Why do we work? And why does it matter?
I’ve been exploring two questions this year: Why do we work? And what do we actually need from it? Not the platitudes—find your passion, find your purpose, find your calling. But why work really matters.
Because I think it does matter more than we realize. It contributes to our life satisfaction. And understanding the role work serves in our lives and what we need from it can help us diagnose why we might be dissatisfied.
So, why does work matter?
As much as I believe that work doesn’t have to be the sole focus in our lives, I also believe that it plays an important role. I’ve written about this before.
Philosophers and researchers have been saying for years that work contributes to our happiness and well-being. Jonathan Haidt wrote in his book “The Happiness Hypothesis” that “...happiness and meaning come from getting the right relationship between yourself and others, yourself and your work, and yourself and something larger than yourself.” Arthur Brooks, Harvard’s happiness researcher, identifies work as one of his four pillars of happiness. Research also shows that not having meaningful work can negatively impact our self-confidence, self-worth, and mental health.
This year, through conversations with my podcast guests, I’ve been digging into exactly what work provides that makes it so important to us.
My guest, Zach Mercurio, author of “The Power of Mattering,” identified three core reasons work matters: 1) we need to belong and be part of a community, 2) we need to contribute and feel significant, and 3) we need work that is dignifying and meaningful—a fundamental human need, as described by Ruth Yeoman at Oxford. This is a key point of the David Graeber, the author of “Bullshit Jobs:” humans want to feel useful.
In our conversation, Zach highlighted why many of us might be struggling with work today. Research from Gallup shows that there is what Zach would call a caring deficit: only 39% of people strongly agreed that someone cared for them as a person at work and only 30% said they strongly agreed someone could see and invest in their unique potential.
Zach went on to share that he believes over the last 25 years we’ve lost the skills to demonstrate that we care. “We’re looking at spreadsheets and dashboards when what people are longing for is to feel seen, to truly connect, to have their fundamental human needs met.”
This might explain why some of us are feeling apathetic and disconnected from our work. And if that’s the case, it’s further evidence as to why work matters to us.
What do we need from work? How can we make it work better for us all?
My latest guests, Tamara Myles and Wes Adams, authors of “Meaningful Work: How to Ignite Passion and Performance in Every Employee,” have done research on specifically what leaders can do to help people feel connected to their work.
They identified three areas of focus: 1) community (help us feel connected to others), 2) contribution (help us know our work and effort matter), and 3) challenge (help us grow). These build on what Zach was saying.
What I have learned from my research and my conversations on the podcast over the year is that no matter what we call it—engagement, well-being, mattering, meaningful work—or who’s talking about it—organizations, researchers, coaches—they all keep pointing to the same core needs.
My guest, Moe Carrick, author of “Fit Matters,” summarized these into seven fundamental needs we have from our work:
Meet basic needs with cash and non-cash compensation
Support our work-life integration
The ability to contribute and matter
Be seen and known for who we uniquely are
Have opportunities to learn and grow
Support in taking risks
Human connection
Here’s why this can matter for you.
These findings can be a roadmap—not a prescription—but a guide to how you might diagnose and find ways to make work work better for you.
If you’re frustrated with your work—and a lot of people are right now—you might have realistic rationale as to why. These fundamental needs can help you get underneath those feelings and reasons.
Maybe you feel disconnected from the people you work with. Maybe your work feels pointless. Maybe you’re not growing. Maybe you don’t have breathing room for your life. Maybe you don’t feel seen. Maybe you don’t feel supported in taking risks.
Once you know what’s actually missing, the diagnosis puts you in a position of agency and choice.
So, what do you need right now?
Here’s what I’d encourage you to sit with if you’re feeling dissatisfied at this moment:
Can you foster what might be missing in your current role at your current company?
Can you find it elsewhere—through a side project, volunteer work, community involvement?
Or is this season about something different, and you’re at peace with accepting the role work plays and what it can offer to you now?
As Moe shared: “I think that one of the things that everybody can do for their own thriving at work is to get really good at knowing themselves. What do they need? What do they want? What are the conditions in which they thrive? What are the conditions in which they die on the vine? And what is working now and what isn’t working?”
There is power in owning what you want from your work and taking action to shape it for yourself. To be sure, this can’t all be resolved on our own, but as Moe shared, we can all benefit from getting good at “tough talk” and advocating for ourselves.
When it comes down to it: Work matters because we’re human. It serves fundamental human needs. Understanding what we need from it lets us diagnose our dissatisfaction and move into choice—which is where real power lives.
So, what do you want to ask from your work now?
If you want to go deeper into this, listen to my recent conversations with Zach Mercurio, Tamara Myles and Wes Adams, and Moe Carrick. They share their thinking on what we are seeking from our work, and it might spark something for you. Podcast links below.
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