Meaningful Work: Why Your People Are Quiet Quitting And What To Do About It

(originally appearing on Forbes.com)

The internet has been abuzz recently with talk of "quiet quitting," the practice of sitting back and doing the bare minimum your job requires. While the term quiet quitting is currently trending, I believe it is simply a new name for an old problem: disengagement.

This year in the U.S., employee engagement dropped for the first time in more than a decade with just 34% of workers reporting themselves engaged. This lack of motivation and effort costs organizations dearly because when an employee's experience is meaningful to them, they produce nearly $10,000 more in labor output each year, according to BetterUp.

The ‘Engagement Gap’

Retaining and motivating good people in today’s market can feel like a losing battle. Many of the senior leaders I counsel feel like their employees are speaking a different language. There is a significant divide between what leaders think their employees want and what employees actually want. I call this the "engagement gap."

One of the biggest tension points I'm currently observing is location flexibility and the return to the office. I'm seeing many senior leaders saying, "Come in; it’s better for collaboration," while younger staff asks, "Why? What do we get out of the extra effort?" Frustration grows on both sides, which fuels disengagement and attrition.

Leaders have tried to attract employees and get them to come to the office by focusing on bigger paychecks and fancy perks. This hasn’t worked. A large percentage of the people who took new jobs during the Great Resignation stayed less than a year, according to a LinkedIn study of half a million job changes in 2021 (via Business Insider).

While I am an advocate of higher salaries and of compensating people generously, these are just table stakes in today’s environment. Incentivizing employees to come into the office with food and fun events might get them to show up, but it won’t get them to work hard or stay long. What I believe employees need, and what could provide employers the biggest return on investment, is meaningful work.

Meaningful Work: The Antidote To Quiet Quitting And Turnover

A staggering nine out of 10 employees would take a lower salary for more meaningful work, according to research from BetterUp. A swath of recent studies from McKinsey, Paychex and others show that the desire for (or lack of) meaningful work has been a leading driver of attrition over the past two years. For Millennial and Gen Z workers, especially, doing meaningful work is a top priority.

Making work meaningful delivers a massive return. A major meta-analysis of research shows that meaningful work leads to higher engagement, stronger commitment and job satisfaction. Employees who find their work meaningful also tend to outperform those who don’t. The good news is that you don’t have to be saving the world for your work to be meaningful. Every job can, and should, be meaningful with the help of a great leader.

Leaders have a huge impact on how meaningful work is to their employees. Preliminary results from a new study, which I co-authored with Zach Mercurio, Tamara Myles and Jer Clifton, of 647 full-time U.S. workers indicate that nearly half of an employee’s sense of meaning at work is tied to what their leaders do. We found a range of practices that leaders can employ to help employees find meaning in their work. These practices fall into three major domains.

Focusing On The 'Three Cs' To Make Work Meaningful

Leaders should focus on contribution, community and challenge—the three Cs that make work meaningful:

1. Contribution: This is the belief that one’s work matters to others, whether colleagues, customers or community members. Leaders who show people how their work impacts others create a sense of contribution. One way you can do this is to connect employees directly with the people who benefit from their work. I suggest bringing in a customer or business partner to share how their lives have improved as a result of the company's efforts.

2. Community: This is the sense of belonging that comes from being able to show up fully as a part of a community of shared values. Leaders who create authentic connections among their teams create a sense of community. A simple yet effective way to do this is to start meetings by asking everyone to share something good that happened to them in the past week. This practice allows employees to bring more of themselves into work and to see one another more fully.

3. Challenge: This is the opportunity to learn and develop new skills. Leaders who push people beyond their current capacities and support their growth create a sense of challenge. Start by scheduling a development conversation with each of your employees. Simply asking how they want to grow and how you can help them get there sets the stage for meaningful development.

The three Cs have a multiplier effect, which means they combine to become more powerful together. It also means that if one is lacking, it can erode the meaning created by the other two, so leaders must focus on all three.

When work is meaningful, people are excited to come into the office. When work is meaningful, people go out of their way to collaborate with colleagues across departments. When work is meaningful, people stay and give you the best they have to offer.