Making Work Meaningful in an Era of Rapid Change

BY Angelica Frey | May 12, 2023

Paul Rumsey, senior vice president of strategic operation of Atrium Health, believes that purpose starts in small actions. He has urged his employees to block calendars until 9am on Monday mornings and after 2pm on Fridays. Likewise, emails should not be sent in the evenings or on weekends unless the matter is absolutely urgent. Meetings are to be cut from 60 to 45 minutes, or from 30 to 25 minutes. 

Also, as he revealed to journalist Lydia Dishman in a panel at From Day One’s March 2023 virtual conference, a defining characteristic of Atrium Health is its usage of “Code Lavender.” First developed in the Cleveland Clinic, this initiative is meant to take care of the secondary victim: for example, a nurse who needs to cultivate calm after a stressful situation, such as a difficult diagnosis or the loss of a patient. 

All of these implementations undergird the purpose of the organization: Hope, Health, and Healing for All.
In fact, while a sense of stability might be hard to come by in the work world, a sense of meaning can be both durable and attainable. In 2021, McKinsey surveyed more than 1,200 managers and frontline employees, revealing an overwhelming consensus on the importance of purpose at work: 72% of respondents maintained that purpose should come before profits. Only 42%, however, felt that their company’s stated purpose made a real difference. A major source of this problem are overly generic mission statements like “contributing to society” and “creating meaningful work.”

Leaders can examine their own experiences to discover what’s genuinely inspirational and motivating. “I want to be able to look my kids in the eyes,” said Susan Hunt Stevens, chief executive officer of the ESG engagement software company WeSpire, referring to the climate crisis and how it will unfold in the next decades. Tequilla Lopez, who leads the social impact team at consumer electronics retailer Best Buy, has drawn on her extensive nonprofit background to help shape the company’s sense of purpose. “It’s easy for our team,” she explains to Dishman. “Everything we do has a tie to our youth population: ensuring they have access and exposure in a way they wouldn’t ordinarily have.” 

Identifying the Why

Identifying the “why” behind a company goes hand-in-hand with addressing business concerns. “Everything we do, I make sure it’s advancing the business,” said Susan Moore, vice president of corporate responsibility for semiconductor company AMD. “If we get untethered from where the business is going, whatever we’re doing may not be sustainable.”

The full panel of speakers from top left, moderator Lydia Dishman, Paul Rumsey of Atrium Health, Susan Hunt Stevens of WeSpire, Susan Moore of AMD, and Tequilla Lopez of Best Buy (photo by From Day One)

In the case of Atrium Health, an initiative called “Voice of the Team” helps keep track of what’s important to people in the organization. “We do work anniversary surveys; we ask what people are doing, what’s important to them, and we come up with solutions to really address that,” said Rumsey. Lopez also stressed the importance of “speaking from a place of knowledge, not just theory.” 

Hunt Stevens added a major caveat: “One thing we have to think about,” she said, “is whether the company itself has made purpose a core of its strategy or if it’s just a pair of Mickey Mouse ears.”

Between Burnout and Purpose: The Role of Balance

We can’t talk about purpose without considering the looming risk of burnout. The more an organization wants to accomplish, the more eagerness employees will feel to undertake purpose-driven actions. But to what extent? 

“It’s a process,” said Lopez, whose reports are often tasked with a lot of travel. “It’s my goal to avoid burnout for employees, so I’ll be the bad guy and tell them no. And honestly, over the last year, we completely revamped the ways in which we engage to make sure there’s enough time to get your desk work done and then be present when on the road.” 

Hunt Stevens relies on a tool developed by HBS to measure psychological safety, since the highest levels of psychological safety correspond to the highest levels of performance. “We’ve all been in organizations where, even if we’re only working a shift, it’s painful,” she reasoned. “Then we’ve worked in places where going overtime is a flow. It comes down to psychological safety and how safe we feel in groups and on teams. We will see people feel much better about work and life integration.”  

(Big) Little Acts of Recognition

Even the most altruistic person needs a pat on the back for a job well done. To Hunt Stevens, recognition and morale boosting start with belonging. “One of the most powerful things I’ve seen are affinity groups,” she said. “ERGs are a mechanism for test-driving leadership, activating belonging, and recognizing people to galvanize impact.” 

Hunt Stevens also points to an initiative by fellow panelist Moore. During a recent SXSW festival, AMD sponsored an event where attendees volunteered to clean up a river. “We volunteered together at an industry event: this is how I think leaders can start thinking really creatively,” Hunt Stevens. Moore, on her end, has one crucial piece of advice, which can be career-defining for junior-level employees but isn’t labor-intensive: “At the end of emails, acknowledge person X, Y, Z  for their contributions,” she said. “It recognizes a great team and helps people understand what their contributions ended up achieving.” 

Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Boston and Milan.

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Cultural Transformation and Meaningful Work: Nurturing a Purpose-Driven Workplace

It’s no secret that happy employees are more productive. 12% more productive than their less-happy colleagues, according to a study cited in Fast Company. They also tend to be more loyal over time. But how do leaders create and foster a work culture that breeds happiness and purpose?“The intent to leave or stay in a job is only one of the things that people are questioning as part of the larger human story we are living,” said Caitlin Duffy, a research director in Gartner’s HR practice. “You could call it the ‘Great Reflection.’ It’s critical to deliver value and purpose.”In a From Day One conference in Los Angeles, industry leaders gathered to discuss how to create a space for happy workers, in a conversation moderated by LA Times reporter Faith Pinho.Maintaining Purpose Amid Internal StrifeNicole Husband, VP of people and culture at Warner Bros. Discovery, has had some experience with internal strife. To manage their work culture, especially during difficult times, they follow five guiding principles: act as one team, create what’s next, empower storytelling, champion inclusion, and dream it, own it. They’re focused on “putting these principles in front of people to the point where they can’t stand it anymore."Additionally, the organization has done a lot of work around acknowledging challenges and change, and providing education on how to lead through it. “Part of that is drawing employees back to why we are actually here,” Husband said.Amy Baker, vice president and people officer of corporate functions at Activision Blizzard, says in her six prior years at Netflix, they saw unprecedented change. In a short time, the company went from around 10 people to 800.“You have some people saying, ‘I feel like we’re growing so fast.’ It’s your work as a leader to be helping these people acclimate to the change that they’re going through by coming into this company,” Baker said. Activision Blizzard just weathered a huge work culture shift over the past year after Microsoft acquired the gaming company. Baker says you have to be super clear about what’s happening next. “You have to operate in that spectrum. I call it like the HR skeleton key, you have to be able to open any door with people,” Baker added.The panelists discussed the topic “Cultural Transformation and Meaningful Work: Nurturing a Purpose-Driven Workplace” at From Day One's recent LA conference. Both Baker and Husband alluded to the fact that they work with extremely dedicated and passionate people. With that passion in mind, Pinho pointed to the individual purpose people bring to the job, a purpose that might not always align with the company’s.“Organizations can be very self-absorbed and selfish. It’s all about their purpose, not about your purpose. But the more you engage in the conversation about what’s important to you, you will find that alignment. The more that organization is going to pour into you, the more that relationship is built,” said Jerrold Coakley, the SVP and chief human resources officer at Stater Bros. Markets.Coakley says it’s about sharing a joint story between the employee and employer that builds a relationship and uncovers what the two can accomplish together. “Normally the misalignment happens when we’re so concentrated on performance. And that’s not what people really care about. We have all these systems in place, and all these consultants make so much money off of us, because they tell us it’s all about performance. No, it’s really about development. People want to know that their leader is helping them get to their personal greatness. So as a leader, if you concentrate on development more than performance, you get the gift of their performance back.”For Octavius Black, co-founder and CEO of MindGym, the purpose value is something attainable by every worker, no matter where they are.“In my experience, everyone wants to feel that they’ve done something that matters. So the question is, how can you help people find the thing they care about come to life at work. And it’s up to our leaders, our managers, and us as HR professionals, to ignite that passion that people have for something and bring it to the workplace,” Black said.Sometimes too much purpose is a bad thing that can lead to burnout. “How can you ensure a healthy work life balance while still driving that mission forward?” Pinho asked.“This whole idea of a healthy work life balance, I just don’t think it exists yet. You are seeking, seeking, seeking–constantly trying to get there,” Husband said. Yet despite her skepticism, she says there are leadership strategies that can mitigate burnout, other than putting the onus on the employee to figure it out on their own. For leaders, they can make sure they are properly staffed, one. And two, leveraging resources to support staff during reorganization, is key.According to Black, company initiatives that try to change the outside behavior of employees, through meditation, yoga, a corporate gym membership, counseling, really only help the workers who intend to engage in those behaviors anyway. He says in studies they’ve done there was no change between the people who’ve been through the programs versus those who had not.A Larger Sense of Purpose for the Community“The trend lines now, with early career professionals and the young people coming in now, the data I’ve seen, both anecdotal and otherwise, shows they want to know that you’re doing something good for the world,” said Matt Stone, senior solutions consultant at Attuned.To do this, Stone says companies have to be clear on what their culture is and how that can translate to the wider community. “It could be days off to volunteer, or it could be if your company does a particular service, getting creative about where they could help.”Coakley parses the difference between words, actions, and where your values are. “Words matter. So, you have to say the words and then follow the words with your actions. Go back and look at your values. If they sound aspirational, they are not values. Rewrite them. Your values are the minimum expectations that you’ll tolerate within your organization,” Coakley said.“So when you come to work with us, you can expect this. That’s going to push your organization forward, investing in those communities and letting your people see it.”Matthew Koheler is a freelance journalist and licensed real estate agent based in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in Greater Greater Washington, The Washington Post, The Southwester, and Walking Cinema, among others.

Matthew Koehler December 18, 2023

Finding Purpose: The Power and Pathways of Meaningful Work

Six years ago, Ross Stores reopened its first retail establishment in a part of Oakland, California where all the grocery stores and other shops had left. “Everyone laughed,” said Shawn Moore, Ross’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion.However, on opening day, “there was a line out the door,” he told NBC 6 news anchor Constance Jones, who moderated a panel titled “Making Work Meaningful in an Uncertain World.” Moore spoke alongside four other executives at From Day One’s Miami conference.“I felt like a hero. It’s such a simple thing to just be in the space to give people an opportunity to shop and have the same access to goods that anybody else would have.”Ross Stores also partners with charitable organizations nationwide, including local ones where its stores are located. “All our associates can feel really good about it,” Moore said. “The last thing anyone wants to do is work for the evil empire, a company that doesn’t care and is just taking resources out of the community.”What Does Meaningful Work Mean?People spend too much of their time at work for them to not care about why they’re doing it, says Federico Demarin, chief people officer for GroupM’s Latam division. “If you understand why you are doing it, you’re going to be happier,” he said.Research shows that when individuals feel they belong to an organization, they are more productive and more willing to recommend the business as a great place to work, says David Bator, managing director of the Achievers Workforce Institute.“People fundamentally want to know that they matter,” he said.But when it comes to activating an employee in a purpose-driven way, “it’s more complicated because not everyone finds the same meaning in work,” Bator said.Rachel Schneider, the founder and CEO of Canary, said for many people, being able to support themselves and their families is “a purpose for working that’s incredibly valuable.”Another motivating factor is a sense of contributing to an organization’s purpose and being recognized for that contribution, says Schneider. Feeling connected to colleagues can also be meaningful.Ideally, companies should help their employees “feel all versions of purpose,” Schneider said.The idea of an emotional salary, or the emotional gains of working, is good, but “it’s not trading currency. It’s not something you should try to leverage so you don’t have to do other things,” Demarin said.That’s why allowing employees to grow within the organization is crucial, says Moore. “I’m really proud that about 78% of our leaders in stores are internally promoted,” he said.Connecting the Mission to Employee PurposeCompanies that want their employees to find meaning in their work should put that at the beginning of their interactions with potential team members, says Demarin.Many times, a job description is “just a statement. It’s just something that ChatGPT has done,” he said. “How do you connect it with the person’s purpose when they are interviewing? How do you talk about purpose in your onboarding? How do you talk about purpose in your performance management and career development? If you really want to create meaningful jobs, you need to start embedding this idea of why into the whole journey.”The panelists spoke on the subject “Making Work Meaningful in an Uncertain World” in Miami. Abbe Partee, vice president and head of global certified learning for DHL, says the organization has a foundation program it sends each employee to.“They go through it in a day, but they understand how they are connecting people and improving lives,” she said. “They understand how they’re an essential part.”DHL also recently rolled out a supervisory academy for frontline leaders. “They go through a 15 to 18-month program where they focus on a lot of the soft skills around recognition, connection, communication, and more. But my favorite part is that they are focused on developing and training and making their hourly associates into their successors,” Partee said.One of the best ways to help employees connect their purpose to the employer’s mission is through frequent recognition, says Bator.“Our research shows that when someone is recognized in a meaningful way, meaning that it’s personal and specific, it carries great weight for employees,” he said.Paying attention to individual team members’ personalities and desires is essential, says Schneider.  “A big piece of helping people feel connected to the purpose at work is knowing that there’s a lot of different on-ramps to whatever your company’s purpose is,” she said.“If you’re a good manager, you’re going to ask people what their on-ramp is and help them see how they’re accomplishing their own purpose in alignment with the company’s purpose.”Mary Pieper is a freelance reporter based in Mason City, Iowa.

Mary Pieper December 12, 2023

How Companies Can Find Their Sense of Purpose

When Casey Wahl founded his startup Attuned, software that measures intrinsic motivation among employees, he didn’t have a set statement of purpose to share with his own hires. “I just thought that our values are there–we never actually wrote them down,” he remembered. But that was a problem. “People were not fully aligned because the values were not clearly stated, and we could not have the expected behaviors that we want within the organization. People were going in different directions.” To get his workers on the same page, he asked the team “what do you think we are?” and compared the responses of employees and the executive-leadership team. After reaching a consensus that shaped a company mission statement, he made it official by putting it in writing. Wahl was one of five organization leaders who gathered to speak about the importance of establishing a company purpose, what it takes to align behind one, and how it can evolve through crises like Covid-19. Representing a variety of corporate types and sizes, the executives spoke on a panel moderated by Fast Company contributing editor Lydia Dishman as part of From Day One's February conference on creating a culture of purpose. When it comes to crafting a corporate purpose, the panelists agreed on a few major points. To start with, leaders should be in open communication with employees during the whole process. Idit Aronsohn, head of corporate responsibility, inclusion and well-being at the IT company Amdocs, outlined a process her company launched a year ago to invite all 26,000 employees “to participate in crafting our purpose through active participation through different workshops, all the way to voting on the main ideas.” She added, “I think this is one of the reasons why people are connecting to this purpose–they were part of crafting it.” Authentic communication is key. Karsten Vagner, the VP of people at Maven Clinic, compared it to storytelling. “So much of women’s health is still so stigmatized,” he said of the company’s goal to improve health care for women and families. “Being authentic to our purpose internally and externally comes down to storytelling, telling our member’s stories internally so our employees recognize the stakes of this work, but also externally and not being afraid to call out the real struggles people deal with.” Speaking on corporate purpose, top row from left: Lydia Dishman of Fast Company, Charu Esper of NASA, and Graham McLaughlin of Optum. Bottow row, from left: Idit Aronsoh of Amdocs, Karsten Vagner of Maven, and Casey Wahl of Attuned (Image by From Day One) Employee engagement needs to come from “transformational leadership at the top,” said Graham McLaughlin, vice president of social responsibility at health-care company Optum. Effective leaders will match the resulting mission statement with both internal and external change: “You can have rhetoric, but if the way you think about compensation doesn’t change, or the way you lift individuals up and hire in an inclusive way doesn’t change,” you won’t get there, he said. “It’s about actions that have to line up to the rhetoric.” Statements of purpose are hardly set in stone. A case in point is NASA, explained Charu Esper, the space agency’s deputy for culture and workforce for digital transformation. “Our mission is evolving and has always evolved,” she said. NASA now has more partnerships with private sector companies like SpaceX, and is increasingly involved in climate, satellite and weather-pattern work. “The transformation of the last two years has very much accelerated with digital transformation and future of work,” she said. The Covid-19 pandemic even further accelerated that process; the agency embraced a listening tour to solicit employee feedback, held a culture hackathon, and quickly aligned around a shared sense of purpose. “We’re moving toward the betterment of this world through science and technology,” as Esper put it. When a statement of purpose is in place, and a company is honestly and effectively engaging its employees around shared values, the panelists suggest that it opens doors to new possibilities. At Amdocs, the company found success in allowing its employees to dedicate volunteer hours to causes they personally care about, as opposed to causes picked by the company. Vagner, of Maven Clinic, spoke to the importance of rewarding employees who live up to company values. “How do you add that ‘oomph’?” Vagner asked. “You have a perfectly crafted sentence or two [of company purpose]. How do you live it? Are you adding it to your hiring, your performance management, your recognition and rewards? All of those pieces matter.” Later in the conversation he suggested that companies actively craft employee policies, like robust benefits packages, that speak to its purpose and values. Esper stressed the payoff of “psychological safety” that a shared value set can often bring. “If you feel safe, and you feel your leaders are authentic and vulnerable, you’re prone to taking risks and steps towards innovation,” she said. McLaughlin, at Optum, also emphasized the importance of risk-taking: internally, for employees, and externally, for companies living up to their value sets. “Still, you have to ask, where are we credible?” he posited. “Your authenticity of purpose needs to be aligned not on doing the hot thing at the moment, but doing something where you can make the most difference.” In a year of social hardship on different levels, panelists suggested the experiences could be poured back into the company’s purpose. “There’s the ‘man in the hole’ story concept … when you’re falling and all kinds of bad things happen and then you start pulling yourself up and are in a much better place,” Wahl said. “If you can bring out that ‘man in the hole’ story and put it into the purpose, you’ll get a deeper excitement.” As a purpose forms and evolves, a company should continually rally around it. “To have such aligned purpose, such clarity, and expectations of what everyone is doing leading up to it–it’s incredibly important,” McLaughlin said. “The interesting thing about purpose is that it’s all of the above.” Emily Nonko is a Brooklyn, NY-based reporter who writes about real estate, architecture, urbanism and design. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, Curbed and other publications.

Emily Nonko February 23, 2021