Why is finding meaning at work the basis of motivation? The psychology of meaningful work, signs of lost meaning and practical steps managers can take.
Think of two employees. One works on a hospital cleaning team and describes her job as "helping to protect patients from infection." The other is a manager at a company; the salary is high and the title is impressive, but every morning he wakes with the question "Why am I doing this?" This example shows that motivation cannot be explained by pay and title alone. Meaning at work is a person seeing the work they do as valuable to them, purposeful and a contribution to something bigger than themselves. The pandemic of recent years, economic turbulence and the transformation of working life by artificial intelligence have pushed many people to re-examine their relationship with their work. In this article I look at the psychology of meaningful work, the signs of lost meaning and how organisations can help their employees find meaning at work.
What Is Meaning at Work?
In psychology, the concept of meaning is usually explained through three components:
- Coherence: The sense that what happens forms a whole and is understandable.
- Purpose: The feeling of moving towards one's goals and values.
- Significance: The belief that what one does has value and makes a difference.
In the context of work, these components appear like this: a person understands where their job fits into the bigger picture, feels that their work is in line with their own values, and sees that what they do makes a difference in other people's lives.
As Viktor Frankl put it many years ago, one of the things that keeps a person going is having a "why". Because working life takes up such a large part of adult life, a significant share of this "why" is sought at work. But not every job offers meaning by itself; meaning usually arises from how the work is designed and managed and from the relationship the person has with it.
The Link Between Meaningful Work and Motivation
In the psychology of motivation, two types of motivation are usually distinguished. Extrinsic motivation is fed by external rewards and sanctions such as pay, bonuses, titles or fear of punishment. Intrinsic motivation arises from the satisfaction taken in the work itself, from curiosity, mastery and meaning. Extrinsic rewards matter, and no talk of meaning can replace fair pay. But long-term commitment, creativity and resilience in the face of difficulty are largely related to intrinsic motivation.
In Google's research on more than 180 of its internal teams, meaning (the work being personally important to members) and impact (believing the work makes a difference) were among the five dynamics of effective teams (Google re:Work). It should be noted that this research is an internal company study rather than a peer-reviewed publication; even so, the findings draw attention to the role of meaning in team performance.
In Turkey, the importance of this subject is even more marked. According to Gallup's 2026 report, only 8% of employees in Turkey are genuinely engaged with their work; 68% are not engaged, and 24% are actively disengaged. The cost of low engagement globally has been calculated at about 10 trillion dollars, or 9% of global GDP (Gallup, 2026). In an environment where engagement is this low, strengthening employees' sense of meaning becomes a strategic priority for organisations.
Meaning cannot be handed out as a slogan; an employee feels it only when they see with their own eyes that their work makes a difference.
Signs of Lost Meaning at Work
Loss of meaning often develops slowly and quietly. Signs that may be seen in employees and teams:
- Doing the job only "for the salary" and talk of "just getting to the end of the month"
- Declining care for quality and detail
- Indifference to new ideas and improvements
- Silence in meetings and cynical remarks: "Whatever we do, it's pointless"
- Not knowing the outcome of the work: "Who even reads this report?"
- Waiting impatiently for weekends and holidays, growing unease towards Sunday evenings
- Mentally switching off the moment the shift ends, or, conversely, constantly looking for a way out
These signs can overlap with burnout. According to the World Health Organization's definition, one dimension of burnout is increased mental distance from one's job, or negativism or cynicism related to it (WHO, 2019). A job that feels meaningless for a long time can lay the ground for burnout. For this reason, loss of meaning should not be seen merely as an "attitude problem"; the underlying workload, uncertainty or relationship problems should also be examined. Telling an employee to "be a bit more positive" can mean leaving them alone with the problem rather than solving it.
Why Does Meaning Get Lost?
Reasons related to job design
- Fragmented jobs: The employee does only a small piece of a large process and never sees the result.
- Monotony: The same task repeated all day. Article 5(ç) of the Occupational Health and Safety Law No. 6331 also requires that the adverse effects of monotonous work and production pace on health and safety be prevented or minimised.
- Lack of autonomy: Jobs in which every step is predetermined and the employee can make no decisions. In the European OSH Pulse survey, 18% of employees reported a lack of autonomy (EU-OSHA, 2022).
- Meaningless bureaucracy: Reports, forms and approval procedures whose purpose is not explained.
Reasons related to management
- The organisation's purpose and goals not being shared with employees
- The employee's contribution going unseen and unrecognised
- Contradiction between stated values and actual practice
- Constantly shifting priorities and abandoned projects
Personal reasons
- Values changing over time
- Life events: re-examining priorities after experiences such as loss, illness or becoming a parent
- A career choice made more under external expectations than from one's own wishes
- Emotionally distancing from work because of long-term intense stress and fatigue
Reasons specific to today
In the working world of 2025–2026, there are also some new conditions that strain the sense of meaning. As artificial intelligence tools begin to take over many tasks, some employees ask, "What is my contribution for now?" Remote and hybrid working can make the outcome of the work and the bond with colleagues less visible. Economic uncertainty and the high cost of living push many people to keep going in their jobs out of necessity rather than meaning. In these conditions, it becomes important for organisations to talk openly about how technology can make an employee's job more meaningful rather than replace them, and, in dispersed teams, to share achievements and results regularly.
For more on stagnation and the feeling of being stuck in a career, see the article on career stagnation.
How Can Managers Help Employees Find Meaning at Work?
Meaning cannot be "given" from outside, but managers can create the conditions in which meaning can emerge.
Make the result of the work visible. Help employees see who their work touches and how. Showing an operator on a production line in which vehicle and which country the part they made is used, or sharing with a call centre team the thanks that customers send after problems are solved, makes the meaning of the work concrete.
Explain the "why". When assigning a task, explain not only what is to be done but why. Saying "This report will be used in the new investment decision; your analysis is the first section the board will look at," instead of "Have this report ready by Friday," changes the meaning of the same job.
Open up room for autonomy. Define the outcome clearly and give the employee a say in the method. Even small decisions help a person take ownership of their work.
Support mastery. People find satisfaction when they feel they are getting better and better at a job. Learning new skills, challenging but achievable goals and regular feedback nourish the sense of mastery.
Make recognition sincere and concrete. Instead of general praise, describe what the person's contribution made possible: "Thanks to you finding the cause of the fault, we avoided three days of lost production."
Allow job crafting. Together with employees, think about adjustments within their roles that will make more room for their strengths and interests. For example, giving an operator with strong technical knowledge a role in training newcomers can add a new meaning to their work.
Strengthen bonds within the team. An important source of meaning is the people one works with. In teams that support one another, get a difficult order out together and celebrate success together, the sense of meaning grows even when the work itself is ordinary. Creating opportunities for people to meet across shifts and departments, including newcomers in the team and making shared achievements visible nourish this bond.
Remind people of the meaning in difficult times. Busy order periods, budget cuts or restructuring can weaken employees' bond with their work. In these periods, a manager honestly explaining what the sacrifice serves, acknowledging uncertainty and openly appreciating employees' effort increases the team's resilience.
Act in line with values. There should be consistency between the values an organisation announces and its everyday decisions. If an organisation that says "we value people" expects constant availability outside working hours, employees will take the practice seriously, not the rhetoric.
Creating a Climate of Meaning at Organisational Level
The efforts of individual managers matter, but lasting change requires support at organisational level:
- State the purpose clearly: Explain in plain language why the organisation exists and what it contributes to society and customers.
- Involve employees in decisions: Seek views on important changes; draw in particular on the knowledge of employees in the field.
- Offer opportunities for social contribution: The organisation's relationship with the local community, volunteering projects or sustainability work can be an important source of meaning for some employees. However, these should not be seen as a way of covering for a lack of meaning in the work itself.
- Manage psychosocial risks: Excessive workload, time pressure and poor relationships make even the most meaningful work draining. The ISO 45003 guidance notes that psychosocial risks can lead to reduced job satisfaction, engagement and productivity.
Meaning and job satisfaction are closely related but different concepts. Satisfaction is largely about contentment with working conditions, whereas meaning describes the value the work holds for the person. An employee may be happy with their conditions yet find their work meaningless, or, conversely, may find their work very meaningful despite difficult conditions. I covered this distinction and ways to increase satisfaction in the article on job satisfaction.
Suppose employees on the assembly line at a furniture factory have low engagement scores. Management starts short monthly meetings at the line where customer feedback and photographs of finished products are shared, collects process improvement suggestions from employees and announces the suggestions that are put into practice under their owner's name. These small steps can change the relationship employees have with their work without changing the work itself.
How to Get Started in Your Organisation
Needs analysis: Statements about meaning, autonomy and perceived impact are added to employee surveys: "I think the work I do makes a difference", "I have a say in how I do my job". The results are examined by unit and type of role; focus group discussions are held in the areas that score low.
Programme: Managers receive training in meaningful job design, explaining the "why", concrete recognition and job crafting. Workshops on values and purpose can be organised with teams. It is important to design the programme not as a one-off event but as a process that continues with regular monitoring and reinforcement. You can find the framework for this work on the corporate services page.
Measurement: Repeat the engagement and meaning surveys and monitor voluntary turnover, participation in the suggestion scheme and absenteeism data. The ILO also lists employee surveys, absenteeism and turnover among the core monitoring indicators of the psychosocial work environment (ILO, 2026).
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it possible to find meaning in every job?
Meaning is not exclusive to "high-purpose" professions. As in the example of the hospital cleaner at the start of this article, people can find meaning in very different jobs, from production to accounting and from logistics to the service sector. What matters is that the person can see who and what their work contributes to, and that they have some autonomy and respect in their job.
Does meaningful work make up for low pay?
No. Fair pay is a precondition for meaning. Talking about meaning to an employee who feels they are not being paid for their effort comes across as insincere and damages trust. Meaning should be considered alongside fair conditions, not in place of them.
What should an employee do if they cannot find meaning in their job?
It helps first to try to understand where the loss of meaning comes from: is it the work itself, the working conditions, or a wider change in the person's life? Talking to their manager, trying small changes within the role and, when needed, working with a psychologist can make this questioning more constructive.
Can loss of meaning be a sign of depression?
It can. If loss of meaning at work is accompanied by long-lasting low mood, an inability to enjoy life, changes in sleep and appetite and feelings of worthlessness, it is important to get an assessment from a mental health professional. These signs do not amount to a diagnosis on their own, but they deserve to be taken seriously.
Bu yazı genel bilgilendirme amaçlıdır; tanı veya tedavi yerine geçmez. Yaşadığınız güçlükler için bir ruh sağlığı uzmanına başvurmanız önerilir. Acil bir durumda lütfen 112'yi arayın.
Eda Erkan Alapala
Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.
Eğitimler