How do we find meaningful work?
By: Russell Eke
Last updated: Monday, 31 October 2016
Professor Katie Bailey delivering her seminar ''Meaningful Work: What do we know about it and how do we find it?' (Photo credit: Ödül Bozkurt)
The Sussex Department of Business and Management's Future of Work Hub and Management and Organisation subject area jointly held an open seminar on 13 October to examine the history of meaningful work and to determine the differences between meaningful and meaningless work.
The seminar, led by speaker and Sussex Professor of Management Katie Bailey, was titled 'Meaningful Work: What do we know about it and how do we find it?' and drew from findings of narrative evidence and qualitative study to explore the role of employers in providing meaningful working lives for their staff.
Professor Bailey is a leading expert in research on meaningful work. Earlier in 2016, she had research findings published in the Sloan Management Review, was conferred as Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and received £30k from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) to lead a research project on Purposeful Leadership.
She will host a workshop titled 'Meaningful work ecosystems' at the Meaning conference in Brighton in November 2016, guest-directed by Guardian journalist Paul Mason.
The Future of Work Hub was established in April 2016 to allow researchers interested in work, employment, labour and human resource management to get together, exchange ideas and develop collaborations.
Other recent events hosted by the hub include 'Exploring Affective Responses in the Changing Context of Dirty Work' with Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management Natalia Slutskaya and 'The psychologisation of employment relations?', also with Professor Bailey.