What has happened to the “dignity of work”? In our irreverent society where everything is “dissed,” we have become so cynical and jaded that we have lost this most self-affirming concept, lending a self-fulfilling force to our own job dissatisfaction.

Over the course of my life, I have been provided with numerous examples of people who intrinsically understood that the idea of work is inherently dignified. It lends dignity to all aspects of life. My dad was a career postal clerk who knew that it was important to a person's growth to understand the concept of “work.”

My brother and I have enjoyed reminiscing about a patch of garden that we had to weed every Saturday before running off to play. Dad never planted anything in that patch, although I think that he might have secretly spread weed seed. He wanted us to learn that work had a place of priority in life. How we hated that task! But, today we both have a very strong work ethic. Our work ethic has less to do with the nature of our work and more to do with the highly developed sense of purpose and responsibility that our father taught us.

During the winter of my 18th year, I took a temporary job with the post office during the Christmas rush. While I was unloading trucks and sorting bulk mail, my dad was working a first-class letter case – an array of “pigeon holes” designed by Benjamin Franklin. Sometimes during my breaks I would wander over to where dad was working just to watch his quick and precise movements. It was evident that he had been doing this for many years.

What was difficult for my 18-year-old rebellious mind to comprehend were the reasons he had been doing such a boring job for so many years. And yet, as I watched him, I knew that he was doing this boring job without complaining, to the very best of his ability.

It wasn't until years later that I was able to begin to understand that dad saw a greater purpose in his work than I could see at the time. Without saying so, he was making life better by his efforts. He was providing for his family; he was supporting the relationships of total strangers because he was moving their correspondence quickly and accurately; he was doing his part to keep interstate commerce going; he took what he was doing seriously without letting any personal feelings interfere. He was dignified in, and by what he was doing.

But what is this dignity that I am speaking of? The Doubleday Dictionary defines dignity as “the state or quality of being excellent, worthy or honorable; the dignity of work,” and “pride or self-respect.” This is the piece of understanding that seems to be missing for many people as they go about their respective jobs. This is what my dad was trying to teach us as we weeded that unused patch of garden. The importance is not in the particular kind of occupation that we may have, but in the fact that we are doing a job at all. If this were a different column, this would be the point to expound on the negative impact on self-worth that our welfare system and other entitlement programs have on the individuals that those systems are purportedly serving.

But, this is not that kind of column. This is a column about human resource issues and organizations. Unfortunately, I believe that many managers in organizations today have lost sight of the concept of dignity in the workplace. They have forgotten that all jobs are important to an organization. These same managers have also failed to acknowledge that the person in the position deserves their respect, simply for being a human being and that the person's efforts in that job deserve to be acknowledged whether the person is the janitor or the CEO.

As leaders within organizations, we have an obligation to help people understand the dignified nature of their work. We should promote the ideal that all work serves a greater purpose than the job alone. We should hold ourselves accountable for modeling a belief that our own jobs are dignified in and through their purpose. We should insist that employees treat their co-workers with the respect due a dignified effort.

If you do not believe that the dignity of work lends dignity to all other aspects of life, speak with someone who has been unemployed. I have been unemployed at three different times in my life and I know, first hand, how fragile a person's self-esteem is when he/she is without work. Work provides us with purpose and a sense of contribution. It also provides a sense of identity.

As managers, we need to ensure that our employees are aware of what the purpose is and that they know what their contribution is to the greater effort. Too many of us, hopefully because of a lack of awareness and not through intentional acts, belittle the contribution of others in positions of less importance. People are made to feel that their contribution is insignificant, or less than others.

Years ago I worked as the HR director for a large Sheraton Hotel. As part of my function I would lead tours of the hotel for grade-school kids. The tour would start and end at the front desk and in between would wander through both public and back-of-the-house space. As we proceeded through the hotel, I would talk about the people we would see and their respective jobs. At the end of one such tour of second and third graders, I asked two questions: Did you see any jobs that were not important? (Of course the answer was “No.”) The second question was: “Which job do you think was most important?”

One youth responded “The people in the laundry – they must get paid a lot of money!” I later shared that comment with the staff in the laundry. Their faces told me what a significant impact that had on how that particular group of people viewed their place in the world. If only the rest of us could see the world through a child's eyes...

Josemaria Escrivá perhaps said it best: “Before God, no occupation is in itself great or small. Everything gains the value of the love with which it is done.”

Andrew Coutermarsh has an MS in management from Antioch New England Graduate School where he is an adjunct professor teaching human resources development. He holds SPHR (Senior Professional Human Resources ) designation from the Society of Human Resource Management, and is director of human resources for Prime Resources Corp.