Take the phrase "It's Not Just a Job, It's a Calling" out of a care worker's job description, and see if what's left still sounds reasonable.

A care worker's training, and the newsletters sent round the organisation, describe their roles as a vocation, the people receiving care as family and the work matters more than most jobs ever could. 

Strip the “Calling” language out and describe the same role in plain terms. The pay is near minimum wage, unpaid travel time between visits, rotas that leave little time for a second income or a stable family life. 

Now, with the “calling” language removed, it opens up questions about the conditions on offer, what they might receive instead…

That’s one face of the "It's Not Just a Job, It's a Calling" narrative.

The other is that pay is very rarely the first answer most care workers give when asked why they do the job. It’s more often something in the work, the service of humanity, of showing up for someone at their most vulnerable, the daily work of dignity, and more… It’s genuinely sacred to a lot of people who do it.

"Calling" is a word management in the care sector uses. But it’s often the word workers themselves reach for first, because "just a job" undersells something they know to be true about who they are in their core and what they're actually doing.

Both of these are true side by side. The test exposes whether the conditions have been justified because it’s a “Calling”.

The story is about how hard it is for any of us, individuals or organisations, to act on evidence that contradicts the identity we've built around everything. It's a structural risk in any organisation with a strong, successful narrative about itself.

A question for any of us to consider. Would we recognise an opportunity that didn't match the story we tell about who we are?

This is Narrative Ambivalence

A narrative can do a number of things at the same time. In this case, it obscures an unfair structure, and honours something genuinely meaningful about the work. Removing the language would expose the pay gap. But would also remove one of the few things some workers have to name about what it gives back that a payslip alone cannot express.

There is no clean fix here. But it’s worth observing where a narrative, though noble, might be used to justify the conditions offered.

If you've done work that felt like a calling, has the language ever also made it harder to ask for what the work was actually worth?

SOURCES

Homecare Association, response to Skills for Care, “Pay in the Adult Social Care Sector in England” (25 February 2026). The median care worker pay was £12.60 an hour, 39p above the National Living Wage of £12.21, and 26% of care workers were paid within 10p of it.

UNISON, “Majority of homecare staff are unpaid for travel between visits says UNISON” (June 2023). A survey of 310 homecare workers found 75% were not paid for travel between appointments.

UNISON Scotland, bargaining briefing on Whittlestone v BJP Home Support Ltd (Employment Appeal Tribunal) (February 2014). Travel between care assignments counts as working time for minimum wage purposes.

“It’s not the money: how do motivations drive decisions to work in the long term care sector?” (ILPN). Care workers described “making a difference” as countering the less desirable terms and conditions.