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Abstract: The article explores the distinction between organizational "purpose" and individual "meaning" in the workplace, drawing on research to demonstrate the critical importance of fostering meaningful work experiences for employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention. While a clear organizational purpose provides strategic direction, the article argues that the daily experience of meaningful work - through tangible impact, socially valuable contributions, and personal growth opportunities - is an even more powerful motivator. The article outlines practical strategies for leaders across for-profit, nonprofit, and government sectors to cultivate meaningful work, including clarifying social impact, promoting autonomy, facilitating career development, and measuring meaning alongside traditional metrics. The article concludes that organizations able to provide both a strong sense of purpose and genuinely meaningful daily work will be best positioned to attract and retain top talent in today's competitive job market.
In today's rapidly changing world of work, organizational leadership faces the challenge of attracting and retaining talented employees. With low unemployment rates and a strong job market, employees have more options than ever before. As leaders seek to differentiate their organizations, they have commonly touted a strong sense of "purpose" as a recruiting tool. However, recent studies suggest that while purpose is important, having real "meaning" in one's daily work may be an even more powerful motivator for employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention.
Today we will explore the distinction between purpose and meaning at work, provide an overview of relevant research, and offer recommendations for how organizational leaders can foster more meaningful work experiences across different industries.
Defining Purpose vs. Meaning at Work
It is first important to clarify the distinction between purpose and meaning as it relates to work. An organization's purpose generally refers to its overarching reason for existing and core objectives. For example, a healthcare nonprofit may define its purpose as "improving public health outcomes" or a tech startup may define its purpose as "disrupting an existing industry through innovation." While having a clear sense of purpose helps guide strategic direction, it does not necessarily translate to how fulfilled employees feel in their day-to-day roles.
Meaning at work, on the other hand, is a more personal and experiential concept. It refers to the significance and value that employees derive from the tasks they perform on a regular basis. Research has found that meaningful work provides individuals with a sense of purpose through tangible actions and impact, socially valuable contributions, and opportunities for personal growth (Steger et al., 2012). Even employees at organizations with a universally inspiring purpose may struggle to find meaning if their daily responsibilities feel trivial, isolated from the "bigger picture," or limit opportunities for achievement and development.
Understanding the distinction between purpose and meaning leads to important implications for organizational leadership. While purpose serves as an guiding light, it is the experience of meaningful work on a regular basis that truly engages and motivates employees over the long run. Leaders who can foster both strong purpose and daily meaning are best positioned to attract and retain talent in today's competitive market.
Research on the Benefits of Meaningful Work
Existing research provides compelling evidence that meaningful work leads to significant individual and organizational benefits compared to work perceived as merely purposeful. Some key findings on the positive impacts of meaningful work include:
Higher job satisfaction and engagement. Numerous studies have found positive correlations between experiencing meaningful work and increased satisfaction, involvement in one's role, and enthusiasm for one's organization (Allan et al., 2019; Huddleston & Good, 1999; Steger et al., 2012).
Improved health and well-being. Multiple researchers have linked meaningful work to better mental health outcomes such as less stress, anxiety, and depression as well as better physical health (Allan et al., 2019; Ropp & Tregear, 2018; Steger et al., 2012).
Reduced intention to leave. Employees reporting more meaningful work experiences are less likely to actively seek new positions elsewhere (Allan et al., 2019; Houlfort et al., 2015).
Better job performance. Meaningful work is associated with higher job performance ratings, higher quality work, and increased productivity (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009; Lips-Wiersma & Wright, 2012; Steger et al., 2012).
Organizational benefits. As a result of the individual impacts above, organizations with employees reporting more meaningful work experience lower turnover costs, higher customer satisfaction, and better financial performance over time (Harter et al., 2002; Kahn & Fellows, 2013).
This wealth of research indicates organizations have a compelling rationale, from both humanistic and business perspectives, to focus intensely on cultivating daily meaning alongside clear purpose. The following sections will outline practical strategies across industries.
Fostering Meaningful Work in For-Profit Companies
For traditional for-profit companies, leadership can promote meaningful work through a combination of operational changes, strategic refocusing, and culture development:
Clarify the social impact. Leaders can emphasize how products/services improve lives, communities, or society to give employees a larger sense of purpose beyond profits alone. This helps connect daily work to tangible outcomes.
Promote autonomy and ownership. Employees are more likely to find work meaningful when they have independence and discretion over their jobs. Leaders can decentralize decision-making and give workers ownership over projects.
Foster career development. Regular learning opportunities and career paths encourage personal growth, which research shows contributes to meaningful work. Leaders should focus on continuous skills building and internal mobility.
Measure meaning in addition to metrics. While traditional metrics like revenue, profitability, and productivity are important, leaders should also systematically gather feedback on how meaningful employees find their work and address issues proactively.
For example, a technology company implemented career pathing programs that allowed engineers more flexibility to take on new challenges over time. Pairing autonomy with opportunities for growth resulted in substantially higher engagement and retention. Likewise, a financial services firm emphasized their role in empowering clients to reach life goals like homeownership, retirement savings, etc. This added a deeper sense of meaning beyond transactions.
Fostering Meaningful Work in Nonprofits & Government
For mission-driven organizations, the logic of meaningful work seems self-evident. However, it still takes intentional effort to translate macro purpose into micro experience on a daily basis:
Communicate impact clearly. Leaders should ensure employees fully understand how their individual contributions directly further the organizational mission through outreach reports, success stories, and impact metrics.
Design work to be "mission-centric." Jobs and teams can be structured around serving core constituencies to strengthen perceived linkage between daily tasks and mission impact.
Promote development opportunities. While budgets are tighter, leaders should prioritize training, rotations, volunteering, and advancement where feasible to support personal growth needs.
Implement regular impact surveys. Gather feedback beyond traditional metrics to assess meaning and address issues such as role clarity, skill utilization, community involvement, and growth opportunities.
For example, a children's advocacy nonprofit instituted semi-annual "Impact Days" where employees visited clients and communities served to observe tangible outcomes. This helped social workers directly see positive impacts of casework and programs. A city government also initiated cross-departmental rotations every 2-3 years to facilitate professional development and exposure to various constituent needs.
Industry-Specific Strategies
While the above strategies cut across sectors, some industries face unique barriers and opportunities for fostering meaningful work. A few examples:
Healthcare - address burnout: High stakes nature combined with staffing pressures can drain meaning. Leaders must prioritize self-care, recognize contributions, facilitate community/support.
Education - emphasize development impact: While educating, emphasize how preparing students will positively impact their futures and society. Gather alumni success stories for ongoing motivation.
Manufacturing - connect to end users: Where possible, facilitate interactions between production teams and customers/consumers of final products. This helps "close the loop" on perceived impact.
Retail/Service - recognize soft skills value: Beyond transactions, recognize client relationships and problem-solving contributions have social worth in building communities, trust, assistance for others.
Construction/Infrastructure - highlight longevity of impact: Physical structures/systems will impact communities/regions for decades. Communicate this legacy aspect to counter perceived ephemerality of projects.
By focusing on industries' unique purpose-to-meaning challenges, leaders can better foster environments where employees consistently derive significance from their work. This deepens overall organizational effectiveness and sustainability.
Conclusion
In today's economy where talent has many options, organizational leaders aiming to attract and retain top performers must focus intensely on cultivating real meaning, not just purpose, from daily work. While having a clearly articulated social or business rationale is still important, research indicates regularly experiencing meaningful work leads to substantially better individual and organizational outcomes. Leaders across sectors can foster meaningful work through some combination of role design, development opportunities, mission-centered strategies, impact transparency, and a cultural shift towards broad recognition of all contributions. Those who make daily work profoundly meaningful as well as purposeful will be best positioned to succeed in the long run.
References
Allan, B. A., Batz-Barbarich, C., Sterling, H. M., & Tay, L. (2019). Outcomes of meaningful work: A meta-analysis. Journal of Management Studies, 56(3), 500–528.
Bunderson, J. S., & Thompson, J. A. (2009). The call of the wild: Zookeepers, callings, and the double-edged sword of deeply meaningful work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 54(1), 32–57.
Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., & Hayes, T. L. (2002). Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(2), 268–279.
Houlfort, N., Fernet, C., Vallerand, R. J., Laframboise, A., Guay, F., & Koestner, R. (2015). The role of passion for work and need satisfaction in psychological adjustment to retirement. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 88, 84–94.
Huddleston, P., & Good, L. K. (1999). Job motivations of health and human service employees: Implications for consumer‐driven care. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 33(1), 187–203.
Kahn, W. A., & Fellows, S. (2013). Employee engagement and meaningful work. In B. J. Dik, Z. S. Byrne, & M. F. Steger (Eds.), Purpose and meaning in the workplace (pp. 105–126). American Psychological Association.
Lips-Wiersma, M., & Wright, S. (2012). Measuring the meaning of meaningful work: An alternative scale for assessing "meaningful work." Group & Organization Management, 37(5), 655–685.
Ropp, T. E., & Tregear, M. K. (2018). The role of meaning in work and implications for human resource development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 21(1), 111–130.
Steger, M. F., Dik, B. J., & Duffy, R. D. (2012). Measuring meaningful work: The work and meaning inventory (WAMI). Journal of Career Assessment, 20(3), 322–337.
Jonathan H. Westover, PhD is Chief Academic & Learning Officer (HCI Academy); Chair/Professor, Organizational Leadership (UVU); OD Consultant (Human Capital Innovations). Read Jonathan Westover's executive profile here.
Suggested Citation: Westover, J. H. (2025). The Meaning of Work: Why "Meaning" May Be More Important than "Purpose". Human Capital Leadership Review, 17(3). doi.org/10.70175/hclreview.2020.17.3.3
