Ethics of Care at Work
Introduction
Current work designs continue to rely on industrialist era models of subordination/domination and neoliberalist celebrations of individualism. To proactively shift away from these apparatuses, we must proactively begin to release, to de-centre, and to eventually make absurd the structures of history. One way to do this is to adopt an Ethics of Care at work.
Before we consider what Care in an organisation might look like, let's first reflect upon some narratives which have helped shape the ill-fitting work design many of us find ourselves squeezed into year on year. At the end of each section, I've written some reflective questions to help you better understand how these narratives have shaped your experience of work.
The Work Society
An obvious answer to the question, “Why do we work?” is an economic one. Admittedly, it's a powerful driver and has the added benefit of an easy-to-measure outcome (i.e., how much you earn). However, that is not the whole story - work is not only about money but rather a combination of many interconnected factors, maybe least of which is being recognised as an acceptable member of society. Weeks (2011) argues that work is “a social convention and disciplinary apparatus,” (p. 11) and I tend to agree.
Wrapped around work is a tangled mess of identity, gender performance, religiosity, value systems, and so much more (and that’s before we get to our childhood anxieties!). Beyond your inner turmoil, it’s also worth remembering that our societies are built around work. Yes, we work to get a paycheck but we also work to find ourselves, find others, fill time, feel competent, satisfy curiosity. It's a long list. Perhaps this is why retirement is so hard for people, or why some lottery winners continue working even though financially they no longer need to. Suffice it to say, the complicated answer to Why do we work is also a place where we can find clues - ones that will help bring about change.
Reflections 1: How is your work a way of defining yourself? Do you use it as a way to express your understanding of self to others? In what ways?
The Value of Work
By participating in a Work Society, we similarly end up participating in a value designation system that can be objective at best, and exploitative at worst. We have come to monetarily value some work above other types of work. In some instances, it seems logical. To deem the work of a surgeon more valuable than the work of a data entry clerk seems rational. After all, one is saving lives and the other is not and so, surely it should follow that the surgeon earns more money. Presumably there were longer hours spent studying, and years devoted to becoming specialised in a particular area, and so, yes - we agree that is more valuable and thus the paycheck, the status, the kudos ought to match.
The equation begins to fray a bit as we come away from such extreme comparisons. This becomes even more uncomfortable when the work involves something we, as a society, say we value but remains an underpaid job. An excellent example of this is a school teacher. Society expects a huge amount of effort, energy, commitment, and responsibility to exist within this role. However, even in rich nations the role remains underpaid and under-supported. Research conducted on a sample of over 1200 teachers and senior leaders in mainstream UK schools in March 2024 showed teachers spending their own money on meeting pupils’ pastoral or welfare needs (such as food or clothing). Similarly, the report reflected planned spending cuts on building improvements, insufficient wages, and a deterioration of retention and wellbeing (Lucas & Julius, 2024).
It seems our valuation system for waged labour is a complicated mix of variables that include anything from years of formal training to gender normativity to trends in entertainment, and are not as rational as we'd like to believe.
Reflections 2: How valuable is the work you do? What do you include in that equation?
The Myth of Meritocracy
Another problem with our approach to evaluating work is the unfortunate impact of individualism. Glorifying independence and self-reliance, favouring individual rights over state or group, it insists on the human individual having primary importance. Packaged with the allure in promises of self-determination and autonomy, the more detrimental aspects are well-hidden. As it relates to work, Individualism teaches us that our failures are our own; that our success is accomplished alone. It tells us that the failure of others is their fault, and indeed their successes were accomplished alone. Put into a work context, your ‘value’ is determined both by what society has deemed valuable, but also by a grotesque misrepresentation of reality referred to as meritocracy. While the individual’s effort is unquestionably a component of their achievements, the absurdity of meritocracy functions as an effective argument against re-thinking structures designed by a few for a few.
Reflections 3: What have your professional accomplishments been so far? What variety of circumstances, people, and sheer luck played a role in making it possible?
Much of contemporary work relies on individualism, exploitation, fear of scarcity, and an assumption that this is inevitable. The current approach serves few people well, and makes many of us very unwell indeed (ILO, 2022). We don’t need to fix everything at the same time, but we do need to begin. Just as the two-day weekend did not automatically click into place the week after 01-May-1886, nor did children walk out of textile factories after the Ten Hours Act of 1847 was passed, neither will another new demand neatly snap into place. It will take time, agitation, and collective effort.
Revolution is not a one-time event. - Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, p. 140
A perspective and a process
An excellent place to begin change is through applying an Ethics of Care as a perspective and a process to emphasize relationships and people’s needs, along with situations and realities in which problems arise (Carmeli et al., 2017).
As is important with offering a theory, argument, or position - making sure we’re all on the same page is necessary before I explain further. When I refer to Ethics of Care, I am using this definition from Carol Gilligan (2011):
An ethics of care directs our attention to the need for responsiveness in relationships (paying attention, listening, responding) and to the costs of losing connection with oneself or with others.
A feminist ethic of care is an ethic of resistance to the injustices inherent in patriarchy (the association of care and caring with women rather than with humans, the feminization of care work, the rendering of care as subsidiary to justice—a matter of special obligations or interpersonal relationships)
Read more of Gilligan's remarks on a feminist Ethics of Care here.
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Organisational Context
In an organisational context, it may be difficult to imagine what Care might look like. In this section, I'll discuss how we begin de-naturalising Care, the value in centering relationships, and the need to recognise interdependence - all within the context of organisational capacity.
De-naturalising Care
Let's begin with some established facts upon which the remainder of this section will stand.
Women have always worked.
Every successful economy has been one where women were working hard in waged labour, (Bateman, 2019).
Waged work in industries deemed 'feminine' (because of some supposed natural-ness about the tasks - e.g., nurses, teachers) has always been devalued because it's been perceived as 'natural' to women - that is, unskilled and not worth much.
Before centering care within work, the first necessary step is to reject those discourses which seek to "naturalize, romanticize, privatize, and depoliticize" (Weeks, 2011, p. 121) work done by women. Care is the responsibility of any person who wishes to participate in and contribute to an improved post-industrialist society. Care is not created within internal organs or essence, nor is it a disposition. Care is a process and a practice.
As a guiding framework, consider using Tronto's (2010) three central areas of focus for care in an organisational context: 1) defining the purpose of Care 2) recognising its power relations 3) identifying and meeting specific/dynamic needs
Tronto offers some guiding questions to help investigate:
How does the institution come to understand its needs?
How does it negotiate needs within itself?
Which needs are taken as legitimate?
How are responsibilities within the organization allocated?
Who actually gives the care?
How are the reception and effectiveness of care work evaluated?
(For additional guidance, I encourage you to read the open source article found below in the Works Cited section.)
Centering relationships
Despite the DIY-ness of Individualism constantly suggesting otherwise, humans need humans. We need to have a variety of relationships that function in a variety of ways. Partners, siblings, close friends, acquaintances, neighbours, colleagues, person-you-greet-at-the-bus-stop-every-morning… you get the idea. The different ways in which we interact with one another each plays a part in making us feel connected to something beyond ourselves.
To support one of your basic psychological human needs, the relational aspect of your work is important. It’s also worth noting that we, on average, spend roughly a third of each weekday interacting with colleagues. This makes for a wonderfully consistent environment in which to reap the rewards of improved wellbeing by centering those relationships during that time, (Birmingham et al., 2024). Working with peers to complete a project is one good example of this in action. Additionally, it’s useful to have connections in which you can demonstrate your competence and exercise self-efficacy (a belief in your capability to organise, execute, and succeed in specific tasks). Consider the role of a manager or leader and how it allows for knowledge-sharing/giving. On the flip side, one would also do well to have relationships in which they are the knowledge-receiver, (Slemp et al., 2024).
Relatedness support requires behaviours that demonstrate authentic interest, care, and companionship. This shows up when work relationships are centred by encouraging and facilitating teamwork and collaboration, and through demonstrations of positive feedback (Ryan et al., 2017). This will look different both within an organisation and within an industry, but the act of centering remains the same. It must be in the strategy, in the policies, and in the processes through which the work is done.
Recognising Interdependence
Earlier in this piece I wrote about the narrative of Individualism in which we come to understand our successes as the result of our solo efforts. Granted, individual effort is required to accomplish goals and achieve success but it is not a true representation of how that happens. We are interdependent. We work within collections of networks that allow for successes and failures to happen in different ways with different frequencies.
A few months ago, a story made its way around LinkedIn about an internal memo from Google's Gemini AI. The CEO had written that the "sweet spot of productivity" is a 60 hour work week from the office. According to Bloomberg, his net worth is $173 billion. I retell this story because it is a good example of what happens when interdependence and inter-reliance goes unrecognised. A CEO considers a 60-hour work week to be a "sweet spot" because all other work in his life is done by others. This is in stark contrast to the employees who have to do work outside of their jobs, usually unwaged and unseen and disproportionately done by women, (Brailey & Slatton, 2019). Unlike the CEO, employees receiving that internal memo will additionally have to do the shopping, prepare the meals, plan/attend the family events, pick up the dry cleaning, mow the lawn, scrub the bathroom, take the car to the garage because that weird sound has returned, etc. etc. etc.
For an organisation to put an Ethics of Care into its work design, recognising the interdependence employees have with their colleagues and with people outside of work is non-negotiable. Absolutely no one is successful alone. In practice, this looks like flexible work options, four-day work weeks, hybrid working patterns, decent parental leave, etc. By recognising the network(s) within which employees succeed/fail at tasks, organisations strengthen their perceived support and enjoy the positive outcomes of improved engagement, satisfaction, and commitment (Ahmed et al., 2015).
Final thoughts
As we find ourselves in another industrial revolution with increasing automation and de-humanisation, let's not forget to seize the opportunity to make changes to improve the human side. In order to come away from what can feel like an inevitable slide into AI 'solutions' for everything, one path to a better future is via an Ethics of Care. It is not the final form, but a re-routing away from work designs that are no longer fit for purpose. It is one part of a grander journey towards a better working future.
Cover art is a piece by Michaela Yearwood-Dan called “A Moment Passing Us By”.
Works Cited
Ahmed, I., Nawaz, M. M., Ali, G., & Islam, T. (2015). Perceived organizational support and its outcomes. Management Research Review, 38(6), 627–639. https://doi.org/10.1108/mrr-09-2013-0220
Birmingham, W. C., Holt-Lunstad, J., Herr, R. M., & Barth, A. (2024). Social connections in the workplace. American Journal of Health Promotion, 38(6), 886–891. https://doi.org/10.1177/08901171241255204b
Brailey, C. D., & Slatton, B. C. (2019). Women, Work, and Inequality in the U.S.: Revising the second shift. Journal of Sociology and Social Work, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.15640/jssw.v7n1a4
Bateman, V. (2019). The sex factor: How Women Made the West Rich. John Wiley & Sons.
Carmeli, A., Brammer, S., Gomes, E., & Tarba, S. Y. (2017). An organizational ethic of care and employee involvement in sustainability‐related behaviors: A social identity perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(9), 1380–1395. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2185
Deci, E. L., Olafsen, A. H., & Ryan, R. M. (2017). Self-Determination Theory in Work Organizations: The State of a Science. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4(1), 19–43. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032516-113108
Gilligan, C. (2018, July 8). Interview with Carol Gilligan. Ethics of Care. https://ethicsofcare.org/carol-gilligan/
Lorde, A. (2019). Sister outsider. Penguin Classics.
ILO (2024, June 4). Mental health at work. Report by International Labour Organization and World Health Organization. https://www.ilo.org/publications/mental-health-work
Lucas, M., Julius, J. (2024, June 05). The ongoing impact of the cost-of-living crisis on schools. Report by NFER. https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/the-ongoing-impact-of-the-cost-of-living-crisis-on-schools/
Slemp, G. R., Field, J. G., Ryan, R. M., Forner, V. W., Van Den Broeck, A., & Lewis, K. J. (2024). Interpersonal supports for basic psychological needs and their relations with motivation, well-being, and performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000459
Tronto, J. C. (2010). Creating caring institutions: politics, plurality, and purpose. Ethics and Social Welfare, 4(2), 158–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2010.484259
Weeks, K. (2011). The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Duke University Press.