The other day I was listening to a bright, talented, hard-working individual tell me about her plight at work. She has been working at the same organization for more than nine years, and had recently met with her boss. She has tried desperately to get more responsibilities and challenges in her job for the past three years. Each discussion with her boss ended with the same feedback "You are a wonderful, valued employee, and we appreciate your self-starting nature," but what usually followed was more of the same—she is well paid, but feeling bored, underutilized and ultimately detached from her position and her organization. This woman wanted a career, not just a job. She craved a purpose in her work, and despite asking for more, she rarely got it. Here was an employee who repeatedly received bonuses and other financial rewards for her contributions,but could not get the responsibility, or significance, from her work that she craved. Unfortunately, I have to believe that this woman's story is not a rarity.

I recently heard a man's response to the question, "What do you get paid to do?" This stuck with me. He explained that he was paid to be a punching bag of sorts-it was his job to take the blows from both customers and internal clients alike. It got me to thinking about how we reflect on the activities that we do in our job, and what drives how we define what we are paid to do.

It is not very surprising with all the time we spend engaged in our work, that the state of our work enjoyment will have a pervasive influence on who we are outside of the office. There is a strong relationship between experiencing happiness in our work and our overall sense of happiness in our life. The notion that we need to get something more than a paycheck from our jobs is not new. A large portion of the career self-help books focus on helping people to find their "calling" or to find work that matches their interests and abilities. What may be new, however, is the call to leadership in organizations to recognize this need for employees to experience meaningful work, and the impetus for them to do something about it.

In a recently published book, Mikhaly Csikzentmihalyi reflected on the position of organizational leaders and the large influence they have in our society. Csikszentmihalyi notes, however, that although these leaders are very in tune with their responsibilities to generate income for the organization and its stakeholders, they may be less likely to be engaging in activities that are necessary from these de facto societal leaders.

One of these actions is to provide opportunities for organizational members to find meaning in their work. Some of us (e.g., nurses, organizational scientists) will not need as much help because our daily work activities provide a clear purpose for why we do what we do. For example, a nurse works each shift to help people recover from illness and injuries. That said, even in these instances it is important that leaders provide support for the employees so they can take pleasure in what they do. Leaders can create organizations where the goal is not only for employees to work together to make profit, but also to be a place where employees work together to create optimal products, provide most favorable services or both. Furthermore, leaders should provide opportunities for employees to grow and develop.

We know that both of these factors have a pervasive effect on whether or not current employees will be engaged in their work and organization. And to that point, this influences the retention of the employees. Becoming an organization that is known for helping people to find challenges in their work, supporting them to prevail over these tests, and providing experiences from which they learn about themselves and their related skills will also help to attract talented people to an organization. However, providing a workplace where people create value for themselves, customers, associated communities and ultimately society as a whole should be the goal for organizational leaders.