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Finding Meaning at Work, Even When Your Job Is Dull

By Morten Hansen and Dacher Keltner

Do you experience meaning at work—or just emptiness?

In the United States, people spend an average of 35 to 40 hours working every week. That’s some 80,000 hours during a career—more time than you will spend with your kids probably. Beyond the paycheck, what does work give you? Few questions could be more important. It is sad to walk through life experiencing work as empty, dreadful, a chore—something that saps energy out of your body and soul. Yet many employees feel this way, as evidenced by one large-scale study showing that only 31% of employees were engaged.¹

Work can, however, provide an array of meaningful experiences, even though many employees do not enjoy them in their current job. So what are the sources of meaningful experiences at work?

We have compiled a list based on our reading of literature in organization behavior and psychology. Many theories speak to meaning at work, including need-based, motivational, status, power, and community theories. The phrase “meaning at work” refers to a person’s experience of something meaningful—something of value—that work provides. That is not the same as “meaningful work,” which refers to the task itself. Work is a social arena that offers other kinds of meaningful experiences as well.

Before we run through the list, it is important to note:

• Different people look for different types of meaning.
• Different workplaces provide different meanings.

Purpose

Contributions beyond yourself

The people at nonprofit Kiva channel microloans to poor people who can use the money to get a small business going and improve their lives. Their work clearly has a greater purpose—that of helping people in need. This taps into a longing to have a meaningful life defined as making contributions beyond oneself.

The problem is, however, that most work doesn’t have such a higher purpose, either because the job is basically mundane or because—let’s face it—the company doesn’t really have a social mission. Critics of workplace culture like economics researcher Umair Haque argue that work that involves selling yet more burgers, sugar water, high-fashion clothing, and the like has no broader purpose whatsoever. In this view, Coke’s “Open happiness” tagline is just a slogan devoid of meaning. However, as researchers Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer argue, much work can be infused with some level of purpose. (See chapter 9 of this book for more on gradual steps toward meaningful work.) Companies that make real efforts in social responsibilities do this. For example, Danone, the $25 billion large and highly successful consumer goods company that sells yogurt, has defined their business as providing healthy foods (which led them to sell off their biscuit business). The litmus test here is whether employees experience that their work makes positive contributions to others. If they do, then they experience meaning at work.

Self-realization

Learning

Many MBA graduates flock to McKinsey, BCG, and other consultancies so that they can rapidly acquire valuable skills. General Electric is renowned for developing general managers, and people who want to become marketers crave to learn that trade at Procter & Gamble. Work offers opportunities to learn, expand one’s horizon, and improve self-awareness. This kind of personal growth is meaningful.

Accomplishment

Work is also a place to accomplish things and be recognized, which leads to greater satisfaction, confidence, and self-worth. In the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi we see Japan’s greatest sushi chef devote his life to making perfect sushi. Some critics like Lucy Kellaway at the Financial Times say there isn’t a real social mission here. But the main character’s quest for perfection—to make better sushi all the time—gives his life a deep sense of meaning. And for Jiro, the work itself—making the sushi—gives him a deep intrinsic satisfaction.

Prestige

Status

At cocktail parties, a frequent question is “Where do you work?” The ability to rattle off “Oh, I am a doctor at Harvard Medical School” oozes status. For some, that moment is worth all the grueling night shifts. A high-status organization confers respect, recognition, and a sense of worth to employees, and that provides meaning at work for some.

Power

As Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria write about in their book Driven, for those drawn to power, work provides an arena for acquiring and exercising power. You may not be one of those, but if you are, you experience work as meaningful because you have and can use power.

Social rewards

Belonging to a community

Companies like Southwest Airlines go out of their way to create a company atmosphere where people feel they belong. In a society where people increasingly are “bowling alone,” people crave a place where they can forge friendships and experience a sense of community. (In his book of the same name, Robert Putnam describes the American decline in bowling leagues as a metaphor for a larger cultural shift away from formal social structures.²) The workplace can complement or even be a substitute for other communities (family, the neighborhood, clubs and so on). Workplaces that provide a sense of community give people meaning.

Agency

Employees also experience meaning at work when what they do actually matters for the organization, when their ideas are listened to and when they see that their contributions have an impact on how the place performs. A sense of real involvement gives people meaning.

Autonomy

As Dan Pink shows in his book Drive, autonomy—the absence of others who tell you what to do and the freedom to do your own work in your own time—is a great intrinsic motivator. Some people are drawn to certain kinds of work that provides a great deal of autonomy. For example, entrepreneurs frequently go into business by themselves so that they can be their own boss. This kind of freedom gives work meaning.

___________

There are no doubt other sources as well, but the ones listed here seem to be especially important. Which of them are important to you? And which do you receive from your current workplace? Having more sources of meaning is not necessarily better; experiencing one deeply may just be enough. But it’s an issue if you don’t experience any at all.

MORTEN HANSEN is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and at INSEAD, France, and is the author of Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Build Common Ground, and Reap Big Results (Harvard Business Review Press, 2009). DACHER KELTNER is a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the author of Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life (W. W. Norton, 2009).

Notes

1.“Employee Engagement Research Report,” Blessing White, January 2013; http://blessingwhite.com/research-report/2013/01/01/employee-engagement-research-report-update-jan-2013.

2.R. D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Touchstone Books, 2001).

Adapted from content posted on hbr.org, originally published
December 20, 2012 (product #H009WH).