How do we avoid creating bullsh*t jobs?

I’ve worked with my colleagues to outline the duties of a new member of our events team, which has happily coincided with the launch of David Graeber’s new book — ‘Bullshit Jobs.’ It’s a challenging title for a challenging topic, and it gave me a bit to reflect on as I discussed with the team about what a fulfilling and rewarding role might look like.

I listened to David Graeber’s talk at the RSA as a podcast, but you can also watch it on YouTube.

Why do we need a new role?

Over the last year, the number of events that we’ve delivered has risen from 331 to 539. Quite simply, we couldn’t continue to do what we do without burning out. It’s been a quite frankly exceptional effort, and I’m incredibly lucky to be working with such hard working people.

So we’ve begun the process of expanding the team. This person will support us to deliver our events, and we’ve purposely framed our thinking so that this person’s job isn’t simply to do all the tasks that we don’t want to do. The job will be varied and an opportunity for people to develop their skills and liaise with a range of people. Plus they’ll be part of a badass team.

We’re also using this as an opportunity to bring the Research in Practice and Research in Practice for Adults events closer together. By working to customer need instead of our own pre-defined functions, we hope to better understand the real issues that are to be dealt with, and to build on opportunities to improve.

What did I learn from the podcast?

One of the key things that I learnt was actually something really obvious — the number of jobs that are out there are an output not an outcome, so they are not in and of themselves a good thing. This is something that isn’t challenged from the left or right wing (the quality of jobs is more or less a footnote in The Guardian’s article on the government’s lauding of its employment statistics).

This is something we often see in public services, with outputs conflated as outcomes. But what is the actual purpose of these jobs? It’s interesting to see that there’s hardly any questioning in the media about the nature of this work.

It’s fascinating to see how unions are adapting to this shifting environment. I’ve been a union member since beginning my first full time job because they’re so important for ensuring that people have good working lives (big shout out to Prospect, my union at the Wales Audit Office in particular). There’s loads that we can learn from this post by Chris Bolton (a.k.a. whatsthepont) which looks at what we can learn from union practices such as direct democracy. It’s also well worth checking out what Indycube are doing. They’re a co-working company who have also set up a union for the self-employed. In parallel to their union work, Indycube are bringing in some great people like Russell Todd (who will cover South East Wales and the South West of England) to work in community development roles. This will enable them to look at what a good work life looks like in much wider terms.

Thinking about jobs systemically

More often than not, jobs are pointless because of the system they operate in, and are rarely designed that way. It’s useful to think about how we can create environments that encourage purposeful work.

Graeber touches on work as a religion and how it shapes how we see ourselves. When people ask what we do, we think in terms of work. Thinking about how systems affect work and what a good life looks like brought me to W. Edwards Deming. Because Deming is a genius. He has all the quotes.

“People are entitled to joy in work”

“A bad system will beat a good person every time”

“Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you’re getting”

As a starter for ten, it’s worth checking out Deming’s 14 points, which he described as the “application of the System of Profound Knowledge for transformation from the present style of management to one of optimisation.” It’s seems churlish to pick one point as they all contribute to better practice, but point 11 seems particularly applicable here:

“Remove barriers that rob the worker of his / her right to pride of workmanship”

Going back to Deming’s quote about joy in work, I sometimes think that we forget that our jobs aren’t just ways of bringing in money, but that they’re actually how we spend the majority of our lives. Which makes it all the more bizarre when we design jobs that provide little satisfaction to the people who do them.

As public services we have a responsibility to improve people’s quality of life. If we can understand what that looks like for our staff, then I think we’ll be better placed to understand what a good life looks like for the people in our communities.