People who love their work don’t always love their jobs. Recently Heidi M, an analytics professional employed by the University of Colorado Boulder, commented on my article regarding how to create sustainable cultures. She argues that loving one’s work is not the same as loving one’s job. According to Heidi, “Companies should hire people that love the work, and create an environment where they will love their jobs.”
Her comment captures an essential distinction between the work that employees perform and the environments in which they carry it out. Engagement depends on both: how they feel about the work and what they experience in the work environment.
No one, regardless of role or position in a company, can force employees to engage. Why? Because engagement is an emotional involvement or commitment that is part of our internal work-life experience. However, leaders can establish the conditions at work that increase the likelihood that we will engage.
While leaders cannot control how we feel about our work, they can influence how we think about our jobs by creating the right conditions in our work environments.
What is it that inspires employees to love their jobs? According to research on inner work-life carried out by Harvard professor Theresa Amabile and her colleague Steve Kramer, the most potent incentives are not obvious benefits and rewards. Rather characteristics of the work itself are more dominant in determining motivation and engagement.
And leaders can create the circumstances in the work environment that are likely to inspire employees to engage. Years of research, including my own, on the conditions that encourage engagement reveal the positive impact of the following factors:
Challenging and Interesting Work
In one of my recent culture assessments, an employee explained why she felt motivated and engaged at work. “I love coming to work every day. I love that my managers constantly push me and challenge me to expand my thinking.”
Our study shows that the leaders of this organization know how to design jobs that stimulate commitment.
Leaders Who Respect and Invest in Their Employees
An engaged employee in another organization says that he cherishes the moments he gets to work alongside his management team because they make him a more effective professional and a better person. How do they do it? He claims that his current managers show that they genuinely care for their people and invest in their growth.
He says, “I’ve worked with many leaders that I did not respect because they took credit from their teams and were overly hungry for power.” He maintains that his current managers respect his strengths and do not need always to be the smartest people in the room.
Making Progress on Significant Work
Longstanding studies show that the single most powerful determinant of engagement is the degree to which employees believe they are making progress on significant work, such as work that provides value to others.
A response from an employee on a survey I administered recently illustrates this point. He says he is inspired by working with his company to make the world a better place. “I work harder and try to resolve things more effectively because I work with a company that has such a strong social mission.”
Leaders can remove barriers that impede progress. They can help their employees connect their work with significant outcomes. And they can show employees that they value their contributions.
The research is unequivocal. While all of us are responsible for our inner work-lives, companies can create the conditions in the work environment that increase the likelihood that we will engage. They can design jobs that are interesting and challenging, invest in the growth of employees, and help all make progress on significant work. They can help employees understand the critical impact of their work, and can demonstrate that they value every person’s contribution.
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