Does Your Job Really Matter?

Are Jobs Truly Productive?

Recent studies and conversations around workplace productivity often provoke a crucial question: how many people genuinely have jobs that accomplish something significant? Conversely, how many find themselves in roles where they devote most of their time to giving the appearance of necessity?

What Defines a Productive Job?

Defining a “productive” job isn’t a simple task. Various lenses—financial, social, personal—can be applied to this evaluation. However, one litmus test stands out: Does the job attend to people’s actual needs?

The Litmus Test: Meeting People’s Needs

This is a direct yet profound way to gauge a job’s meaningfulness. A job that meets the needs of individuals or communities not only benefits society but also engenders a sense of personal accomplishment. This focus on human needs generally involves:

• Promoting well-being and improving quality of life
• Generating measurable, positive outcomes
• Using employee skills in a fulfilling way

Other productive roles might:

• Generate significant revenue or growth for a business (attending to the needs of owners, investors and shareholders)
• Contribute to important research or technological advancements (attending to employess sence of self-worth, and society’s need for progress)
• Create or enhance products or services that fill a genuine gap (attending to the needs of the organisation and its customers)

Who’s Just Putting On a Show?

Some jobs may look necessary but contribute little of substance. These “bullshit jobs,” as coined by economist David Graeber, are often part of bureaucratic systems. Employees in these roles might spend time:

• Producing unread reports
• Attending meetings with no real outcomes
• Engaging in activities that don’t impact the real world
• Launching and running initiatives purely for the optics (amking themselves look needed).

What Does the Data Say?

Quantifying meaningful versus meaningless jobs is difficult. Yet, data from sources like Gallup’s State of the American Workplace indicate that less than one-third of employees are engaged at work—a potential indicator of job meaningfulness. This suggests that a large portion might be disengaged, possibly because they find their roles unproductive or unnecessary.

How to Shift the Balance?

Creating a more genuinely productive work environment is no small feat. Steps include:

• Aligning roles with both business and societal goals (the needs of all the Folks That Matter™)
• Encouraging the development and use of relevant skills (the needs of employees)
• Shifting focus from input to measurable outcomes (the needs of those resourcing the work)

Summary: Is Change Coming?

While it remains a tricky issue to determine how many people are in genuinely productive jobs as opposed to those that are just speding the timeon looking necessary, there is undoubtedly room for change. A shift towards more meaningful work benefits both individuals and society at large. As our understanding of work evolves, might we choose to evolve the the way we measure job value too?