Create a healthier workplace by providing meaningful work

Meaningful work is an effective way to build employee satisfaction and, in turn, create a more productive and efficient workplace.

The concept of meaningful work was recently discussed by HR Leader, which Nina Mapson-Bone, recruitment specialist, described as “the importance an individual places on their work meeting their current personal beliefs, values, goals, expectations, and purpose in the context of their social and cultural environment”.

While the benefits this can have on an individual are clear, it can have the roll-on effect of boosting workplace efficiency.

“The research we did into meaningful work, what we discovered was that it’s not only good for the individuals, but it’s actually better for the organisations. We found that things like there’s reduced burnout, there’s reduced stress, there’s less sick leave and higher retention,” said Ms Mapson-Bone.

“In terms of your talent attraction and retention, you’re going to get better results from your people if they are engaged in meaningful work, and it results in higher organisational performance.”

She continued: “Even during times of downturn and downsizing, it can actually help you beat your competitors. So, it’s well worth leaders and even individuals in teams to try to get their organisation to focus on meaningful work because it doesn’t just benefit the individual, it actually benefits the whole organisation.”

Employers may want to offer meaningful work but can’t figure out how to get it going. The first thing to recognise is that there’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach, said Ms Mapson Bone.

“The thing that makes it hard is it’s unique for each individual. So, the trick is being able to have individual and also team discussions around what’s not working and what’s working,” she explained.

“The thing that’s difficult for leaders is sometimes we try to be all things to all people. We feel like we’ve got this never-ending list of benefits that we have to keep adding to attract and engage our employees. And actually, I don’t think that’s the key to it. I think the key to it is taking the time to really understand how is work meaningful? What is it about your role that is meaningful, and what aspects of it aren’t?”

While keeping things uniform is an easy way to approach strategy by creating blanket policies, this can hinder the success of implementing meaningful work.

“[Meaningful work] requires more input and time upfront to do this and more patience because sometimes we can get a little bit frustrated with not being able to just get on with things,” Ms Mapson Bone said.

“So, it does require that extra time and reflection, which is hard to carve out in busy schedules. But it’s like any habit, like health or eating well or exercise; if you actually carve it out and do it well upfront, the results longer term are much better. So, you have to force yourself to do the proactive hard stuff upfront to get the better results in the longer term.”

For those who are looking to introduce meaningful work, the first consideration is creating a psychologically safe workplace.

“First and foremost, your culture needs to be psychologically safe. That came out as the number one factor of meaningful work as a result of COVID-19. But in the research that we do on an ongoing basis now, that’s the most important factor of meaningful work. And you’re not going to be able to even have these conversations if you don’t have a psychologically safe workplace,” she said.

The next consideration is “making sure that they have the systems and processes in place to enable them to have those conversations. Because it’s one thing to have a conversation, but it’s probably worse to have the conversation and then not do anything about it,” added Ms Mapson-Bone.