A psychological perspective on the future of work: promoting sustainable projects and meaning-making through grounded reflexivity

The rapid technological transformations caused by the fourth industrial era have compelled people to deal with numerous changes in the world of work. For example, the acquisition of new skills has become essential to help workers deal with work-related transitions. Preventive interventions, too, can reinforce workers’ ability to design successful careers and manage their career-lives adequately. For individuals as well as organizations, the value of constructing the self as a sustainable project has emerged clearly. Life projects can become sustainable by drawing on grounded reflexivity as the guiding conceptual principle and by creating meaning in a narrative (subjective) way. Subjectivity is particularly relevant in terms of the value it adds to the writing of a next chapter, which can serve as a bridge between the present and the future for individuals, organizations, communities, societies, and countries. The value of using an integrated approach (including scores and stories) during data analysis also has also become apparent.