Individual purpose can be thought of as an enduring, overarching sense of what matters in a person’s life people experience purposefulness when striving toward something significant and meaningful to them. McKinsey partner Naina Dhingra describes key insights from this article.īefore exploring the findings, though, it’s useful to consider the context in which individual purpose operates at work, as well as the unique challenges it presents for employers. The survey is part of an ongoing McKinsey research effort to better understand the role of purpose in organizations.
The respondents represented a range of ages, incomes, roles, and tenures. This article draws upon a survey we conducted in August 2020 of 1,021 US workers. To understand the challenge, we surveyed more than a thousand US employees about individual purpose and the work and life outcomes associated with it. And if you approach your people with inconsistency, hypocrisy, or arrogance, you will likely do the organization-and your reputation-more harm than good. The prize? If you get this right, you can help your company become a better place to work and tap the enormous business potential of a purposeful workforce aligned with a purpose-driven organization.īut be careful: purpose is not just “another corporate initiative.” You can’t mandate this.
In this article, we describe the role that work can play in individual purpose, highlight what employees want from employers and what they aren’t getting, and describe what you can start doing about it. And you have your work cut out: our survey also found disparities in how frontline employees and other groups feel supported-or thwarted-in living their purpose at work. So, like it or not, as a company leader you play an important part in helping your employees find their purpose and live it. The topic is intensely personal, potentially inaccessible to employers, and seemingly as uncomfortable to discuss as it is to actively encourage.ĭespite these challenges, our research found that 70 percent of employees said that their sense of purpose is defined by their work. Nonetheless, if you’re like most senior executives, you haven’t given the individual purpose of your employees much thought.
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