Dan Negroni and others argue that employees, especially younger workers, need jobs tied to larger purpose and personal values. A student project making edible seaweed plates instead of plastic waste shows how to turn problems into meaningful work. Leaders who mentor and offer entrepreneurial chances keep people engaged; without that connection, workers leave to find meaning elsewhere.
The journey of the hacks continues. Today we're at UCSD where we're about to learn about hack number 2: Create meaningful work. With the 30,000 employees that are here and 40,000 students, every single day we're trying to figure out what is meaningful work and can all work be meaningful? Come with us as we unlock that secret.
While they're doing academic qualification, we did find out that the students are starved for enlightened leadership.
What does that mean, starved for enlightened leadership?
Like, when you sit through the classes of 400, 450, they want people, leaders in front of them who inspire them and how to become transformational leaders themselves.
They are looking to figure out how they can matter the most to impact others.
Yes.
Why is meaningful work so critical? We don't want to waste our— a total millennial statement, I love it. We don't want to waste our time doing something meaningless. But really what she said is, we want to do something that matters. We want to matter. We're afraid of being irrelevant and we want to do something that matters, that makes a difference.
So I'll give you a small example. A few days back, about 11 students knocked my door and said that we won't eat in Price Center anymore. They use all plastic spoons and takeaways and all that. I said, how about we sit together to find a solution? So now they're applying and giving a project to us where they want like wrappers and plates and glasses made of seaweed. So they're creating a scientific research towards Edible, sustainable.
So you'd have your fork and you'd eat it?
Yeah. Because there's certain jobs when you work harder, you don't necessarily make more money. You want to feel good about what it is intrinsically that you're doing and hope that when you're working and you're putting yourself out there, that you're feeling good about what you're doing.
I don't care if someone tells me, "Good job!" I'm like, "What does this contribute to?" I was struck firstly by thoughts that you had identified and the challenges that the workforce of the future faces. And many of those issues about connectivity, of feeling important and feeling needed and serving society and so on. Mattering. Mattering. All of that really affects your happiness in life.
Which in the end is interesting, 'cause in every business I've worked for, whether it's a billion-dollar, multi-billion-dollar, or a small entrepreneurial startup like this one, All those things you're talking about, if we teach them, the results and performance goes through the roof.
Yeah.
It's shocking. Yeah, yeah, it is shocking. That simple.
Meaningful work is what matters to the individual, to the employee. We can create meaningful work in every job if we connect them to what they're doing. Workers of the future so much want to do new and interesting things and be entrepreneurial. That part of meaningful work for them is figuring out how to give them those experiences in your workplace, or at least to give them coaching and mentoring. And if you don't, they'll leave you and they will create their own meaningful work. So note that we must find a way to meet them where they are and understand what they need from us.
