In 2025, three-quarters of the working population will consist of millennials. Above all, they want meaningful work. Work with a purpose. The challenge for employers is to get to grips with this rather vague concept. And to measure how employees experience their work.
A quarter of employees doubt the usefulness of their job. A lot. Purpose in the work is an interesting subject. Because how can you substantiate, substantiate and measure them? Those who demonstrably want to hit the nail on the head in this area will soon end up with the Perma model (from 2011). According to this model, experiencing meaning in your work is one of the five foundations of happiness at work. And that is what many working people strive for, especially the millennials (or Generation Y, born from about 1980). They want: meaningful work, autonomy, flexibility and connection.
Measure regularly
How an employer can ensure sufficient purpose in the work depends on various factors. Varying from the organizational strategy, the work you can offer and the employee(s) that matter. Unfortunately (?) There is no such thing as a universal 'meaning pill'. In any case, you must regularly measure how employees experience their work and its usefulness.
With a modern employee satisfaction survey (MTO) this can be done very specifically and regularly (with very short targeted measurements at the right time). The purpose can certainly be a theme in this. In recent years we have clearly seen that in a modern MTO, in addition to the standard HR themes (such as leadership, cooperation, work pressure perception or personal development), there is also an increasing need for measurements regarding purpose.
Let the meaning grow
By regularly asking a few short questions and discussing the results in, for example, performance interviews, you can work meaningfully on meaning together with employees. This is how you bring measurement and improvement into the DNA of the organization. Particularly because of this, the sense of meaning in work can grow.
The Brazilian top entrepreneur Ricardo Semler proved how this works. He became successful (and filthy rich) by making his employees happy. He built a world empire with the simple question: how do my employees really become happy?
