While it is rarely possible to find a job where every aspect of what one does brings satisfaction, I do believe it is important that everyone who works in our organization have some tasks they enjoy doing.

As an organization, we are committed to helping all employees find enough elements of meaningful and challenging work that they feel satisfied and happy about their job.

Throughout the year, we encourage open communication from our staff about how they are feeling about their work. We also intentionally meet with our employees once a year. One of the questions we ask our staff at this meeting is how they are feeling about their work. Is it bringing them satisfaction? Do they have enough things to do that are meaningful and challenging?

Out of these discussions we find a multitude of insights. Some employees are feeling great about the balance of things. Some wish for more challenge. Others are actually feeling too challenged and overwhelmed.

With this new information, we work to bring better balance for everyone. We have thoughtful conversation about how to best reassign tasks and add new projects to employees’ workloads that will be a good fit for them.

Another thing we do is to plan for an employee’s professional development activities in the coming year. We have historically always been open and encouraged employees to either attend training in person or online. But we found that without a clearly focused plan, people didn’t take the time for professional development enough. Since we have started to make professional development an intentional conversation, and an expectation of employees, now it actually happens.

These discussions around professional development, job satisfaction, and keeping work meaningful and challenging all work together and complement each other. We as leaders need to set the standard for meaningful work and employee development. When we do, our organizations will benefit and thrive.