Podcast: Higher Purpose Series Pt. 2, Purpose and People

A couple of years ago, Harvard Business Review said that nine out of ten people would earn less money to do more meaningful work.

The article included this paragraph:

Employees with very meaningful work, we found, spend one additional hour per week working, and take two fewer days of paid leave per year. In terms of sheer quantity of work hours, organizations will see more work time put in by employees who find greater meaning in that work. More importantly, though, employees who find work meaningful experience significantly greater job satisfaction, which is known to correlate with increased productivity. Based on established job satisfaction-to-productivity ratios, we estimate that highly meaningful work will generate an additional $9,078 per worker, per year.

Despite those statistics, leaders are still not grasping the importance of having a higher purpose in their business.

On part two of the Higher Purpose series on the Everybody Matters Podcast, Stuart Bunderson, the co-director of Olin Business School’s Bauer Leadership Center at Washington University in St. Louis and Victor Strecher, a professor at the University of Michigan and the author of the book, Life On Purpose: How Living for What Matters Most Changes Everything, dive deeper into how having a higher purpose affects people inside the business.

As a leader, establishing a vision that offers meaning and purpose to those you lead is one of the most important things you must do.

Listen to the first part in this series here.