What gives you a sense of meaning in your work?

To the OP, HR has an obligation to play a role (and a relatively important one, at that) in creating meaningful work, to the extent that it is simply good business sense to be sure that every job in an organization makes a meaningful contribution towards that company's success, however it chooses to measure success.

But creating meaningful work and "creating meaning for people in their work" are not the same thing. I believe that it is fundamentally down to the individual employee to find his or her own meaning in what they do. An enlightened and cash-rich employer might well put some time and investment into helping activities like mindfulness or coaching to help people learn the tools to find such meaning but the actual task of finding it isn't one that can be outsourced, to HR or anyone else!

On the topic of BS jobs, though, one of my first jobs was taking socks out of one box, changing the labels, and putting them back into another box. I was the sole employee of a subsidiary company within the company that owned the warehouse where I worked and, as a result, worked in an entirely different part of the warehouse from everyone else and never saw another person all day long. I found meaning in listening to Radio 4 for eight hours a day and in the benefits of cycling there and back every day. Not much meaning to be found in socks, to be fair.

I agree with Robey in that meaning within work isn’t necessarily doing meaningful work. I have had recent experiences where I was struggling to match my personal values with that of the organisation or to be more specific, the values of the leadership team. As I’ve grown both personally and professionally I’ve come to understand and be able to articulate my own values well and in all that I do, that’s what drives me. In Myers Briggs, I’m an “NF” and so think globally and champion people and values. So I always go beyond the task at hand and consider how, what I do benefits society. As an HR Practitioner, I see it as my job to help others understand this link, including the leadership team, where relevant. It is fascinating (and exciting to me) to watch the “a ha” moment and buzz some people get when they see the link between what they do and the contribution their work brings to the wider organisation and society at large, if they haven’t yet worked it out. I’m sure many readers are familiar with Simon Sinek and his excellent TED talks but his one on “start with why?” was transformational for me and has a powerful but simple message. In my view, purpose before profit wins over every time. And as one post points out, somebody humping bins in the freezing cold during winter may even draw some meaning from what they do, in as much as, they are helping to keep their community clean and tidy.

Nice post, Simon.

Thank you. :-)

Recall pondering this kind of thing when I first started work in a steelworks.

Workers who worked directly in the primary operations - tending the blast furnaces and steel making vessels were to me remarkably different in their motivations and outlook from those whose work was more indirect than this, such as driving locomotives or material handling or on production lines applying finishing touches to the plant's products.

The former tended to be very formidable, tough, down to earth characters - frightening to me at first, but once I got to know them, absolutely straight and honest whilst dealing with the latter was like interacting with a slippery bunch of cheating and untrustworthy spivs. Obviously I exaggerate to make the point, but, believe me, only a little.

Similarly, it always motivated me considerably especially in times of trouble that here I was contributing towards something very fundamental and very worthwhile - making good iron and steel; helping provide the backbone of almost all of industry. I was thankful that I wasn't tasked with successfully making or promoting the sales of such as sweets or choccie bars or tins of petfood. That wouldn't be nearly as satisfying, to the point where I didn't know if I'd be able to live with myself having sold my soul to such as these trivial and non-essential pursuits.

Similarly too, an old schoolfriend who happened to have a gifted scientific brain around the same time was offered handsome funding to pursue a PhD - but it was all about researching how to make ice cream taste smoother - making its cheap and unhealthy constituents seem 'creamy' to all the punters and thus helping to swell the coffers of some confectionery conglomerate. To his credit, he turned it down in favour of a far less lucrative but more fulfilling project.

I bang on sometimes about the insights into such as this offered by a now very old but still immensely relevant study - a book called 'The Homeless Mind' by Berger, Berger and Kellner: IMHO it's well worth a read.....

Recall pondering this kind of thing when I first started work in a steelworks.

Workers who worked directly in the primary operations - tending the blast furnaces and steel making vessels were to me remarkably different in their motivations and outlook from those whose work was more indirect than this, such as driving locomotives or material handling or on production lines applying finishing touches to the plant's products.

The former tended to be very formidable, tough, down to earth characters - frightening to me at first, but once I got to know them, absolutely straight and honest whilst dealing with the latter was like interacting with a slippery bunch of cheating and untrustworthy spivs. Obviously I exaggerate to make the point, but, believe me, only a little.

Similarly, it always motivated me considerably especially in times of trouble that here I was contributing towards something very fundamental and very worthwhile - making good iron and steel; helping provide the backbone of almost all of industry. I was thankful that I wasn't tasked with successfully making or promoting the sales of such as sweets or choccie bars or tins of petfood. That wouldn't be nearly as satisfying, to the point where I didn't know if I'd be able to live with myself having sold my soul to such as these trivial and non-essential pursuits.

Similarly too, an old schoolfriend who happened to have a gifted scientific brain around the same time was offered handsome funding to pursue a PhD - but it was all about researching how to make ice cream taste smoother - making its cheap and unhealthy constituents seem 'creamy' to all the punters and thus helping to swell the coffers of some confectionery conglomerate. To his credit, he turned it down in favour of a far less lucrative but more fulfilling project.

I bang on sometimes about the insights into such as this offered by a now very old but still immensely relevant study - a book called 'The Homeless Mind' by Berger, Berger and Kellner: IMHO it's well worth a read.....