Who Says Work Has To Be Fulfilling?

 

This HBR Blog post  poses a challenging and provocative question for those of us who seem to always be championing that workplaces should attract engaged employees and provide them an environment and culture that nurtures employee engagement. I’m one of those champions who sees a bedrock foundation of such a culture as having to include providing meaning for the people from their work – a purpose to get out of bed and zip in to work beyond the mere collecting of a paycheck. (Not ‘instead of’ but ‘as well as’, although there are many for whom it is ‘instead of’ and good on them but that is neither practical nor desirable for everyone.)

My scan of their post makes me think that they’re saying, “fageddaboutit.” Its too hard to find a fulfilling job. You have to make rent. Suck it up and suffer a crappy third of your day every day and whore yourself out for a buck. Even if you do luck your way into a fulfilling job, it won’t last. Get your jollies in your spare time. Be realistic.

They make many good and fair points. We do have to make rent. So do the people you lead. If everyone really was solely out to get fulfilled by their work above earning a wage, wouldn’t a lot more of us be working on water purification projects in Sub-Saharan Africa? But I can’t just let it slide. My view on getting meaning or fulfillment from your work (and the guts of what I try and advise my kids) is, Be realistic and aspirational.

Starting out, a lot of people flip a lot of burgers, push a lot of trolleys and pump a lot of gas. Substitute whatever jobs you personally perceive as being unfulfilling. I work with a lot of senior and highly qualified professionals who get an immense amount of achievement and satisfaction from their work on top of a kickass paycheque. But I work with a lot more front-line and first-time supervisors who don’t have that kickass paycheque and who don’t YET get an immense amount of achievement and satisfaction from their work – but they might.

I’m not extrapolating from the 100 or so employees I’ve worked with in the past year who stack vegetables that everyone can be fulfilled by such a routine and repetitious set of tasks. But some people can and do. I’ve met and worked with them. Most don’t. They punch a clock, make a buck and move on. Maybe their lettuce-stacking enables them to buy the turntable that launches their MC / DJ career? The moving on in the search for the possibility of eventual fulfillment is as much a driver of employee engagement as actually ever arriving at some magical and transitory arrival point called ‘fulfillment.’