The Importance of Fulfilling, Purposeful Work: Finding Joy Beyond Just Employment

Since the advent of man on planet earth, he has been working. And up to today, work is seen as a necessity to survive in the world. Indeed, without adequate employment how could one provide for himself and his dependants? Obviously, then, we all need good employment and its good monetary reward to function properly in society. Some claim that “Money is the root of all evil” by misquoting what today appears in 1Timothy 6:10 in the Holy Scriptures. Yet, that text warns against, not money, but “the love of money”. Elsewhere in the Scriptures, King Solomon, himself the richest man in the world then, wrote that “money is a defence” or a protection. (Ecclesiastes 7:12, KJV) So it is good to work and earn good money to provide necessities, enjoyment and even some luxuries.

Satisfying work
However, how do you make your employees view their work? As a source of joy or a source of heartache and even sickness? We have every reason to believe that work is supposed to be satisfying and fulfilling. It has to be enjoyable. Why so? That is because it aligns with human needs for purpose, autonomy, and connection. Enjoyable work allows individuals to feel motivated and engaged, increasing productivity and creativity as people are more willing to invest energy and ideas when tasks are interesting and enjoyable. Satisfaction in work arises when tasks match personal strengths and provide a sense of accomplishment, fostering pride in one’s contributions and bolstering mental well-being. Fulfillment in the workplace occurs when individuals feel their work makes a meaningful impact, resonates with personal values, and offers growth opportunities. Collectively, these qualities create a positive feedback loop that benefits both individuals and organizations, leading to a more resilient, committed, and innovative workforce.

No wonder the average person loves to work. How would your life be without work? Would you enjoy waking up in the morning without any plan of working and rather just eat, listen to music or watch movies and sleep again before the evening? Maybe, even your last leave was so boring to you. Suddenly the time that used to fly at the office had now become stagnant! Work is good. Besides, it is great to, not just work, but be busy, be occupied at work. Maybe you would identify with my experience to illustrate why:

I did my national service with a government department. You can imagine my enthusiasm waking up every morning and proudly dressing up for work in a shirt and a tie only to get to work and do next-to-nothing. My assignment for the whole day was to go through the news papers and clip articles that related to my department. Another was for my boss to send me to either buy him cola nuts or ‘Kofi brokeman’ (roasted plantain and groundnut). You have no idea how guilty I felt whenever I was returning home and would greet neighbors and family and they would say “Ayekoo”! (in Ghana, “Ayekoo” is an expression used to congratulate someone for their effort or success. It translates roughly to “well done” or “good job” and is often said to acknowledge a job well done, particularly in situations that require hard work or dedication. It’s a gesture of respect and encouragement, showing appreciation for the person’s effort or achievement. The recipient would then respond “Yaaye,” in acceptance). Could I say “yaaye” when I knew that I did not do any job? And mind you, sitting idle and chatting with fellow service personnel and other workers the whole day–and some times dosing off–was more stressful than a busy schedule! I always came home exhausted, ironically.

Rewarding work is therefore a blessing, not a curse. And a reasonable busy work schedule is very satisfying. At least there is some joy and pride that come with accomplishment. Such feelings are unknown to the lazy person who deprives himself of hard work.

It is therefore very imperative that in designing tasks for the workplace, management takes into consideration the environment, processes, procedures and resources–beyond a beautifully designed and air-conditioned office– that must be made available to make work both challenging and yet pleasurable.

The reality
The importance of work and the satisfaction derived therefrom notwithstanding, the work of a lot of people is viewed by them simply as nothing less than a curse. There are so many career people who are so stressed-out that they are not able to even enjoy the sunrise and sunset in the morning and evening respectively. And even when they see them, there is so much on their mind that they hardly take note. Many also earn the money they have always dreamed of but never have enough time to enjoy it.

However, this stress from work is not only limited to a busy schedule. Sometimes it has to do with what one endures before he gets to work, while working and when returning from work such as the traffic jam or having to wake up at 4.00am or earlier without enough sleep. This has given birth to ‘dashboard dining’—eating and driving at the same time. Just last two weeks I saw a certain career lady having her launch in a traffic jam!

What can management do to lighten the load on employees? How can they make work more pleasurable and fun—in fact make the workplace inspiring and humane—i.e. promoting creativity and innovation while reducing stress? Before answering these questions, let us address a few more reasons why the work of majority of people has become a constant source of stress.

Work–a constant source of stress
The first I identify is work that is discrete and repetitive in nature. One of my friends said that working with a certain enviable and dominant service provider in the services sector in Ghana makes one dumb. Why so? He said the institutions that provide that type of service do not encourage initiative. Work is made up of simply following procedures handed down by an ‘all-knowing’ Board. Hence to him, a smart person would not work for more than five (5) years with such institutions. Such types of work easily bore and depress persons who love to take initiatives in innovative and creative ways.

Competition for promotion is yet another source of dissatisfaction. In an environment where everyone is competing to outwit the other for a promotion and/or a raise, such strife only adds unnecessary pressure that can impact negatively on job satisfaction and meaningful relationships. Competitive people are never content with their lot in life—a major source of depression.

Next is the effect of deadly work schedules on familial and social relationships. One with an excessively busy schedule hardly has enough quality time to spend with family and friends. Spouses only talk about necessary things on phone while at work. And when at home, both are so tired they are eager to go to bed early to prepare for the next day. Children hardly get to sit at the dinner table with parents to share the day’s experiences. And the week-ends do not help either, with sometimes more work or funerals and weddings to attend. This often leads to weak relationships between spouses and between parents and their children, thus adding more stress.

Further, excessively busy work schedules cause health problems. Chronic stress may lead to a break-down of the immune system, opening the way for related health problems.

In view of all the foregoing, what can management do to make work more enjoyable; make the workplace more inspiring, humane and human?

A Paradigm Shift
I do not intend to waste our time on large organisations. These normally respond very slowly to change and are very satisfied with the status-quo. Our focus will be on modern adventurous and revolutionary-thinking micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSME’s) who wish to make their management styles and practices come more in tune with the realities of today; those who really want to make their workplaces inspiring places to work. While at it, let us close our school text-books for the time being and assume we know nothing.

Are you ready for the paradigm shift? What paradigm shift are we talking about? It is this—virtualization. With globalization comes virtualization. Due to improved telecommunications and transportation systems, we have for several years now been talking about globalization—the worldwide interdependence of people and countries. Globalization has made it possible to know by the second events going on around the globe. Globalization has also made the effects of an event at one part of the world affect the other parts, as was demonstrated by the global financial melt-down in the late 2000s and the spread of diseases such as the recent global covid-19 pandemic.

In 2012 I stated the following in my column The Business Strategy Analyst in the Business & Financial Times, Ghana: “To the extent that we have been globalised, is it not time we also worked from anywhere in the world irrespective of national and language barriers–virtualization? Certainly! And that is what Web 2.0 has made possible, coming to the rescue, as it were. The time is fast-approaching when all of those huge office complexes we see in our cities and big towns, such as those in what has come to be called the ‘banking enclave’ in Accra will be turned into hotels and apartment buildings. The shopping malls and banking halls will also become warehouses for online supermarkets and malls. Those who prepare now will reap the most dividends. Those who nostalgically hold on to the past, as it is in the case of large organizations, will simply evaporate. Hence, as an MSME this is the time your management style and thinking changed to accommodate the new wind that is blowing across the globe.”

The COVID-19 pandemic forced corporations worldwide to adopt modern technology rapidly, enabling employees to work remotely. Statistics show that by April 2020, around 88% of companies globally had mandated or encouraged remote work, according to Gartner. Tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Slack became essential for communication and collaboration, leading to an upsurge in demand for cloud-based services; Microsoft reported a 775% increase in cloud service usage in affected areas. This shift impacted commercial real estate significantly, as large corporations reduced their office space requirements, causing a notable decline in demand for office leases. In the U.S., for instance, office vacancy rates rose sharply, reaching nearly 18% by early 2021, per CBRE data. This situation not only underscored the flexibility and resilience of remote work technology but also highlighted a more efficient, adaptable workforce model.

Despite the successful adaptation to remote work technology, many large corporations are now returning to traditional office models, pulling employees back to physical locations. Data from a 2022 Gallup poll reveals that nearly half of all remote-capable jobs are now hybrid or fully on-site again, as companies revert to pre-pandemic practices. This reluctance to fully embrace modernized work structures may stem from corporate cultural inertia or perceived challenges in managing a dispersed workforce.

Small businesses, however, should take a different approach, leveraging remote work technology to save costs on real estate, access a broader talent pool, and improve employee satisfaction. By adopting a modern, flexible work model, small businesses can set a competitive example and avoid the overhead and rigidity that may increasingly disadvantage large corporations in a tech-forward world.

In your business plan, what IT technology have you planned to employ in executing your business processes and operations? What IT technology do you intend to deploy for management processes? What is your human resource plan like? If IT technology is missing, and if your human resource plan is like what pertains in today’s large organizations, then this is my humble advice: Go chuck it into the next fire you see! If you do not do that, your business will suffer that fate soon—chucked into the fire. Do I sound apocalyptic? Well, that is the reality with Web 3.0 in the offing. Due in part to the integration of artificial intelligence (AI), Web 3.0 is anticipated to surpass Web 2.0 by being more open, decentralized, and ultimately more useful.

Thus instead of investing monies in rent and what Ghanaian landlords call ‘goodwill’, why not employ IT technology that permits you and your employees to work virtually? This may seem simplistic but it is here to stay. In fact many companies in the world are already operating virtually. Granted, this may pose certain issues regarding supervision and job performance. But those can be surmounted.

Let us look at supervision. To begin with, who deceives you into believing that you can adequately supervise today’s knowledge worker with your physical presence? Such a belief is self-defeating. It may sound O.K in the 1800’s and in modern manufacturing or a construction setting but not in the 21st Century office! You would rather be able to monitor your employee’s performance and adequately reward that through virtual workplaces since you are better placed to track his activities online. He is also free to experiment and become more innovative and creative in his task. This way, you save your worker the stress of you breathing on the back of his neck and allow him to work whenever he can and how. All you do is consult with him and agree on task to be performed and a deadline. Whether he works from the beach or on public transportation at 2.00am or 9.00pm is left to him to decide. And work progress can always be viewed by the supervisor from any location around the globe while giving needed direction as may be warranted. This way, you will save your employee all the hassles we mentioned at the outset of this article.

Regarding performance, since there are predetermined time parameters set and agreed upon by both you and the employee, his meeting those deadlines plus achieving what is required of him become the basis of his pay, and not because he spent eight (8) hours or more on your premises idling about and adding to cost.

Strategies to make the workplace more inspiring
Consulting with your employee can make your workplace more inspiring. The process should comprise when to work and target to reach. This may seem absurd to many a business owner or manager today. He may reason that he hired the employee and knows what he requires of him; hence the employee has no choice but to obey. Yes obedience is good. But are you aware that we have come out of the master-slave relationship era? Although many organisations still operate in that mode, it is now certainly outmoded. In today’s technological age, information is no longer the preserve of top management, the influential, the professor and the rich. Web 2.0 has made available several tools that make easy sharing of information and its access unprecedented in human history. Thus in today’s ‘knowledge worker world’, the relationship between employer and employee should be that of partnership and not master-slave.

As a sequel to the above, to make the workplace more inspiring, strategy formulation should be participatory, with everyone having an equal say. However, this can only succeed when there is a true ‘citizenship’ culture at the workplace. There are certain employees who are made by their employers to feel that they are citizens of the organization when in reality, they are not part of the decision-making process.

Take for example an employee of a large institution who is simply implementing what has been handed down to him by top management. When a customer complains, he tries to shield his employers by saying that he is also part of the organization so s/he is liable to sharing the blame. The reality, though, is that this employee was not part of the boardroom discussions or at least represented during the formulation of such a policy but has been brain-washed into thinking that he is part of the organization, hence his readiness to bear the spleen of the customer. This is what Karl Marx would call ‘false consciousness’. How better it would be if this employee, since he has direct contact with the customer, is included or represented in the decision-making process! Then there would not be an ‘all-knowing’ Board that pretends to ‘know’ customers’ needs better than anyone else and force obnoxious procedures and processes on employees and customers alike.

Next, avoid being driven purely by materialistic goals. Sure, your business is not a charity. And you are in business to make money. However, if you think your profit is more important to you than your employees, you would simply be putting the symbolic cart before the horse. Your employees would be de-motivated and that profit may never come. Here is a practical example:

While working as marketing/sales executive for a company after graduating from the university, I went to a meeting with the managing director of a popular supermarket chain for a presentation. After all the hard work of preparation with the support of my boss, I went into this meeting only for my lap-top to refuse to boot! Uncharacteristically, this MD began hurling abuses and curses at me. Calmly, I packed and left, despondent. While on my way back to the office I worried about the disappointment my boss might feel and express. What a relief it was when, after relating the incident to him, all he said was: “Don’t worry; you can’t always get it right. You can win some deals and lose others so just cheer-up!” That was more morale-boosting for me than a heavier pay-cheque. If that boss were obsessed with me meeting my target, he could have ended up discouraging me the more.

There are so many salespeople out there who do not in the least enjoy their work because they are being treated by management as slaves. The Board sit and decide they have to make so much profit by the end of the year and force this down the throat of the sales manager who in turn forces it down that of the salesperson without taking cognizance of the realities on the ground. If this attitude is not selfish and self-destructive, I do not know what it is! Such a practice must be eschewed in today’s management since it tends to overly stress employees out. And a stressed-out, depressed employee whose job is on the line can never be innovative and creative.

I sometimes wonder why we have so much IT technology that is meant to make life easier and more fun for us and yet, we have rather become more stressed-out and depressed. This is all due to management practices that belong to the museum; practices that are not in tune with the realities of today simply because some ‘top management’ refuses to be adaptable and innovative. Such orgnisations may be doomed to failure within the next couple of decades, unless they change. And a wise, visionary entrepreneur would steer clear of that road being travelled by the many simply because it seems easier in their eyes. By doing so, he will make his workplace inspiring, fun, humane and even human.

The author Jules Nartey-Tokoli is Founder and Group CEO at Groupe Soleil Vision, comprising Soleil Consults, LLC, NubianBiz dot Com and Soleil Publications. He has lived and worked in both Ghana and the United States, having extensive experience in Strategy, Management, Entrepreneurship, Premium Audit Advisory and Web consulting. He has also published several articles on Strategy and Management among others.