In thinking ahead about employee values pertaining to their job, I began to ask myself what would be an ideal job? Of course, the easy answer is “It would be different for everyone”. Some want money, some want power, some want stability and benefits. But on a deeper level, self fulfillment, self accomplishment, and pleasure is what everyone ultimately wants from their everyday life.
Knowing this, if you are accomplishing things at work then you will probably feel happy. If you do not feel accomplished, you might search for pleasure to feel happy. For example, going to free dinners on the company budget to socialize and have a good laugh can be considered pleasure and thus happiness.
In getting to the main point, if an employee enjoys their work and their accomplishments make them happy, there would be less of a need to throw company budget into numerous fancy dinners just to entertain and keep employees feeling happy about what they do for a living.
Now I’m not sure if anything I’ve written here is specifically positive or negative but it affects designers and developers alike. The ones who get to do what they love will always be more easily satisfied with their job, perform better, and ultimately it cost less for a company in the maintenance of employee satisfaction…or so it seems…….maybe my view will change in a few years down the long working road…
Thoughts?
3 Comments
I had a post similar to this recently as well. I’ve always been in search for my ideal job, even in high school. One of my lifelong goals was to find a job that I enjoy that can also support me. You spend a large portion of your life working so in my eyes, I wanted to find something fun…why do something you don’t enjoy?
I agree with most of what you wrote here:
The ones who get to do what they love will always be more easily satisfied with their job, perform better, and ultimately it cost less for a company in the maintenance of employee satisfaction
but I’m not sure if I agree that it costs less for a company in the maintenance of employee satisfaction. Because I perform well (because I enjoy my job), I expect to be compensated relatively equally to that performance. So I think it might cost more to keep me…because hey, I’m skilled and constantly learning (in my own time), in which case I should be above average in terms of skill/quality of work so…I could go elsewhere if I’m not getting paid enough. Does that make sense?
What I can say is that I love my job and regardless of how much I make, it’s the easiest money ever because I’d do it for free (if I could). Hobby turned profession is definitely the right way to go in life imho.
Makes sense, and true – most people do expect to be compensated based on their skills – although there are a few that wouldn’t. That’s where the company would save, in addition to having passionate employees. And I totally agree, hobby turned professional is always the best path to take in a career. 🙂