“We’re not sure exactly where meaning comes from, if it is inherent, or if it is ‘real’ at all what we do know is that humans flourish when they have it and suffer when they don’t.”
Irvine 2013
Meaning is absolutely present when employees talk about great experiences at work. It is fundamental to brilliant experiences. But meaning is subjective to our own individual experience, which can make it quite tricky to pin down. Viktor Frankl, in his seminal book, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, proposed that we can discover meaning in life in the following ways:
- Creating work or accomplishing a task
- Experiencing something fully, or loving somebody
- The attitude we adopt toward unavoidable suffering
We’re hardwired to search for meaning in our lives. And finding meaning at work is a key feature of a great experience. But just how do we design experiences that give people the opportunity to find meaning?
Let’s start by clearing up the difference between purpose and meaning. Purpose has been enjoying the limelight over recent years, and yes it’s important, but meaning runs deeper.
Jacob Morgan has a great way of explaining the differences. He argues that:
- A job is what you do eg. selling stuff, writing code etc
- The purpose goes a level deeper, and describes the intention of the job you do, hopefully how this links to the purpose of company you work at. For example you sell so that you can generate revenue, and delight customers, which in turns helps the company grow and invest and deliver on the company purpose whatever that might be
- Meaning is subjective and unique to us. This is about why we are doing something and the feeling we get from doing it. For example if you’re in sales, you might get meaning from building relationships, if you’re in customer service you might get meaning from helping people.
So how can we design experiences that have meaning for our people?
- Ask them! Meaning is subjective, this means it is impossible for an EX team, or HR team to design experiences where meaning features without speaking to employees. We can’t make assumptions about how and where people derive meaning at work. But simply asking people to share stories about times when they found a sense of meaning within their work-life, will very quickly give you all the insights you need to design experiences which are meaningful.
- Get clear on the difference between purpose and meaning – a well-crafted purpose statement might not equate to meaning for your people. Use Jacob Morgan’s distinction to have conversations with your people about the differences between the two – this will also help with number 1!
- Help people to better understand how the work they do impacts others, be it colleagues, customers or other stakeholders. Empower teams and departments to spend time with each other and customers, so they get to figure this out for themselves, it’s way more effective than simply telling them.
- Job-crafting – Job-crafting enables employees themselves to make changes to their own job design. Wrzesniewski defines job crafting as the process of employees redefining and re-imagining their job designs in personally meaningful ways. Wrzesniewski argues that experience of meaning at work is malleable; that through job re-crafting individuals can change the way they:
- approach the tasks in their work
- increase or decrease the number and kinds of tasks they do as part of their job
- change the number of relationships they have with the others they encounter at work
She shares a great example of an office cleaner re-crafting her job, by caring for the plants for people who are away, or do not have green thumbs. By involving employees in re-crafting their roles, it enables them to take the initiative in small ways: people perform their roles in ways that are meaningful to them, giving them an increased sense of purpose and autonomy. By enabling employees to get involved with crafting their role, they can align it with their personal values, strengths and interests, and there is a greater chance of finding meaning at work.
There are five main ways that people tend to job craft:
- Task crafting – tangibly changing aspects of how we undertake our work, including designing, adding or removing tasks
- Relationship crafting – shaping how we relate and engage with others, including building and adapting our relationship with co-workers
- Purpose crafting – reframing how we think about our work in general, including the value and significance it brings to us, personally and others
- Skill crafting – developing, refining and focusing on new skills
- Well-being crafting – boosting our physical and mental health through the work we do
And studies back up a range of benefits arising from job-crafting, including:
- Lower levels of stress
- Increased motivation and engagement
- Increased performance
Designing experiences for your people which deliver meaning benefits everyone: your organisation, your customers, your people and the work they do.
We would love to hear your thoughts on meaning at work. Is it something you consider when designing employee experiences? Do you believe it helps to deliver engagement? Let us know what you think.
