Work Is a Source of Satisfaction and Joy for Individuals

Work is a source of satisfaction and joy for individuals

Introduction

As a human being, our job takes a big amount of time of our lives. But since working does not necessarily have to be considered as a burden, this essay will discuss to what extent work can be a source of satisfaction and joy for individuals.

In Section One, this essay will analyze the main reasons why people work by referring to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Jackson & Carter (2000), Noon & Blyton (1997) as well as Fromm (1942).

Section two will show an example how one particular manager feels about his work, before pointing out some general problems which management faces. Afterwards, the life of a janitor will be described very shortly, too. This section references Jackell (1988) and Richard Sennett.

In section three, it will be discussed what management can do in order to create the basis for a productive workplace with happy employees. As an example, Ackroyd and Crowdy's research of an English slaughterhouse as well as Knights and Roberts (1982) will be referred to.

Why people work

In this section, different reasons why people go to work will be regarded. As Maslow's' hierarchy of need shows, people do have the immediate need for food and shelter. However, it will be outlined that not everybody just goes to work in order to earn money by referring to Fromm (1942), Jackson & Carter (2000) as well as Noon & Blyton (1997).

So why do people work? An answer which can be expected is that people work to earn money. Since we are living in an economy that is based on work specialization and trade, people need to have some money to pay their daily bread as well as their rent. Looking at Maslow's' hierarchy of needs, the two bottom levels have to be fulfilled first for a human being in order to feel happy. Those two levels are physiological and safety issues, in other words, food and shelter. According to a survey done by the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative (SCELI), 68 % of the questioned people actually said that the primary reason why they are working is to earn money (The Realities of Work, p. 36). 27 % of people saying the work to buy extra things are included in those 68 %.

However, it is necessary to consider that in the countries which we are talking about, the social system of a state is usually very advanced so that it provides enough even for people who are not working. This leads back to the question, if people tell they would be working to earn money, but reality shows that they do not have to do so in order to meet their basic needs, why do they work? In addition to that, sometimes there are people having low-paid jobs and they are even worse off than unemployed people (The Realities of Work, p.35).

Therefore, SCELI did another research, surveying people whether or not, they would quit their job and stop working if they became rich all of a sudden and did not have to care about the money any more. Surprisingly, this resulted in a contradiction to the first survey. 67 % of the people would go on working instead of retiring immediately.

This shows that there have to be more reasons why people are working. According to the survey of SCELI, 26 % of the people work for expressive reasons, such as enjoyment, satisfaction and a sense of achievement (The Realities of Work, p.36). If you take a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, this means that people go to work because they pursue for self-esteem and self-actualization. In a chapter on 'The Self' of their book, Jackson and Carter even go one step further, concluding that 'if people are going to 'self-actualize', it will be at work that they do it' (SELF, p. 145).

An average-worker who sleeps for eight hours a day and works for 40 hours a week, spends more than one third of his waking hours on working. However, in modern society, people do not just go to work at seven o'clock in the morning, leave at four o'clock in the afternoon and never think about what they were doing at work in their free time again. What one is doing for living is omnipresent. Actually people see their job as a big part of their identification. If you want to get to know somebody, very common questions are 'What is your name?' and 'What do you do for living?'. Jackson and Carter also noticed that a person's job is his second most important identifier, right after the name (SELF, p. 145).

On the other hand, you can see the value of something if you do not have it any more. For example, you can see how important it is for most of the people to work if lose their job and are therefore unemployed. When this happens, a lot of people do not know what they should do with their lives (The Realities of Work, p. 48).

In contrast to human history, you can assume that in modern society people have equal chances and therefore, they 'can reach what they want' (The Fear of Freedom, p. 92). Although the level of education is influenced by the attitude towards work and life of a child's parents, you can say that, since every single child has to go to school, it is totally up to oneself what one makes out of one's life. Moreover, it should be obvious that if you want to go to a university with a good reputation or if you want to get a good job, you need good marks at school. Combining those two facts, people associate that if they have a job which has got a better reputation, they are able to do an activity that most other people cannot.

The bottom line is that people are constantly told that better marks, which they can get by working harder at school and university, will get them better jobs.

So this leads to many new questions. Does one's job represent one's social status? And therefore, are people who have more power in their job more likely to enjoy working? Is a CEO of a big company that is acting at the stock market very likely to be happier at work than a cleaning staff is? Or in short, is there a particular group of people who enjoys to work remarkably more than other groups are doing and if so, how come?

In conclusion you can say that, unlike the very common answer, people go to work for more reasons than only paying their rent. Indeed, work can be a source of satisfaction, since people can self-actualize at work. Moreover people identify themselves very strong with their job and when they finished working in the afternoon, they do not completely forget about their workplace.

A big contrast: A manager and a janitor report about their jobs

In Section Two, this essay will describe how a certain manager thinks about his job and the relation to living with his