CAREER

DESIGN S U S TA I N A B L E
CAREER

LIFEWIDE
LEARNING

MEANINGFUL
WORK
Session 2: Pursuing meaningful work
Topics
• Definition and outcomes of meaningful work Readings:
• Strengths, values and purpose Mitra & Buzzanell (2017)
• Change strategies

Learning Outcomes:
Students will be able to:
• Describe pathways to meaningful work
• Clarify sources of meaning in one’s own
career
Exercises in class:
• Identify challenges in pursuing meaningful
work
Meaningful Moments
• Describe individual-level strategies for Strengths & values
increasing meaningfulness at work Purpose statements
Challenges & Change
strategies
 Health

Meaningful Sustainable
Happiness
work Career
Employability
ACTIVITY: Meaningful moments
1. List 5-10 moments when you
were doing something
meaningful and energizing.
2. Look at your list and find
common themes (e.g. activity,
place, who you were with).
3. Write your observations
down.
Meaningful = to yourself and the
community

Career Design Lab

Why meaningful work
• Fundamental human need (Viktor
Frankl, Maslow, Kaufman)
• Meaning is the new money?
“most U.S. working adults have consistently
named work significance as the most important
characteristic of a job (general social survey
1973-2014)”
• Outcomes:
• Work engagement, work satisfaction,
commitment, health
• Resilience in career transitions & change
• But also: a double-edged sword -
poor work conditions, low pay,
overwork, burnout
Meaningfulness Significance
of work • The work has intrinsic value

Self-realization
• ability to realize and express ourselves
through our work

Broader purpose
• Work contibutes to a ”greater good”

(Martela & Pessi, 2018)

Meaningfulness of work – tension
centered approach
• Outcome of meaning-making of work - complex negotiation of
meaning in relation to both situated and broader discourses, work
roles and experiences.
• Linked to
• shifts in material as well as discursive conditions
• the tension between positive as well to negative aspects of a
job
• Dynamic over time – linked to career narratives
• Political in nature – the influence of broader societal discourses

Mitra & Buzzanell (2017)

What is meaningful
work
• Mistaken ideas about meaningfulness
• Not about grand calling
• Not the extraordinary

• It is about the mundane, something already

inherent in our work

• Self-realization
• “using your signature strengths in the
service of something larger than you are’’
Steger (2003)
 Pathways to Meaningful Work
ACTION

Competence Contribution
Building your Contributing to the
strengths greater good

SELF VALUES OTHERS

Autonomy Belonging
Making authentic Being part of a
choices community

IDENTITY
Strengths
• Discover what you naturally
excel at (vs. learned skills)
• Spend your time, energy, and
resources in growing those areas
(vs. pouring time, energy, and
resources into weakness fixing)
→ Leading to finding your “sweet
spot” –jobs/relationships/service
where you are fulfilled (purpose)
→ Leading to flourishing and well-
being
VIA character
strength test
• Character Strengths are the
positive parts of your
personality that impact how
you think, feel and behave
• Not skills nor education

https://www.viacharacter.org/surv
eys/finished/24494443
ACTIVITY: Strengths
& values
1. Revisit your list of meaningful
moments.
2. Identify which strengths were
you using in those situations.
3. Identify the values those
moments express.
4. List your top 3 strengths and
top 3 values.

Source: Pexels, Tara Winstead

ACTIVITY: Purpose statements
Examine the activities, values and strengths that you have
gathered during all the activities.

Create 1-3 purpose statements using the following format:

I what you do and how (strengths) for whom so

that why? (meaning/value).

E.g. I develop career design resources, using perspective &

creativity, for university students so that they can flourish in their
careers.
I design visual communication with humor for sustainability companies so
that they can solve the climate crisis
Pair Discussion

• Share your purpose

statement(s)
• Discuss how you can
serve your purpose(s)
already now

Career Design Lab

How increase
meaningfulness at
work?
Change strategies
• Job crafting
• Tempered radicalism
• Collective interventions
What will you do next?

• What will you experiment?

• How could you craft you work?
• How could you influence on the collective level?
• Who to continue with?
Resources to continue the work
started in the workshops
• Aalto Design Factory https://designfactory.aalto.fi/courses/
• Aalto Ventures programme https://avp.aalto.fi/
• Caree design blog: https://ourblogs.aalto.fi/career-design-lab
• Aalto career services https://www.aalto.fi/en/services/prepare-for-your-
future-career
• Helsinki Think Company https://www.thinkcompany.fi/what-we-
do/programs
 Thank you!
Go design your career!
Make it meaningful and sustainable!
Be proactive and adapt!
Be realistic – compromises and tensions are part of (work) life!

You can do it!