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Meaningful work is often framed too narrowly in contemporary workplace discussions.

Foundational engagement theory never limited meaningfulness to social purpose alone.

Work can become engaging through challenge, mastery, autonomy, and growth.

Work doesn’t have to “change the world” to feel psychologically worthwhile.

Last month, I discussed why total compensation is only weakly tied to work engagement. A major part of that argument was that work engagement shouldn’t be confused with job satisfaction; instead, it reflects a deeper form of psychological investment in the work itself.

Given that argument, it may seem surprising that I would push back against a claim made recently in an article on TriNet: that engagement ultimately comes down to performing meaningful work. The article, like many contemporary discussions of the topic, positioned meaningfulness largely in terms of workers contributing to “something bigger than themselves.”

And to be clear, a social- and purpose-oriented form of meaningfulness can absolutely foster engagement (Wrzesniewski et al., 1997). Teachers, healthcare workers, nonprofit employees, counselors, clergy, and many others may derive substantial engagement from the belief that their work genuinely matters in a broader social or moral sense.

The problem, however, is the embedded assumption that work cannot be meaningful (and therefore engaging) unless it carries some broader existential, social, or moral significance. And that's exactly what I want to push back on here.

Meaning Doesn’t Have to Be Mission-Driven

Although it’s easy to default to broader social or existential purpose as a source of........

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