Meaningful Work: How the COVID-19 Global Pandemic Has Influenced What Mid-Level Finance and Human Resource Leaders Value in the Workplace

Abstract

Organizational structure and practices are increasingly at odds with what motivates employees to be and work at their best. The COVID-19 global pandemic has changed the way companies and employees work and crystalized the fact that things must change. As an overarching and compilational construct, meaningful work—more than any other measure—has the largest potential impact on employee motivation and performance. The purpose of this dissertation was to focus and explore the topic of meaning in the workplace with a goal to look beyond research that has been conducted on related topics such as morale, employee satisfaction, engagement, or even happiness. The primary question was developed to analyze the elements that must be present for meaning to exist at work, specifically in a post COVID-19 world. The second question addressed what implications exist, if any, for meaningful work based on functional roles. This review considered the components that create the foundation for employees to feel a sense of meaningful work (i.e., leader–member exchange, prosocial behavior, job design theory, sense of calling, employee motivation, and beneficiary contact). The research broke down these specific determinants of meaning that, when collectively applied, create a strong sense of meaningful work for employees. Finally, this study explored the articulation of meaningful work from the confluence of three critical determinants: belonging, job configuration, and significance of work. Although meaningful work does not automatically derive from a simple combination of job factors or individual determinants, the study explored how these key factors can be combined in a way to enable employees’ personal values to support them to cocreate a personal sense of meaningful work with their organizations.