What makes work meaningful? That is, what gives work a point, a purpose, and significance? Philosophical literature distinguishes two answers to this question. On subjective views, the meaningfulness of work depends on the worker’s feelings or desires. For example, on one version of the subjective view, your work is meaningful for you when you experience your work as meaningful.

In contrast, on objective views, there is more meaningfulness than the worker’s feelings or desires. Work is meaningful when it has objective value, for example when it displays great skill or contributes to society. For example, on one version of the objective view, your work is meaningful for you when your work constitutes a significant achievement.

Perhaps the most common view in the philosophical discussion is that subjective and objective elements matter both. For example, the philosopher of work Andrea Veltman refers to Susan Wolf’s theory on meaning in life, according to which, as Wolf puts it, ‘meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness’ (Wolf 2010, 9). Veltman argues that meaningful work is similar: meaningful work is work that the worker enjoys and is happy to do, but that is also valuable more broadly (Veltman 2016, 114).

The distinction between subjective views on meaningful work and objective views on meaningful work opens up many interesting questions. Do subjective and objective meaningfulness matter equally, or is one more important than another? How do workers reconcile apparent tensions, for example, subjectively enjoyable work that they do not perceive as especially socially useful, or the other way around?

These questions are not merely theoretical. They also arise in the real lives of workers. Empirical work can illustrate, and shed some light on, the questions what makes work meaningful.

The oil and gas industry provides an interesting context in which to explore these questions, as its objective meaningfulness is being significantly challenged in the context of climate change. This impacts the way in which workers attach meaning, be it subjective or objective, to their work.

One of us has undertaken an empirical study, conducting interviews with employees in the oil and gas industry (leading to a paper currently under review for publication). The results of this study suggest that employees do take an objective perspective on how meaningful their work is, based primarily on its contribution to the wider society. However, such a perspective is nonetheless very fluid and dynamic, as people have different views on what constitutes a meaningful contribution to society, and how their roles relate to such effects.

One participant, for example, attaches a great amount of meaning to the role of the oil and gas industry in taking communities out of poverty:

“It’s in the parts of the world that I’ve worked, where people are in the sort of abject poverty that we can’t think about, let alone ever want to experience. We’ve got to keep lifting those countries up and you lift those countries up by providing energy.”

Another participant, however, shares how their perception of the wider impact of the industry they work in, and therefore the work they contribute to, has evolved based on external influences:

“In around 2018 (probably after Greta’s speech at COP24) I started to become more actively conscious of climate change issues and it’s the first time I really felt any cognitive dissonance or moral discomfort with working for an oil company. It’s probably the first time I considered looking at jobs in other industries for that reason. As my career with the company has progressed, and particularly since 2018, I have found myself actively avoiding potential job opportunities in the Upstream, because I don’t want to work in the parts of the business that directly produce oil and gas.”

This example illustrates the actions employees might take, or consider, should they fail to experience meaningful work based solely on an objective perspective relating to external factors and impact on society. In this situation, working in a large company provides options to choose to work in certain areas deemed more meaningful. However, where there is no such choice, our research brought to the fore the role of other factors more directly likely to impact the subjective perception of meaningful work, aspects of the employee’s direct environment, such as their relationship with their work colleagues:

“As my colleagues are very nice and the work is interesting I can often forget and abstract the final goal of what it is I am doing. From time to time I feel what could be described as horror that I am part of the industry when previously I would have never imagined working in it.”

This last example shows a striking contrast between the enjoyable work environment and colleague relationships, and the consciousness of the work’s ultimate impact characterised as “horror”. This suggests that subjective work experience, too, is of a varied and contextual nature. How one experiences work might depend primarily on immediate work environments and work relationships. But contemplating the broader context and societal implications of one’s work might also reveal a dissatisfaction, which is subjectively felt, albeit not necessarily in the everyday work context.

These considerations illustrate the benefits of relating theories of meaningful work to the empirical evidence provided by the experiences of workers. The stories and experiences of workers show that while there is usefulness in distinguishing subjective and objective dimensions of meaningful work, they are deeply interrelated. This calls for a holistic consideration of working environments, or, to revisit Wolf’s theory, to strive for the attraction of individual working conditions to meet with the attractiveness of an organisation’s purpose and societal impact.

References

1. Veltman, Andrea. 2016. Meaningful Work. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
2. Wolf, Susan. 2010. Meaning in Life and Why It Matters. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press.