What Factors Make A Job "Meaningful?"

Let's see if we can figure this one out.

Meaningful jobs lies right at the intersection of “the major dichotomy between employers and employees.” See, employers could typically give .00011 shits about meaningful jobs. Those people are usually chasing revenue and growth, fatter bonuses for themselves, and … well, that’s about it. Employees, on the other hand, care a lot about meaningful jobs. Most of us won’t become CEOs or even “decision-makers,” and will instead hit just enough targets in our careers to give our family a good life. (Or so we hope.) In such a context, having a meaningful job — or a place that doesn’t make you plunge your head in the crapper at 10:42am each day — is pretty important.

So there’s the divide:

• Employers (the brass) don’t tend to care about providing meaningful jobs, and can easily argue they don’t have to

• Employees want meaningful jobs

That intersection point has a lot of theoretical car wrecks. It pretty much explains turnover, malaise, low employee engagement, and more.

All this said, is there research out there about how to create meaningful jobs? You bet. There’s enough to choke a horse, but most is couched in “thought leadership” bullshit. We’re going to avoid that and turn to MIT, a pretty vetted brand.

Meaningful jobs: 5 factors up, 7 factors down

Here’s a long, deep dive article from MIT’s Sloan School of Management called “What makes work meaningful — or meaningless?” Tons of research and citations, so if these topics interest you, go read it. I will break it down a little bit.

Here are the five qualities of meaningful jobs, per this research: