Meaningful Work Criteria

🔍 New research: We've been getting employee engagement wrong 😬 I just finished my dissertation research on what actually drives people to show up engaged at work, and the findings surprised me. Spoiler ‼️ It's not just autonomy. When I tested the three pillars of Self-Determination Theory (autonomy, competence, and relatedness [relationships at work]), only ONE emerged as a significant predictor of engagement. Competence. Not flexibility. Not how much people liked their teams. The people who felt capable and effective in their roles? They were the ones truly engaged. Does that resonate with you? But here's one key thing I found: Psychological meaningfulness mediated everything. All three needs only influenced engagement through one pathway - whether people found their work meaningful. So what does this mean for leaders and HR professionals? ❌ Stop assuming autonomy is the silver bullet ✅ Start investing in competence-building ✅ Make meaningfulness explicit (don't assume people see the impact of their work) ✅ Build feedback structures that actually develop capability This matters because low engagement costs organisations in turnover, performance, and wellbeing. But most engagement strategies are built on outdated assumptions about what motivates people. I've written up the full findings and practical implications in an article 👇 At Bailey & French, this is exactly the work we do - helping organisations design psychology-based solutions that build real capability and embed meaningful work. Evidence-based approaches that actually work. Worth a read if you're rethinking your engagement strategy for 2025. 😉 Feel free to drop me a message/add if you'd like more info. #EmployeeEngagement #OrganisationalPsychology #Leadership #HumanResources #PeopleAndCulture #WorkplaceCulture #LearningAndDevelopment

Work/Life balance is a much more complex formula than just how many hours you work. There were times I was consistently working 65+ hours a week and felt fully content and energized. And there were times I was working less, but felt anxious, overwhelmed, and exhausted. If the work I was doing was meaningful and rewarding, my capacity to work more and still feel balanced was very high. And if it wasn't, I felt burnt out even when I quite literally had more hours available for "life" than I did for "work". It's not always easily found, but search out work that is meaningful to you and you'll likely feel a healthier balance. What "meaningful work" has meant for me personally: 1) Connection with people. Both physically (I prefer at least 60% in-office work) and emotionally (working with and for people who are empathetic, level-headed, and intelligent). 2) Having a true mission. In my career I worked with some amazing people but I never worked with a product that had meaningfully improved the world. Now throwing myself back full-time into Pay Forward Coaching and seeing the impact our team has, I'm more energized than ever. 3) Growth (both in my knowledge and in my career). I was most engaged in my career when I had a clear understanding of how I could advance to the next level (which was directly related to working for great leaders), and my daily work was challenging and gave me the opportunity to learn new things. If at all possible, work shouldn't be just putting in hours and collecting a paycheck. If you don't have that but want that, we might be able to help at Pay Forward Coaching.

Work and Meaning I grew up around people who never had the luxury of romanticizing “meaning” in work. Work was about survival and dignity. Years later, I realize that the question isn’t “Is work a means to an end?” but “Which ends make the means worth it?” For me, meaningful work has three qualities: Craft : leaving a trace of yourself in the work, even when nobody’s watching. Belonging : showing up because something larger will fracture if you don’t. Service : recently, while caring for a loved one in the hospital, I learned more about meaningful work watching a nurse calm a frightened family than I have in most boardrooms. So here’s how I try to hold work today: - Choose problems worth solving even if no one knew you solved them. - Build teams where people feel they belong while doing the best work of their lives. - Measure the day by the energy you return, not the energy you take. - Refuse cynicism - it masquerades as wisdom, but usually is just risk aversion. Work will always be, in part, a means to an end. That’s honest. But I’ve started asking myself: If work vanished tomorrow, what human problem would I miss waking up to? And then start there.

Last week, after a keynote at a multi-national firm, someone asked me a great question: “How do you help people feel their work actually matters?” It’s a deceptively simple question, but one every leader should sit with. According to a 2023 Harvard Business Review study, meaning ranked as the single most important factor for employees, outweighing salary, promotions, or working conditions. When people don’t see how their work matters, even the best perks fall flat. But when they do? They go further than any mandate requires. The mistake we often make is assuming that meaning trickles down from mission statements or culture decks. But meaning isn’t inherited. It’s built, reinforced, and modeled. And much of that building happens in the ordinary moments: - The way you talk to your team - The moments you celebrate - The behaviors you tolerate - The actions you choose to reward Leaders who help others feel their work matters do it with specificity. They connect effort to outcomes. They remind people: This is who you’re helping. And this is why it counts. In high-pressure environments, meaning is a psychological buffer. It lowers burnout, and it increases loyalty. We need to be needed. Work becomes meaningful when it combines earned success with service to others. If people know their work matters, they show up like it does. So the better question for leaders might be: Can the people you lead see why their work matters, and who is better off because of it?