Research

• When asked, "What makes you stay at your company?" the number-one answer given, representing 32% of respondents, "I find the work meaningful."
• US job satisfaction-to-productivity ratios suggest that highly meaningful work will generate an additional $9,078 per worker per year.
• More than 9 out of 10 employees surveyed are willing to trade 23% percent of their lifetime earnings for greater meaning at work. (For perspective, this compares with the 21% spent on housing).
• People who do highly meaningful are 69% less likely to quit their jobs within the following six months.
• In 2018, only 1 in 20 respondents rated their current jobs as providing the most meaningful work they could imagine having.
• Deloitte found 87 per cent of the workers they surveyed attach importance to having meaning and purpose at work.

Statement

Enhancers of this driver

• Workers who know and use their strengths at work.
• A learning culture that offers a variety of avenues for learning and that engages with employees' goals for self-actualisation.
• Regular guidance and support from leaders and managers.
• Healthy relationships and teaching and coaching of the skills to enhance them - such as good listening, being curious about others, apologising effectively, controlling anger, and letting go of slights.
• Employees who feel as though they are part of a broader community to which they contribute.
• Connecting individual output with the big picture. Employees can more easily see how their work is meaningful when team project goals tie into a company's larger vision.

Detractors of this driver

• Lack of values or values that do not align with the employee's values.
• Employees who do not feel part of a team or a larger collective.
• Workers who are not recognised for their work.
• Employees who do not know the purpose of what they do.
• Poor company engagement with the personal aspirations of employees.
• Failure to connect organisational goals with higher-order principles and genuinely meaningful outcomes for people, community and society.

Individual

• Make yourself meaningful to other people. Reflect on the positive contributions you have made or the influence you would like to have on your employees, clients, partners, community and the planet.
• Seek feedback: Learn how to make more meaningful contributions to your team—or what you're already doing that others appreciate—by proactively seeking feedback from those you work closely with.
• Research has shown that strong relationships enhance our sense of meaning in life. Look for opportunities to help, teach, inspire, give and share our lives with others. This creates a sense of mutual success, satisfaction and fulfilment.
• Be part of something larger than yourself without focussing on what you will get back. Instead, practice radical generosity by contributing not only to your immediate work circle but to your industry and broader communities. Good things will come back to you in spades.

Leaders

• Explicitly sharing experiences of meaningful work is an important form of social support. Please talk with your direct reports about what aspects of work they find meaningful. Share your perspectives on what makes work and life meaningful with your team.
• Managers can build in time during team meetings to clearly articulate the connection between current projects and the company's overall purpose. A potent enhancer of meaningfulness is where employees can easily see how their work and team project goals tie into a company's larger vision.
• Focus on the people you serve. Invest in your sense of meaning by helping your team accomplish their goals (both professionally and personally).
• Sometimes the best way to reinvigorate yourself is to serve someone else. Leaders have the noble opportunity (and obligation) to strengthen their team. Find a team member that could use some extra attention and find a way to help them.
• Involve the troops. Micromanagement can be a meaning-killer. Including your employees in decisions and giving them space to get the job done helps them feel less like numbers and more like contributors.
• Share your challenges and explain contexts - get input and insights from your team. This serves a dual purpose by building engagement and involvement in the team and accruing great ideas you may not have considered. Take care not to manage in a vacuum.

Organisation

• Organisations can encourage managers to talk with their direct reports about what aspects of work they find meaningful. Educate managers to build a culture of trust to elicit authentic responses from their teams. This trust will be enhanced if leaders share their perspectives on meaning with their team members.
• Leverage employees who find higher levels of meaning to act as multipliers of meaning throughout an organisation. Encourage mentors with a strong sense of meaning in their occupations to share perspectives on what makes work meaningful for them.
• Provide more mentorship for younger workers. This shows a level of investment and belief in them and exposes them to positive, successful and inspiring approaches.
• Managers and organisations seeking to bolster meaning will need to proactively support their employees' pursuit of personal growth and development alongside the more traditional professional development opportunities.
• Positive relationships engender meaning. Instil an open communication policy that involves frequent, ongoing conversations with employees. Bolster social support networks that create and celebrate shared meaning.

• Create a personalised career learning plan. Develop both short- and long-term career goals. Then, look at those goals and see where you think you could use additional training and education. You are more likely to be motivated to continually learn if it guides you down your own desired career path.
• Notice your achievements - particularly those you are most proud of and from which you gain the most meaning and a sense of purpose. Then, look for learning and experiences to build your abilities in these areas.
• Wherever possible, involve yourself in activities and opportunities that are meaningful to you. If you can establish yourself in these areas, you will tend to be offered more.

• Lay out clear career progression plans for employees. Many people set out to find different jobs or even career paths because they have no clear career path in their present job. Giving your crew a clear indication of future career progression encourages them to stay with you even when times get tough.
• Commit to a learning environment. Make space for your team to create and execute their learning plans, offering help along the way. Understand their different learning styles and attention spans, and provide experiences for growth expanding on what they already know, with immediate opportunities for practice.

• Humans need social connection, positive reinforcement, and self-actualisation - so offer frequent validation.
• Develop a recognition program. Employees want recognition that what they do day to day matters in the context of the organisation's greater goals. Globoforce Research Institute found that of workers recognised in the last six months, 93% agree their work has meaning and purpose.
• Consider peer-to-peer classes, in which each course provides a learning opportunity, both for the attendees and for the instructors who get a chance to share their knowledge while practising their presentation skills. Learning opportunities can extend the benefits of the job beyond just a paycheck.

• Consider what you see as your larger purpose/ the influence you want to be/your moral centre? Look at your role and link your answers to the purpose of your business. Ask, "What challenge are you trying to solve for business and society?" Try to connect how what you do contributes to the success of the business and how the business contributes to society.
• Understand the impact of your work. Create a personal 'elevator pitch' in which you describe the impact of your job in areas that are significant for you.

• Articulate a vision. Leaders should articulate the organisation's vision, mission, strategy, and goals while providing context into how the employee's work helps the organisation achieve the greater "whole."
• Help your team understand their purpose. Carve out time for employees to explore the purpose--or the profound why--of what they do. Consider introducing your team to their customers and stakeholders. Gather stories of how their work helps others, even in small ways, and encourage them to share their own stories. Reframe the work your team is doing to understand how and why they fit into that work.
• Be intentional about building self-esteem. For example, do you ever Ask how your employees are doing, be attentive and show you and care about what they say. By showing employees their value, they will feel valued as individuals and are more likely to live up to their value in the workplace. After all, what is competence without confidence?
• Find personal alignment with the problem you're solving. Leaders should look to find personal alignment with their company's problem. For example, an engineering firm solving safety and design riddles for clients, a marketing company helping small businesses scale or an ed-tech company helping students learn. Leaders who are invested in the underlying mission of their companies will find more meaning in their work and be able to inspire themselves, their customers and their team members.

• Anchor business strategy in purpose. Today's leaders must anchor their business strategy in purpose and share ownership of their larger mission with their stakeholders. Leaders who embrace a growth leadership mindset will be able to achieve goals while leading with purpose during challenging times such as a pandemic or global uncertainty and in more prosperous and thriving times.
• Conduct values assessments. Values assessments are pertinent in supporting people to continually check in with themselves to ensure that their actions and where they are investing their energy align with their core values. When we live in alignment with our values, we find meaning in what we are showing up to do. Conversely, when our actions are not aligned with our values, we stagnate and feel uninspired.
• Generating meaning requires clearly stating the aims and values of the company with which employees can identify.
• Since one of the components of meaning is the coherence between the employee and their actual work, discordant speeches and paradoxical goals that shift words and actions will be harmful.
• Meaning can reside in exploring and reaching personal potential. Employees often look for 'the' elusive ingredient to help them reach their full potential at work. Implementing a skills development policy that promotes professional development is thus a strong signal of your interest in creating meaning for employees.