Valuing Work
With respect to work, what do you value? A hard day’s work for an honest paycheck? A meager amount of work for a steady paycheck? Very little work for a large paycheck?
How about the people with which you work….do you crave interaction with others at work? Do you care if you get along with your co-workers — or do you thrive on conflict and discourse?
Do you like to help people? Do you hate sitting in a cubicle? Do you prefer some freedom…do things on your own time, your own schedule? Air conditioning? Sanitary restroom? Use your talents? Make things that are aesthetically pleasing? To be appreciated?
These are all important questions when we take work-related values into consideration. Clarity of what you value at work influences your degree of satisfaction with your job. The more your job aligns with your most important work values, the greater your degree of satisfaction. Perhaps more so than engaging in work that matches your abilities or level of interest.
Let me illustrate. Let’s pretend (or assume) that you want to make a large salary. Would you be willing to take a job that pays very well (greater than 100K) - even if it was something that was fairly boring. For example, it would definitely not have been your first choice if it didn’t pay very well. You may have some conditions (e.g., it can’t be related to criminal activity - or something that goes against personal values), but let’s assume that none of the disqualifying conditions are met.
Will you take the job?
My guess is that you would, assuming that you value financial reward. It won’t necessarily matter what the job is, as long as your basic conditions are met.
This is premise behind work values. Some things are more important to us than others when it comes to work. If our top values are met at work, then we can handle other things that may come our way. This way, when things happen we don’t like, we have some ‘cushion’ for coping. We know in the back of our minds that everything will be OK, because our basic needs (our values) are met.
Rather than focusing on interests or personality (the two most commonly examined traits), consider work-related values. This is a stark contrast to “what do I want to do when I grow up?”, which implies finding out what people are most interested about. Investigation of work values asks the question, “what are the jobs that I can (or will) do that will give me the most things that I want?”
The answer to this question can eliminate possibilities that might have been considered otherwise, using a more traditional, trait-and-factor approach.
