On 27 June 2020, the Society for the Promotion of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Research & Knowledge (SPARK) organized an online session with Mr Albert Lee (http://www.spark.org.sg/meetings). Mr Lee represents a social enterprise that helps people with disabilities reach their life potential through obtaining gainful employment and independence. During the session, Mr Lee spoke about his passion for work, journey, challenges, and experiences as a special needs educator.

In today’s society, having a passion for work is valued by employers and employees alike; employers benefit from a more productive workforce and employees are able to find meaning in their work. To understand the effects of work passion, and define work passion according to the everyday professional, Assistant Professor Patricia Chen (NUS Psychology), Associate Professor Sandy Lim (NUS Psychology), and Dr Fiona Lee (Stanford University) employed quantitative methods in a series of three studies, as explained in their article ‘Loving thy work: developing a measure of work passion’ (European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 2020).

In the first study, the researchers combined three main definitions of work passion (possessing positive sensory feelings, strong identification, and motivation to engage in work) with layman definitions of work passion to create a 12-item Work Passion scale. This scale was then tested in the second study among American and Singaporean working adults. In order to create a holistic and unidimensional measure of work passion, these variables were analysed for their ability to explain work passion and compared against other measures of work passion. As two variables did not possess good explanatory power, the 12-item Work Passion scale was then revised to a 10-item scale.

Finally, a two-wave study of full-time working Americans was conducted over an eight-month period. Ten hypotheses examined if the Work Passion scale produced valid results (as compared to other established measures) and if work passion could predict outcome measures. For instance, the Work Passion scale’s potential to predict ‘job burnout’ was investigated through Hypothesis 7: ‘The more passionate people feel towards their line of work, the lower their levels of job burnout would be eight months later’. From this, the researchers may better establish the association between work passion and workers' resilience toward job difficulties.

In general, the researchers note that work passion is associated with greater career commitments, resilience to work-related stresses and conflicts, and physical health. Moreover, they remark that the predictive capabilities of the Work Passion scale complement the harmonious passion and obsessive passion scales when all three are compared. They suggest that organisations that employ these scales can forecast long-term work commitment and job burnout. These organisations may then focus on cultivating a passion for work so as to create a more productive and resilient workforce.

Read the article here.