This chapter provides a brief introduction and synopsis of the purpose of work. It questions where organization value resides and introduces six challenges for leaders to consider: (1) The ethical people and technology development intention of management and leadership. (2) The ethical ways that managers and leaders value people and technology in the workplace. (3) The ethical impact of organization development initiatives that align people and technology within the workplace. (4) The role of the cognitive, behavioral and/or cultural philosophical perspectives of organizations and its ethical effect on people and technology. (5) How ethical leaders can understand and use diversity intelligence® (DQ) to ethically value all employees in the workplace. (6) The ethical implications and imperatives for managers and leaders to be successful integrating people and technology in the workplace.
TopThe Purpose Of Work
Philosophically, what is the purpose of work? What is the difference between work and employment? What has been philosophy’s influence on work. There is no work without philosophies about work. Those who do no work even have a philosophy about work which is to do no work. What is the meaning of work to those who choose not to work? Is it the same as those who choose to work? When work is to be done, there is typically people and technology. So, how people and those who expect the employee to perform the work think about work matters. Do leaders think about their people or technology more? Is technology, philosophically, more important than people in the workplace.
People as Technology (PT) (Hughes, 2010) matches the development of people to the deliberate methods organizational leaders and managers use to introduce and integrate new innovations and technologies into organizations. The PT concept is a proactive, strategic method to introduce, develop, and integrate employees into organizations. Applying the PT concept requires leaders and managers to think of employees similarly and as positively as they think of technology. Technology in the context of this book includes all technology within organizations.
People are considered the most valuable asset within an organization. Yet, many employees do not feel valued by their employers. This is very evident with the quiet quitting phenomenon that has been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic (Formica & Sfodera, 2022; Lord, 2022). There has always been quiet quitting within organizations but not to the extent that is evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employees who are quiet quitting do not believe that organizations value them enough to appreciate any extra efforts, so they only perform the bare minimum that their job requires. Several questions remain to be answered by organization leaders including:
- 1.
How do leaders show employees that they are valuable to and valued by the organization?
- 2.
What is the best location value of an employee to the organization for the employee to exemplify use, maintenance, and modification values?
- 3.
How does the organization best utilize the time value of an employee?
These questions are highlighted and heightened across many organizations during the worldwide, COVID-19 pandemic. There have been numerous methods used and trillions of dollars invested in organization development initiatives to try and leverage the effectiveness of people and technology to increase productivity and competitive advantage (Friedman, 1970; Hughes et al., 2019; NAECBSS, 1991; Saxena, 2014; Singh et al., 2021). In today’s highly technological, globalized economy, it is essential that human resource development (HRD) professionals, practitioners, and researchers understand that people and technology are intertwined within most operations (Colbert et al., 2016; Hughes et al., 2019; Mital & Pennathur, 2004; Murray et al., 2021; Singh et al., 2022); yet their separate values are not clearly known (Hughes, 2012; Vial, 2019).