Is labor a human need or is it just a necessity? Labor as an internal human need (sociological aspect) Lyudmila Ivanovna Chub Ways of transforming labor into free creative activity

One of the main functions of labor is that labor serves as a way to satisfy human needs.

The labor behavior of members of society is determined by the interaction of various internal and external motivating forces. Internal motivating forces are needs and interests, desires and aspirations, values and value orientations, ideals and motives. All of them are structural elements of a complex social process of work motivation. motive- motivation for activity and activity of an individual, a social group, a community of people, associated with the desire to satisfy certain needs. Motivation- this is verbal behavior aimed at choosing motives (judgments) to explain real labor behavior.

The formation of these internal motivating forces of labor behavior is the essence of the process of motivating labor activity. Motivators can be called grounds or prerequisites for motivation. They determine the subject-content side of motivation, its dominants and priorities. Motivators are the stimuli of the social and objective environment or stable needs and interests.

Needs in its most general form, it can be defined as an individual's concern for providing the necessary means and conditions for his own existence and self-preservation, the desire for a sustainable balance with the environment (life and social). There are many classifications of human needs, which are based on: a specific object of human needs, their functional purpose, the type of activity being implemented, etc.

The most complete and successful hierarchy of needs was developed by the American psychologist A.N. Maslow, who identified five levels of needs.

1. Physiological and sexual needs are the needs for reproduction, food, respiration, physical movements, clothing, shelter, rest, etc.

2.Existential needs- these are the needs for the security of one's existence, confidence in the future, stability of living conditions, the need for a certain constancy and regularity of the society surrounding a person, and in the sphere of work - in job security, accident insurance, etc.

3. Social needs- these are the needs for attachment, belonging to a team, communication, caring for others and attention to oneself, participation in joint work activities.

4. prestige needs- these are the needs for respect from "significant others", career growth, status, prestige, recognition and appreciation.

5. spiritual needs These are the needs for self-expression through creativity.

A.N. Maslow called the first two levels of needs in his hierarchy primary (innate), the other three - secondary (acquired). At the same time, the process of raising needs looks like a replacement of primary (lower) by secondary (higher). According to the principle of hierarchy, the needs of each new level become relevant for the individual only after the previous requests are satisfied. Therefore, the principle of hierarchy is also caused by dominants (the need that is dominant at the moment). A.N. Maslow believed that satisfaction itself does not act as a motivator of human behavior: hunger drives a person until this need is satisfied. In addition, the intensity of the need is determined by its place in the overall hierarchy.

There are many social and moral needs that are studied and taken into account in sociology from different points of view. A certain part of them is directly related to the problem of labor motivation, they have specific motivational and labor values. Among them are the following: need for self-respect(conscientious labor activity, regardless of control and remuneration for the sake of a positive opinion of oneself as a person and employee); need for self-assertion(high quantitative and qualitative indicators in labor for the sake of approval and authority, praise, positive attitude towards oneself from others); need for recognition(the focus of labor behavior on proving one's professional suitability and abilities in general or under conditions of strict control over the quality of work, attestation of workplaces during the probationary period); need for a social role(good work as a way to "be someone", proof of one's need for others, taking a worthy place among them); need for self-expression(high performance in work based on a creative attitude to it; work as a way to get some ideas and knowledge, manifestation of individuality); need for activity(labor activity as an end in itself to maintaining health through activity); the need for procreation and self-reproduction(a special value orientation towards such goals as the well-being of the family and loved ones, raising their status in society; the realization through the results of labor of a sublimated desire to create and inherit something); the need for leisure and free time(preference to work less and have more free time, focus on work as a value, but not as the main goal of life); the need for self-preservation(the need to work less in better conditions, even for little pay, in order to maintain health); need for stability(perception of work as a way to maintain the existing lifestyle, material well-being, risk aversion); need for communication(installation on labor activity as an opportunity for communication); need for social status(a clearly expressed subordination of labor activity to career goals with a positive and negative effect on the work itself; career as a decisive motive for behavior in relationships with others); the need for social solidarity(the desire to "be like everyone else", conscientiousness in front of partners, colleagues).

Needs play one of the most important roles in the overall process of motivating work behavior. They stimulate behavior, but only when they are recognized by workers.

The relevance of the topic of work is due to the fact that in recent years in our country there has been a decrease in the desire to work, especially in social production. Accordingly, the necessity of the need for labor, as the first vital necessity, acquires great importance.

Objective:

Find out the place of the need for labor in human life.

Determine the structure, content, features of the need for labor.

Objective: Find out why labor is the first human need.

Object: A person who needs work

Subject: Work as the first vital necessity

Introduction 3

Purpose of work 4

Basic concepts of labor 5

Labor as the most important vital need 7

Motivation of labor activity, classification of methods and main forms of motivation of employees 9

Different levels and forms of manifestation of the need for labor 11

Conclusion 13

Literature 14

The work contains 1 file

Introduction:

Objective:

Find out the place of the need for labor in human life.

Determine the structure, content, features of the need for labor.

Objective: Find out why labor is the first human need.

Object: A person who needs work

Subject: Work as the first vital necessity

Development:

This topic is widely discussed by Glazkov in the book "Man and His Needs", as well as in Milonov's article. I.V. “The bright future of mankind”, one more author can be attributed here - this is Schmidt P.P. “Man and Labor”

1. Basic concepts of labor

Labor plays a huge role in the development of human society and man. According to F. Engels, labor created man himself. The exceptional and many-sided significance of labor is enduring: it is turned not only into the distant past of mankind, its true nature and role are revealed with particular force under socialism with the emancipation of labor from exploitation and will become even more pronounced under communism, when labor becomes the first vital need of every person.

Labor is a purposeful activity of a person to create material and spiritual benefits necessary for his life. Nature provides the source material for this, which in the process of labor turns into a good suitable for meeting the needs of people. For such a transformation of the substances of nature, a person creates and uses tools of labor, determines the mode of their action.

Concrete labor activity expresses people's attitude to nature, the degree of their dominance over the forces of nature. It is necessary to distinguish between labor as a creator of material wealth and the social form of labor. In the process of production, people necessarily enter into certain relations not only with nature, but also with each other. Relationships between people that develop about their participation in social labor represent a social form of labor.

The expedient planned labor activity of people presupposes their organization. The organization of labor in general terms is understood as the establishment of rational connections and relations between the participants in production, ensuring the achievement of its goals on the basis of the most efficient use of collective labor. Moreover, those connections and relations that develop between the participants in production under the influence of technology and technology express the technical side of the organization of labor. Labor is organized and divided differently, depending on what tools it has at its disposal.

Those connections and relations of participants in production, which are due to joint participation and social labor, express the social side of the organization of labor. The relations between people in the process of labor or the social structure of labor are determined by the prevailing production relations.

The social form of labor organization does not exist outside the relationship of man to nature, outside certain technical conditions of work. At the same time, the technical organization of labor is also under the decisive influence of social conditions.

The technical organization of labor and its social form in reality are closely connected and interdependent and represent separate aspects of a single whole. Only in a theoretical analysis can they be singled out and considered separately, taking into account some specifics of their independent development.

2. Labor as the most important vital need

Labor is the process of transforming the resources of nature into material, intellectual and spiritual goods, carried out or controlled by a person, either under coercion (administrative, economic), or by internal motivation, or both.

Orientation to work as the most important life value is formed in our country by the entire system of education, training, lifestyle, and traditions. However, the labor behavior of an employee, his motives are determined not only by the system of values of society, the team, but also by social norms that have developed in this group, living conditions. At the same time, the values cultivated by society are often less significant for the employee, because at the level of labor collectives, there is a direct, visual impact on the value orientations of the individual.

The transformation of labor into the first vital necessity for the main

masses of people is impossible without the highest labor productivity on the basis of complex mechanization, automation, computerization, robotization of production. When heavy, monotonous, unattractive work is transferred to mechanics, automation, electronics, wide opportunities will open up for creative activity, which will be a full-fledged realization of the comprehensively developed abilities of a person. In a communist society, each person will be engaged in the work that fascinates him most of all and allows him to display his abilities and talents on a wider scale. Thus, a person will be able to fully apply his knowledge. And this knowledge will be extensive in many areas of work.

Man's self-fulfillment in labor does not at all mean that labor will become just fun and entertainment. Free, highly organized labor, according to K. Marx, is a rather serious matter, intense tension. The highest level of labor productivity will dramatically increase non-working time. However, it would be a gross mistake to present life in a communist society as a carefree enjoyment. Idleness is contrary not only to the laws of social development, but also to human nature.

3. Motivation of labor activity, classification of methods and main forms of employee motivation

Labor motivation is the stimulation of an employee or a group of employees to work to achieve the goals of the enterprise through the satisfaction of their own needs.

At the enterprise, it is necessary to create such conditions so that employees perceive their work as a conscious activity, which is a source of self-improvement, the basis of their professional and career growth.

The main levers of motivation are incentives (for example, wages) and motives (internal attitudes of a person).

The attitude to work is determined by the system of human values, the working conditions created at the enterprise and the incentives used.

The system of motivation at the enterprise level should guarantee: the employment of all employees with labor; the provision of equal opportunities for professional and career growth; the consistency of the level of remuneration with the results of work; the maintenance of a favorable psychological climate in the team, etc.

Motivation methods can be classified into:

1) economic (direct) - time and piecework wages; bonuses for qualitative and quantitative indicators of labor; participation in the income of the enterprise; tuition fees, etc.

2) economic (indirect) - the provision of benefits in paying for housing, transport services, meals at the enterprise.

3) non-monetary - increasing the attractiveness of work, promotion, participation in decision-making at a higher level, advanced training, flexible work schedules for going to work, etc.

The main forms of motivation of employees of the enterprise are:

1. Salary, as an objective assessment of the employee's contribution as a result of the enterprise's activities.

2. The system of intra-company benefits for the employee: effective bonuses, additional payments for seniority, health insurance for employees at the expense of the enterprise, provision of interest-free loans, payment of travel expenses to and from the place of work, preferential meals in the working canteen, selling products to their employees at cost or at a discount ; an increase in the duration of paid vacations for certain achievements in work; earlier retirement, granting the right to go to work at a more convenient time for employees, etc.

3. Measures that increase the attractiveness and content of work, the independence and responsibility of the employee.

4. Elimination of status, administrative and psychological barriers between employees, development of trust and mutual understanding in the team.

5. Morale encouragement of employees.

6. Professional development and promotion of employees.

4. Various levels and forms of manifestation of the need for labor

So far, we have been talking about the manifestation of the need for labor at the level of the individual - the main subject of labor relations. And they mentioned the only form of manifestation of this need - the attitude to work. Meanwhile, the subject of labor relations can be a firm (an enterprise and its staff), as well as society (the state), which organizes this work with the help of legal acts.

Of course, both the firm and the state act as subjects of labor only due to the involvement of individuals in their activities. Actually, the total labor at the level of a firm or a state makes it possible to attribute the mentioned legal entities to the subjects of labor. The results of the economic activity of different enterprises and states, differing in efficiency, allow us to do this. Therefore, we can talk about different levels of manifestation of the need for labor: at the level of the individual, at the level of the enterprise, at the level of society.

Man and labor are two categories that are inextricably linked.

Labor in the narrow sense of the word is an objective condition for maintaining the life of an individual, preserving its meaning. Labor activity, being conscious and expedient, distinguishes a person from the animal world. Human activity, carried out with the application of effort, the cost of mental or physical energy, allows a person to be a full-fledged, and not just a biological being. Labor activity connects an individual with other people, the outside world, causes his activity, which supports life processes. This is the individual significance of labor as a peculiar sign of life and as its conditions.

Labor in the broad sense of the word is a way of ensuring the existence of people, humanity as a whole. The products of labor continuously consumed in the life processes require their reproduction in the labor process. The increase and change in people's needs leads to a variety of types of labor, the improvement of its processes, and a variety of labor technologies. In this regard, labor activity is a necessary condition for the existence of both an individual and society as a whole.

Labor is a means of satisfying the need for communication. The labor process implies the need for interaction between people, groups, organizations in the process of joint activities that bring people together. The production team often becomes the reference group for the individual. On the basis of contacts in the process of common labor, personal intimate feelings (friendship, love) arise, since people have the same level of education, social status, interests, and they spend a significant part of their time together. As a result, labor unites disparate people into social communities. However, the contradictions that arise in the course of labor activity can give rise to sharp conflicts.

Labor can become a form of personal expression. By embodying his personal characteristics and virtues in work, a person can achieve social recognition. This can become a condition for self-affirmation and self-expression. For many people, work becomes a direct vital necessity. Such people by participating in labor prolong the active phase of their lives, make it filled with meaning.

Labor is a way for people to fulfill their social duty. Since ore is a condition for the existence of society, the state, then any able-bodied citizen must contribute his share to social labor. At the same time, the state, in the absence of direct coercion to work, should use various methods to increase the individual's interest in work.

In economic psychology, three approaches are substantiated, reflecting the peculiarities of the perception of labor by workers. The first two of them were developed by the American sociologist D. McGregor.

Theory X states that all people are lazy and every worker, with a few exceptions, is characterized by aversion to work, lack of initiative, irresponsibility. In order for an employee to work properly, it is necessary to encourage him to work in every possible way, using administrative, psychological and economic methods, resorting to the tactics of "carrot and stick".

According to Theory Y, labor corresponds to the natural desire of man. People experience a natural need for labor activity, show interest in labor and its results, labor initiative and creativity. But even this commitment to work needs to be backed up with monetary rewards.

The author of the Z theory, the Japanese sociologist W. Ouchi, believes that the predisposition of workers to work depends, first of all, on the manager's concern for the staff. Showing interest in the employee as a person, taking care of his needs, family, career, managers ensure a stable interest of people in labor activity and its results.

Work how objective need and internal need human. Human and work- two categories, inextricably linked. Work in the narrow sense of the word is objective a condition for maintaining the life of the individual, preserving its meaning.

Work how objective need and internal need human.
The first approach is associated with content theories that analyze what needs human evoke some form of behavior.

Work how objective need and internal need human.
All people should not only participate in labor, and is listed in the state work. Otherwise, they were considered parasites and brought to trial.

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, "fame and serenity never sleep in the same bed." The thirst for achievement gives a person the joy of life. […] Lack of motivation is the greatest spiritual tragedy that destroys all life foundations.

Hans Selye, Stress without Distress, M., Progress, 1979, p. 58.

It is widely known that occupational therapy is the best treatment for some mental illnesses, and constant muscle exercise maintains vigor and vitality. It all depends on the nature of the work being done and your attitude towards it.

The extended leisure of forced retirement or solitary confinement - even if food and housing are the best in the world - is not a very attractive way of life. In medicine, it is now generally accepted not to prescribe prolonged bed rest even after surgery. On long voyages in old sailing ships, when there was often no work for weeks, the sailors needed something to do - washing the deck or painting the boats - so that boredom did not turn into a riot. The same considerations of stress-inducing boredom apply to nuclear submarine crews on long cruises, to Antarctic winterers unable to move for months due to bad weather, and even more so to astronauts who face prolonged loneliness in the absence of sensory stimuli. During the oil crisis, the three-day work week in England shattered many families, pushing workers to pubs for "leisure time". Many old people, even openly declaring themselves selfish, after retirement, cannot bear the feeling of their own uselessness. They do not want to work for the sake of earning money - after all, they understand too well that the end is near and you cannot take money with you to the grave. By apt expression Benjamin Franklin, "There is nothing wrong with retiring, as long as it does not affect your work in any way."

What is work and leisure! According to the aphorism George Bernard Shaw, "labor by obligation is work, and work by inclination is leisure."

Reading poetry and prose is the work of a literary critic, while tennis and golf are the work of a professional athlete. But an athlete can read at his leisure, and a writer can go in for sports to change the rhythm. A highly paid administrator will not move heavy furniture for the sake of relaxation, but will gladly spend his free time in the gym of a fashionable club. Fishing, gardening, and just about every other occupation is work if you do it for a living, and it is leisure if you do it for fun.

Labor plays an exceptionally important role in the existence and development of human society and each of its members. Only in the process of labor does a person create the benefits necessary for his existence. That is why labor is the basis of human life and development. The need to work as a necessary and natural condition of life is inherent in human nature itself.

Here is how K. Marx defined labor and its role in human life: “Labor as a creator of use values, as useful labor, is a condition for the existence of people, independent of any social forms, an eternal natural necessity: without it, the exchange of substances between a person would not be possible and nature, i.e. human life itself would not be possible.” And further: “The process of labor ... is a purposeful activity for the creation of use values, the appropriation of what is given by nature for human needs, the general condition for the exchange of substances between man and nature, the eternal natural condition of human life.”

The role of labor is manifested in the functions it performs. In all the variety of social functions performed by labor, a number of basic ones can be distinguished (Fig. 1.3).

Rice. 1.3. Labor functions

The first and most important function of labor is consumer . It manifests itself in the fact that labor acts as a way to satisfy needs. The basis for satisfying individual and social needs is the production of material and spiritual goods, the creation of social wealth. In that - creative labor function. Satisfying needs and creating wealth, labor underlies all social development - it determines the social status of a person, forms the social strata of society and the foundations for their interaction, thereby fulfilling social function. Creating all the values of human existence, acting as a subject of social development, a person in the course of preparing for work and in the very process of labor activity acquires knowledge and professional skills, masters ways of communication and interaction, forms himself as a person and as a member of society, constantly develops and improves . In that - human-creative labor function. Finally, labor acts as a force that opens the way to freedom for mankind. Freedom-creating The function of labor lies in the fact that it is in labor and with the help of labor that mankind learns both the laws of nature and the laws of its development, and armed with their knowledge, can take into account in advance the ever more distant natural and social consequences of its activity.

All functions of labor are important and interconnected. The main thing that unites them is a focus on satisfaction. needs person and society. Everything that people do during their life, all human life, has only one driving reason - the desire to satisfy needs.

It should be noted that so far there is no clear and completely indisputable understanding of the essence and definition of the concept of need. Most often, the need is defined as "the need, the need of the subject (employee, team, society) for something for its normal functioning", as "the objective desire of a person to consume material and spiritual goods".

Fig.1.4. Hierarchy of needs according to A. Maslow

Of interest is such a detailed definition of need as “the subjective attitude of the individual (to the phenomena and objects of the environment), in which a contradiction is experienced (between the achieved and potentially possible in the development of values - in the case of spiritual needs, or between the available and necessary resources of life - in the case of material), acting as a source of activity.

There are many different classifications of needs. The most popular is the classification proposed by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, which includes five groups of needs, conventionally divided into primary and secondary (Fig. 1.4). A more detailed classification was proposed by the Russian psychologist S.B. Kaverin (Fig. 1.5). It is based on the principle activities(everything, that

Rice. 1.5. Classification of needs according to S.B. Kaverina

makes a person during his life, is exhausted and is described by only four main types of activity: work, communication, knowledge and recreation) and the principle subordination.

A perceived human need takes shape interest- the desire to satisfy the need in some way. This desire induces a person to certain actions. The internal motivation for activity and activity aimed at satisfying needs is called motive, and the process of forming such motives - motivation. The impulse to activity and certain activities can also be external in relation to the subject. In this case it is called incentive, and the process of creating conditions that encourage individuals to act in a certain way - stimulation. The variety of incentives for labor activity can be combined into several classification groups (Fig. 1.6).

Fig.1.6. Classification of work incentives

The desire of the subject to satisfy the needs he has realized determines the goals of his activity. The ideas of a person, a team, society as a whole about the main and important goals of activity, as well as about the main means of achieving these goals are called values, and the focus on certain values - value orientation.

The satisfaction of most needs is one way or another connected with a person's labor activity and has the most direct impact on the quality and efficiency of his work (Fig. 1.7).

Rice. 1.7. Mechanism of influence of needs on labor behavior

Functions (actions, operations, duties) that people perform in the labor process should be distinguished from labor functions. As with many other issues, there is no single point of view among specialists on the composition and classification of these functions. The following functions are most often distinguished in the labor process:

· logical (thinking) associated with the definition of the goal and the preparation of a system of necessary labor operations;

· performing- bringing the means of labor into action in various ways, depending on the state of the productive forces and a direct impact on the objects of labor;

· control and regulation- monitoring the technological process, the progress of the planned program, its clarification and adjustment;

· managerial, associated with the preparation, organization of production and management of performers.

Each of these functions, to one degree or another, may be present (or not present) in the labor of an individual worker, but is certainly characteristic of aggregate labor. The totality of actions, operations, functions distributed between individual employees, their interaction and interconnection form content of labor. Depending on the predominance of certain functions in a person's labor activity, the complexity of labor is determined, and a specific ratio of the functions of mental and physical labor is formed.

A change in the composition of labor functions and the time spent on their implementation means a change in the content of labor. The main factor causing changes in the content of labor is scientific and technological progress.

Rice. 1.8. Classification of types of labor

The content of labor reflects the belonging of a particular type of labor to a particular field of activity (labor in the field of material production, in the service sector, science, culture and art, etc.), industry (labor in any industry, in construction, on transport, in agriculture), type of activity (work of a scientist, entrepreneur, manager, worker, etc.), profession and specialty (Fig. 1.8). The content of the work is reflected in qualification and tariff-qualification reference books, regulations on departments of organizations, job descriptions.

The main elements of the system of production relations that determine the nature of labor are:

the attitude of workers to the means of production, the form of ownership of the means of production (for example, private labor and wage labor);

the method of connecting workers with the means of production (forced and voluntary labor, bonded and free labor);

the connection between the labor of an individual and the total labor of society (personal and social, individual and collective labor);

the attitude of workers to work (initiative and non-initiative labor, conscientious and unscrupulous);

the degree of social differences in labor due to the social structure of workers, differences in the level of their training, the content of the functions performed, and working conditions.

The content and nature of labor are closely related, as they express different aspects of the same labor activity. The combination of the characteristics of the content and nature of labor makes it possible to single out different types (varieties) of labor and group them according to certain characteristics. Figure 1.8 shows an approximate, non-exhaustive, classification of types of labor.