used as a neutral gender.
References :
Coutrot, T., & Perez, C. (2022). Restoring meaning to work: A revolutionary aspiration ; Éditions du Seuil.
Dejours, C., & Abdoucheli, E. (1990). “Theoretical itinerary in work psychopathology”, Revue Prévenir , 20 (1), 21-38.
Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit jobs , Employment, 131.
Graeber, D. (2015). The utopia of rules: On technology, stupidity, and the secret joys of bureaucracy , Melville House.
Hilali, NE, & Mathieu, JP (2010). Taylorism, Fordism and Toyotism: how design management constructed the main productive models of organization theory.
Cristyna Parent is a guidance counselor and psychotherapist by training. She has acted as a facilitator and trainer on themes such as transformational leadership, psychological safety, collective intelligence, etc.
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