Written by Shani Pindek & Stephanie Andel, Edited by Courtney Keim
October 2024
An occupational calling is defined as an all-consuming passion to make a meaningful impact through one’s work. The concept of an occupational calling is a hot topic in today’s world of work—you don’t have to look far to find a popular press article or a professional development piece focused on helping employees find their “calling”. Many employees are in search of this deep connection to work, and research shows this is for good reason: evidence suggests that those who are living their calling tend to experience a bounty of positive outcomes, including greater job and life satisfaction, relative to those who do not feel such a passion for their work (e.g., Gazica & Spector, 2015). However, are there also negative sides to living a calling? This was a question that our research team was interested in investigating in our recent study.
Specifically, our collaborative team of organizational researchers, emergency medicine researchers, and paramedics (Stephanie Andel, Shani Pindek, Paul Spector, Remle Crowe, Rebecca Cash, and Ashish Panchal) conducted a study with paramedics to see if there are certain conditions in which callings may serve as a “double-edged sword”. Lessons learned from this study are important for employees not just in emergency medicine – but also in many other occupations – because they teach employees who are living their callings to be aware of the potential downsides of this deep connection to work. Our findings also highlight the need for organizations to regularly check-in with their called employees to ensure that they have the support they need on the job.
Many paramedics are drawn to their work due to the meaningful impact that their actions have on others. Nevertheless, paramedics have a tough job. Their work frequently requires them to arrive at scenes that are unfamiliar, unsettling, and emotionally disturbing. When we asked the paramedics in our study about such situations, they noted that the most difficult scenes at work involved things like seeing someone dying, being assaulted by a patient, or encountering a patient who was severely injured or abused. Research shows that witnessing these types of difficult events increase the possibility for rumination, or in other words, cause the witness to continuously replay the event in their head. Most people ruminate about negative things that happen at work, at least some of the time, but when rumination levels become too high, and the thoughts about the negative events are repetitive and obtrusive, they can lead to negative effects on one’s well-being (e.g., Cropley & Zijlstra, 2011).
By following the experiences of over 200 paramedics for 10 weeks, we were able to see that on weeks in which paramedics encountered these types of emotionally disturbing events, they ruminated more, which then resulted in more mental exhaustion and poorer sleep quality. Interestingly, these effects were stronger for the paramedics who feel the most called to their jobs. That is, paramedics who felt the greatest passion to make a meaningful impact were also the ones who find it the hardest to detach when they encountered emotionally upsetting situations. This suggests that, at least in the short term, they were experiencing the “sharp end” of this double-edged sword of living their calling. As we wrote in our academic paper, “just because individuals perceive a calling to their work does not mean they are immune to negative outcomes from job stress”.
Here lies the lesson that we can all learn from the case of our paramedics: organizations need to take good care of their employees and ensure that those with a high sense of calling are not exploited due to their dedication. These employees are sometimes more vulnerable than others and need opportunities to recover (breaks and general support are good places to start), making it particularly critical that organizations focus on giving these employees the support that they need. In addition, employees themselves can take action to proactively reduce the negative effects of emotionally disturbing events by reducing the likelihood of rumination. This can be done by engaging in any activity that helps them mentally disconnect from work, such as by socializing with family and friends, engaging in hobbies, exercising, or practicing mindfulness (e.g., Raes & Williams, 2010).
In summary, feeling a strong sense of calling to one’s occupation has many positive benefits. However, this deep connection to work can also make one more vulnerable to certain disturbing situations on the job. For those employees who are fortunate enough to be living their callings, it is important to find ways to mentally detach from their thoughts about work. For organizations employing these individuals, it is important to give those employees the support that they need.
References
Andel, S. A., Pindek, S., Spector, P. E., Crowe, R. P., Cash, R. E., & Panchal, A. (2022). Adding fuel to the fire: The exacerbating effects of calling intensity on the relationship between emotionally disturbing work and employee health. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 27(5), 488–502. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000331
Cropley, M., & Zijlstra, F. R. H. (2011). Work and rumination. In J. Langan-Fox&C. L. Cooper (Eds.), Handbook of stress in the occupations. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9780857931153.00061
Gazica, M. W., & Spector, P. E. (2015). A comparison of individuals with unanswered callings to those with no calling at all. Journal of Vocational behavior, 91, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2015.08.008
Raes, F., & Williams, J. M. G. (2010). The relationship between mindfulness and uncontrollability of ruminative thinking. Mindfulness, 1(4), 199–203. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-010-0021-6
Dr. Shani Pindek is an assistant professor in the Human Services department in the University of Haifa (Israel). She received her Ph.D. in Organizational and Social Psychology from Bar-Ilan University in 2013, and spent the following three years in the Industrial and Organizational Psychology program at the University of South Florida as a visiting scholar. She has been a faculty member at the University of Haifa since 2016 and is currently a visiting professor at York University in Canada. Her research focus is occupational health and well-being, examining workplace phenomena such as occupational calling or overqualification and their effects on employee health and well-being in healthcare employees as well as other occupational groups. Outside of the work domain, she likes to spend time with family and friends, hiking in nature, and being silly with her kids.
Dr. Stephanie Andel leads the Employee Listening Practice at Dell Technologies. In this role, she is responsible for designing and executing Dell’s comprehensive listening strategy, which includes automated lifecycle surveys, ongoing pulse checks, as well as Dell’s annual engagement survey that touches over 130,000 team members. Prior to joining Dell, Stephanie was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University of Indianapolis. Her academic research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, and Journal of Vocational Behavior. Her work has also been featured in several national and international media outlets, including Business Insider, France 24, Channel News Asia, PBS NewsHour, and on the BBC. Stephanie earned her Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from the University of South Florida.