Are you living your best work life? Get paid to find your purpose
I’m in the back of a rickshaw looking out over India’s oldest mountain range through a dusty windshield and marigold garlands. My driver, Laxman, is on delivery, bringing supplies to the local Anganwadi, a health resource centre in Kalthana, one of WE Villages’ partner communities in Rajasthan. On my ridealong, I’ll meet the families who’ll receive the nutrient packets currently stacked at my feet. It’s the world’s best work assignment—to witness this social impact firsthand, and to write about it for WE.
Back at home, I tell a close friend about the trip.
“Great,” she deadpans, “I push paper around my desk.”
The vast majority of the global workforce is disengaged—at 85 per cent, according to Gallup. A sense of purpose in life is critical to well-being, and since we spend a good chunk of time on the clock—about 90,000 hours over a lifetime—meaningless jobs can leave us feeling unfulfilled.
But quitting your day job to find an ashram would be ludicrous. Keep the job security, health benefits, RRSP contribution and vacation package. Then, infuse more purpose into your nine-to-five. Frankly, your current employer should be paying you to bring more meaning to your work. It’s in their best interest.
A changing workforce now demands transparency and meaningful engagement. Millennials are willing to take a pay cut to work for a company with an authentic social mission—75 per cent of us, in fact. Consumers are more likely to trust brands with stated values, and will pay a premium for responsible products. A strong corporate purpose, one that counts positive social impact among the core metrics for success, has been proven to boost employee engagement and woo customers.
WEconomy, by Craig Kielburger, Holly Branson and Marc Kielburger, is about this new way of doing business that fuses purpose and profit. It’s their hope and experience that more companies are doing the most they can to make a difference, instead of the least they can get away with. They make a business case for doing good. For individual employees, that means it’s now possible to fashion your own meaningful career makeover. You can be bored at your desk, or you can find a way to bring your personal values to work, be at the forefront of this movement, and present a purposeful plan with a firm business strategy behind it.
On a large scale, entrepreneurs are founding companies to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. Sproxil is a digital labelling system that weeds out toxic formulas from real medicine. Founder Ashifi Gogo read about the death of Nigerian babies after a batch of phony cough syrup made it to market in 2008, passed off by fraudsters to fool worried parents. Gogo’s market niche was a health epidemic. After a partnership with big pharma, his product solution saved lives.
On a smaller scale, HR reps are convincing companies to offer paid volunteer days, donate leftover food from meetings or partner with a reputable charity. From inside big business, social intrapreneurs are moving the needle, using the resources and scalability of that business to give back. Bring a viable good deed to your boss and increase your social capital, get face time with the higher-ups when you need approvals and make yourself known. It’s better for the company and your career.
Don’t dread the office. Bring your values to work and make it a place you care about.