Making Your Job Meaningful & Fun

June 3, 2010

Interview with Wendy Ulrich, co-author of the book The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

Mike Carruthers:
How can you make the time you spend at work more meaningful and more enjoyable?

Wendy Ulrich:
One of the things that we see in the research today that brings meaning into people's lives is good relationships at work.
 

Wendy Ulrich, co-author of the book The Why of Work...

As a matter of fact if you wanted to get a 7 fold increase in the number of people in your workplace who report being highly satisfied with their jobs, a 2 fold increase in the number of people who report being highly satisfied with their pay and a 3 fold increase in the number of people who are satisfied with pay who are at the bottom rungs of the pay scale – you could do all those things with one simple factor and that is if they have a best friend at work.

Wendy says that research shows that simple things can make a huge difference in how people perceive their job.

What are the sources of civility and delight? The little ways that we can help people stay a little more cheerful or we can help make our own day a little better with just small pleasures - some flowers on the table.

Even in the era of cutbacks you can still do things that can have an impact. Wendy says one CEO had to as a cost cutting measure eliminate the monthly lunches he gave to his employees.

And so he and his wife (the night before the next round of those lunches that they were no longer going to have now was coming up) stayed up and baked chocolate chip cookies and brought them in for everybody. But it sent the message that even though we’re cost cutting we can still be human beings. 

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here