What makes office work feel more meaningful to you?

In TomorrowMind, the authors provide tips and tricks on how to succeed in the uncertain future of workplace

- Gabriella Rosen Kellerman & Martin Seligman

We need meaningful work to help us perform and flourish through change. Our organizations need us to find our work meaningful to get the most out of the good times, and to buffer the bad.

Given all of that: Is meaning something that can be fostered? Or is it just... there? One of the reasons we undertook our 2018 study was to identify the most critical workplace factors needed for employees to find their work meaningful. Understanding these drivers gives individuals and organizations a point of entry for intervention.

The first key organizational factor that emerged is feeling like you're not in it alone. Workplace social support significantly influenced degrees of meaning. Workers who feel a greater sense of social support at work scored 47% higher on workplace meaning scales than those who did not. One of the most difficult challenges for organizations today, particularly post-COVID-19, is preserving community amid remote work, turnover, and job instability. But most of us don't realize that part of what's at stake is the very soul of work itself.