Scott Schieman is a professor in the department of sociology at the University of Toronto and author of the forthcoming book I Want M.O.R.E. - Why Your Job Still Matters.
“I am the investigator to figure out what happened.”
That’s how a flight safety investigator described his job to me.
“When incidents, hazards, stuff gets recorded to the safety systems, I’m the one who does the follow up,” he explained. “Anything ranging from pilot mistakes in the air – like flying too high, too fast, wrong altitude, not following checklist items – to aircraft damage, events at the airport, a guest with an oxygen cylinder not properly approved prior to coming on board, mechanics leaving a set of wrenches in the engine when they’re working on it.”
He conducted “root-cause analyses” and established preventative measures to minimize the risk of future problems.
As part of my research on what work is for, I’ve conducted nearly 100 in-depth interviews with Canadians.
That investigator is one of many workers who kept returning to the same dynamic: how well we do our job affects the lives of people we’ll rarely meet. I call it the rippling effect.
How much rippling is there in your own job?
One way to recognize it is through negative visualization: What would happen if you didn’t do a good job? You don’t need to be a flight safety investigator to experience it.
Survey researchers have tried to measure rippling in the general working population, asking study participants how much they agree or disagree with the following statement: “A lot of people can be affected by how well I do my work.”
The cover of Scott Schieman's forthcoming book I Want M.O.R.E. - Why Your Job Still Matters.Supplied
Back in 1977, the Quality of Employment Survey found 89 per cent of American workers agreed (42 per cent strongly).
Has anything changed since 1977? To find out, I partnered with YouGov to field a nationally representative survey of 2,500 American workers. It found 82 per cent still agree – but the share who feel this intensely has dropped to 28 per cent. American workers didn’t stop believing in the rippling effect – they just now believe it less firmly.
Because my research compares the United States and Canada, I was curious whether those patterns replicated north of the border. So, I partnered with the Angus Reid Group to field a representative survey of 2,500 Canadian workers. It found 86 per cent agreed. And Canadians were more likely to strongly agree – 35 per cent compared to 28.
When I asked open-ended follow-up questions, I heard a range of reflections that began with: “If I don’t do a good job,” “If I fail,” “If I make mistakes” and “If I don’t do my job well.”
“I am the last link in the chain in the warehouse when shipping packages to over 34 countries,” said a 49-year-old sender. “The contents must be faultless – business owners could be disappointed and frustrated.”
In their explanations, many workers identified how their presence – and absence – would be felt, often revealing how the significance of rippling is amplified when the stakes are life or death.
“Vulnerable and disabled people depend on me,” said a 35-year-old beneficiary attendant. “I can literally kill people if I neglect my job.”
A 47-year-old nurse echoed the sentiment: “If I don’t do my job right, people could die – wrong meds, etc.”
Many workers’ rippling is real but goes unacknowledged – especially when the effects are diffuse, delayed or simply invisible.
“When people commission portraits of a loved one, sometimes they cry when they pick up the artwork,” a 59-year-old artist told me. “I have to assume they are very affected by what I do.”
“I teach communications skills to students in college,” said a 49-year-old college professor. “For literally thousands of young people, these skills will influence not just the rest of their academic lives but their employability, their professional careers, and even their personal lives.”
Sometimes the ripple only becomes evident when the work stops.
A metallurgical technologist at a remote uranium mine was temporarily laid off when his mine shut down completely for five months. When I asked what he missed most about the work, he replied: “I think I’m an okay renovator at home and I’m okay at landscaping and gardening, but I missed being the subject matter expert in my field.” Without his work, there was no one for that expertise to reach. The ripple had gone quiet, and he felt it.
When I asked a cook and kitchen supervisor at a restaurant what he missed most, he said: “Actually contributing something to the world. Cooking food for people and doing something for other people –that was probably the hardest thing for me.”
From the mine to the kitchen, the loss of work made the ripple visible.
While we often focus on pay, security and flexibility, my research points to something just as fundamental: whether what we do matters.
This dynamic cuts across jobs of different status or prestige. A school bus driver and a consultant lobbyist both surface in my data as workers who recognize that how well they do their job affects a lot of people – from children’s safety to government policy. Different scope, same ripple.
The e-commerce manager who declared, “it’s not like I’m driving an ambulance” wasn’t misrepresenting the stakes. But you don’t need to be saving lives for your job to matter.
From teachers to healthcare workers to first responders to transit operators – workers make daily decisions that shape our collective wellbeing. While evidence of the rippling effect can be more palpable for some, for many others it happens in quieter, less visible ways.
Contributing something to the world. That says it all. What’s your “something”?