90% of Americans would take a pay cut for a more meaningful job

Harvard Business Review recently published a report showing how Americans prioritize meaning in the workplace.

 Stephen Johnson
06 November, 2018
  • The report reveals how Americans increasingly regard meaningfulness as a critical component of jobs.
  • Employees who find their jobs meaningful seem to work harder and stay with organizations longer, the survey shows.
  • The authors list several ways employers can cultivate meaning in the workplace.

How much of your lifetime earnings would you sacrifice to work a job you find always meaningful? The answer is 23 percent, assuming you're like the 2,000 workers who were surveyed in a recent report from Harvard Business Review.

It's a steep number, no doubt, but it's not exactly surprising in light of data showing how American workers have, over the past decade, been increasingly expressing a desire for more meaningful work. The new report, authored by Shawn Achor, Andrew Reece, Gabriella Rosen Kellerman and Alexi Robichaux, builds upon past research on workplace attitudes in an attempt to quantify the changing ways in which Americans prioritize meaning in their careers.

Surveying 2,285 American professionals across 26 industries and a variety of pay levels, the report showed:

  • More than 9 out of 10 employees were willing to trade a percentage of their lifetime earnings for greater meaning at work.
  • Only 1 in 20 respondents said their job provided the most meaningful work they could imagine having.
  • On average, the respondents said their jobs were about half as meaningful as they could be.
  • People in service-oriented professions, such as medicine, education and social work, reported higher levels of workplace meaning than did administrative support and transportation workers.

The employer's perspective

The authors of the new report suggest that employers who provide meaningful jobs to employees will see bottom-line benefits.

"...employees who find work meaningful experience significantly greater job satisfaction, which is known to correlate with increased productivity," they wrote. "Based on established job satisfaction-to-productivity ratios, we estimate that highly meaningful work will generate an additional $9,078 per worker, per year."

The report also showed that employees who work meaningful jobs also seem to work harder and stay with organizations longer:

  • Employees with "highly meaningful" jobs were 69% less likely to plan on quitting their jobs within the next 6 months, and also had longer job tenures.
  • Employees with very meaningful work spend one additional hour per week working, and take two fewer days of paid leave per year.

The authors suggested that employers can cultivate more meaning by strengthening social networks in the workplace, making every worker a knowledge worker, and connecting workers who find their jobs meaningful to other employees.

"Meaningful work only has upsides," the authors wrote. "Employees work harder and quit less, and they gravitate to supportive work cultures that help them grow. The value of meaning to both individual employees, and to organizations, stands waiting, ready to be captured by organizations prepared to act."

Related Articles Around the Web
From Your Site Articles
    work-life balance business self work happiness

    Why a great education means engaging with controversy

    Jonathan Zimmerman explains why teachers should invite, not censor, tough classroom debates.

    Sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies
    • During times of war or national crisis in the U.S., school boards and officials are much more wary about allowing teachers and kids to say what they think.
    • If our teachers avoid controversial questions in the classroom, kids won't get the experience they need to know how to engage with difficult questions and with criticism.
    • Jonathan Zimmerman argues that controversial issues should be taught in schools as they naturally arise. Otherwise kids will learn from TV news what politics looks like – which is more often a rant than a healthy debate.
    Keep reading Show less
    education learning intelligence politics united states mind brain youth debate speech exploration fear

    Are these 100 people killing the planet?

    Controversial map names CEOs of 100 companies producing 71 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

    Image: Jordan Engel, reused via Decolonial Media License 0.1
    Strange Maps
    • Just 100 companies produce 71 percent of the world's greenhouse gases.
    • This map lists their names and locations, and their CEOs.
    • The climate crisis may be too complex for these 100 people to solve, but naming and shaming them is a good start.
    Keep reading Show less
    anthropocene biodiversity climate change natural resources energy pollution map

    SpaceX catches Falcon Heavy nosecone with net-outfitted boat

    It marks another milestone in SpaceX's long-standing effort to make spaceflight cheaper.

    Technology & Innovation
    • SpaceX launched Falcon Heavy into space early Tuesday morning.
    • A part of its nosecone – known as a fairing – descended back to Earth using special parachutes.
    • A net-outfitted boat in the Atlantic Ocean successfully caught the reusable fairing, likely saving the company millions of dollars.
    Keep reading Show less
    space innovation technology elon musk