Why do we work?

There has been so much written about what we seek from work - the whole field of work and organizational psychology has a rich history of answering questions around work-related motivation. Whether from the employer’s side (how do I motivate my workforce? how do I engage my employees?) or from the individual’s side (how do I drag myself to work even though I hate it?! why should I pick this job and not that one?), what we seek from work has an important implication - it also provides opportunities to embed diversity, equity and inclusion into these key motivators!

Boiling down a lot of research, I propose a simple “Four P” approach to answer this question of what we seek from work:

• Pay (work as livelihood - obviously the first thing that comes to mind!),

• Passion (do we get to fulfil our potential and do what we 'like'/want to do?)

• People (do we like who we work with? Is there trust, safety and fun at work?)

• Purpose (work as a source of identity; do we feel our work is meaningful?)

And to nudge us into considering how we’re embedding DEI into these four areas, here is a simple list of questions in the infographic.