Meaningful work lowers the impact of work-related stress on employees’ well-being

Meaningful work lowers the impact of work-related stress on employees’ well-being

Meaningful work lowers the impact of work-related stress on employees’ well-being

Meaningful Organization
Article | Meaningfulness

Experiencing meaning in life is widely acknowledged to have a positive impact on well-being. Worryingly, work-related stress has been shown to lower the presence of meaning in life experienced by employees, which lowers their well-being. One study dove deeper into the relationship between work-related stress and employees’ sense of meaning in life and found that meaningful work moderates some of the harmful effects of work stress.

The study found that through meaning-making – allowing an individual to make sense of events – meaningful work significantly reduces the impact that work stress has on a person’s experience of meaning in life, and thus their well-being. That means that the well-being of individuals who experience a high meaningfulness at work is less affected by work-related stress, than that of their peers with a lower sense of meaningfulness.

All in all, this study is a promising sign that increasing meaningfulness at work helps employees to cope with stress. However, this does not take away the need for leaders to focus on lowering work stress, and further research is needed to confirm the findings of this study.

Read the research article on the subject here: 
‘Meaningful Work as a Moderator of the Relation Between Work Stress and Meaning in Life.’ 

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What is a Meaningfulness Conversation?

What is a Meaningfulness Conversation?

What is a Meaningfulness Conversation?

Meaningful Organization
Meaningfulness | Purpose | Video

The Meaningfulness Conversation is based on a dialogue about the barriers that in life or at work stand in the way of realizing the meaning that you aspire to and need. Nothing is more important than to make sure that the life we are living is as meaningful as possible, also at work. The value of our lives does not depend on our title or profession, but on our ability to live a life true to our own ethics and integrity. That is what the Meaningfulness Conversation is all about exploring and cultivating.

Associate Partner at Voluntas, Nicolai Ellemann Iversen
Annual performance reviews are under pressure
For years, annual performance reviews (in Danish ‘MUS’) has been conducted, but the concept is facing pressure. According to Krifa, a Danish union, every second feels that it is adding no value and worse even more think it is to a small degree or even not at all, contributing to their professional development, which should otherwise be the primary objective.

Instead, what we need to implement is the meaningfulness conversation, which you can learn about in this video.

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