Over the last several months I’ve read countless stories about people leaving their jobs, or even their longtime careers, to pursue: balance, flexibility, new challenges, new skills, growth, autonomy or control, among others.

It may seem like from person to person their reasons are deeply personal and unique, with no common theme. But when you dig deeper and you follow the path, there is a red thread – and that is PURPOSE. Or the lack thereof.

I’d like to start referring to the “great resignation” as the “great purpose drought”!

In so many of these stories, the individual was directly or indirectly seeking greater meaning and purpose in their life. Leaving a company to start a business or learn a new skill is an example of directly and aggressively pursuing something that will present more meaning. Whereas seeking balance and flexibility are indirect or secondary triggers that ultimately leave someone with more space to pursue meaning outside of work.

Workism

The Atlantic did an interesting piece (The Religion of Workism Is Making Americans Miserable, 2019) on the coincidence of the decline of traditional faith with the rise in workism. Particularly among the educated-elite, workism is “the belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose.”

In a Pew Research report on the epidemic of youth anxiety, 95% of teens said “having a job or career they enjoy” would be “extremely or very important” to them as an adult. This ranked higher than any other priority, including “helping other people who are in need” (81%) or getting married (47%). In summary: Meaning at work is/was more important than kindness and family.

The Glitch In The Matrix

There was something about those months that the world stopped in 2020 that caused a seismic shift in us.

Before Covid, the thought of losing a day, a week, or a whole month of productivity seemed absolutely insane and impossible.

Think about the number of vacations you have probably been on, where you chose to read and reply to work emails (I’m projecting). This is because work is so hard-wired into our identity that we really do believe that without us, without one day or week of our time, our manager/company/team would seize to function. And more importantly to the individual, if you aren’t performing that work function, who even are you?

But then the glitch happened. We saw that companies could shut down. The rules we were abiding by for so long were exposed as constructs to drive productivity and profit. No profit? No problem! Apparently, we can just press pause and print money.

What Does This Mean For Culture?

What we have now are two camps forming. Camp A is still hard-wired, like a religion, to seek purpose and meaning at work. Whereas Camp B is experiencing the awakenment of seeking meaning and purpose outside of work.

In both groups, the opportunity for employers is the same – to PROMOTE PURPOSE AND MEANING. At work AND at home.

There are four ways to feel meaning at work: job meaning, task meaning, organizational meaning, and interactional meaning. That actually gives employers a lot to work with, and even companies without traditionally inspiring or noble missions can lean into at least a couple of those.

But equally as important, employers need to make room for personal, non-work passions. Promote self-actualization. A local HQ here in Columbus, OH had a grant program for employees that would award them $4,500 to pursue a passion. The passion needed to be in alignment with one of the company values, but the usage was for something deeply meaningful and personal for the individual. Each year there was a cohort of grant winners.

One person used the fund to start their education in a completely unrelated field, while another used it to fly an immigrant, refugee parent back to their birthplace for a visit. Yet another used it to create a PSA for eating disorders and treatment options.

There is ample research to suggest that purpose supersedes money. So what if employers offered to redirect a portion of a 401k match to a passion fund, instead? Or create an FSA-like option for leisure and fulfilling activities.

I would love to hear from people with examples of some of the best purpose-promoting programs they’ve seen at work…