The COVID-19 pandemic put a focus on what work means to people and how work impacts well-being. In 2022, the U.S. Surgeon General named fostering “mattering” and “meaning at work” a top priority for improving the nation’s mental health.
A new study published in Springer Nature’s Occupational Health Science journal led by Colorado State University Department of Psychology and School of Education instructor and researcher Zach Mercurio reveals how leaders, supervisors and managers can play a pivotal role in fostering employee experiences of meaningful work and well-being.
The research was conducted in collaboration with researchers Tamara Myles, Wesley Adams and Jeremy Clifton at the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
The group used data from more than 1,500 employees in more than 20 industries to identify and describe six core leadership practices. All those actions relate to meaningful work and increased motivation, feelings of mattering, job satisfaction and lower intentions to leave an occupation and organization.
The researchers also developed and validated a practical tool that leaders, organizations and researchers can use to assess these practices.
“As leaders seek evidence-based ways to respond to phenomena like ‘the great resignation,’ and improve occupational health via fostering meaningful work, there is a need for an accessible classification of practices they might use,” the study’s authors wrote.
The 6-pack of tips for supervisors
The study results reveal six distinct practices leaders can enact to make work meaningful to improve occupational health:
- Communicate the work’s bigger impact: Emphasize the broader significance of employees’ tasks and projects and clearly show how people’s work contributes to a bigger purpose and others’ work and lives.
- Recognize and nurture potential: Identify and nurture employees’ unique strengths and capabilities and provide custom opportunities for them to use their unique gifts.
- Foster personal connections: Prioritize building interpersonal relationships among team members and show investment in people’s personal lives.
- Discuss values and organizational purpose during hiring: Discuss organizational values and the organization or team’s bigger purpose first when recruiting, hiring and training people.
- Enact integrity through modeling values-based behaviors: Embody the organization’s values through consistent actions to inspire a culture of authenticity and ethical behavior.
- Give employees freedom: Grant employees autonomy and decision-making power over how they do their work.
“Experiencing meaningfulness in work is more than a ‘nice-to-have,'” said Mercurio, who speaks about the topic in his role at CSU’s Organizational Learning, Performance and Change Ph.D. program. “It’s a core driver of health and well-being, and researchers find it’s a basic human need. This new study offers a way for leaders to meet that need.”
