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The importance of purpose is a common refrain in the modern workplace and in the popular press. Organizations and their leaders should work diligently to instill a sense of purpose in each one of their employees, we’re told. But the Great Resignation laid bare the fact that many employees simply don’t care about a company’s purpose; they want a stable career or, sometimes, just a job for the time being. Furthermore, some of those employees will never care about their organization’s purpose.

This notion, which is often glossed over in writings on instilling purpose, should give leaders pause. Oft-cited management advice like “If an employee’s motivation is lacking, try to help them understand how their work contributes to our organization’s purpose” must be called into question if the employee does not and will not ever care about the organization’s purpose.

We believe workplaces comprise three types of employees: the job-oriented, the career-oriented, and the purpose-oriented. Just as important as recognizing that not everyone is purpose-oriented is knowing and accepting that it’s OK for employees to not share in the organization’s purpose; they can still make meaningful contributions. This approach requires a massive shift in our thoughts on purpose, because although it is always worth trying to help people buy into an organization’s purpose, it is equally important to understand when they simply want a job or a career.

Coaching Is a Two-Way Street

One consistent trend over the past decade has been a push to train managers to be better coaches. The business rationale is twofold: Coaching enhances employee development and performance, and organizations assume that managers rarely possess the skills necessary to coach subordinates effectively. Consider, however, that maybe leaders are capable of coaching their subordinates, but organizations are asking them to coach their subordinates toward goals that simply don’t resonate with them. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of coaching is not its execution but rather the preparatory work in which leaders engage to try to understand their employees.

Purpose is the “why” behind what makes a person tick and an important consideration when coaching the whole person. But in a society where work is the dominant activity in our lives, a term meant to represent a person’s universal motivations is understood as something exclusively work-related. This push toward purpose likely stems from the notion that work, or more specifically our career, is where we find our personal sense of purpose.

With the advent of corporate social responsibility, organizations recognized a new opportunity: aligning organizations’ and employees’ purposes as an efficient strategy to maximize employee productivity, happiness, and retention. This resulted in organizations themselves adopting purposes that their employees already valued and personally identified with: environmental protection at Patagonia, for example, or social justice at Ben & Jerry’s. For those employees who found work they enjoyed in organizations that aligned with their own purpose, a new level of potential was unlocked. This fortuitous alignment allowed organizations to tap into these employees’ nearly limitless supply of purpose-aligned motivation.

Lost in the campaign for purpose, however, is that some employees’ sense of purpose is much more individual and possibly even selfish — and that’s OK.

Everyone Has a Purpose (but It Might Not Be Their Organization’s)

The pandemic triggered a colossal reassessment for many people. McKinsey partner Naina Dhingra noted in June 2021 that about 7 out of every 10 employees were reassessing their purpose due to the pandemic. Now, following the Great Resignation, employees more frequently evaluate what they do for work and the purposes behind it.

All employees have basic needs; for many people, these include doing well by their family and being able to provide them with a comfortable life. Some employees’ needs have deep personal meaning: to empower themselves, to help others through their own charitable giving or volunteering, or to learn and be challenged intellectually, among others. These are all valid purposes, whether or not they align with that of the organization.

Fortunately, alignment in purpose isn’t necessary for these employees to succeed in your organization. And it is true that some people can be coached to invest in the organization’s purpose. This is, however, a delicate balance and very leader-driven. Leaders can drive people who have a specific career or job orientation to share in the organization’s purpose — and likewise, they can push people in the other direction, away from purpose.

Forcing commitment to the organization’s purpose can be a recipe for disaster. In fact, leaders who constantly try to instill a sense of purpose in people who simply want a job or a career may instead disenfranchise those employees or quickly burn them out. In contrast, leaders who understand each of their employees’ individual motivations will get the most out of each person by building strong relationships grounded in mutual understanding.

The realization that all employees may not share in the organization’s purpose has several important implications for leading and managing employees.

Leading Those Who Want a Job

A lack of purpose does not guarantee a lack of performance. Job-oriented employees can add value to their organizations — which is good news, because we estimate that they account for about 50% of the average organization’s workforce. Focused more on intrinsic rewards like developing individual expertise or extrinsic rewards like paying their bills and going home at the end of the day, their daily motivation does not stem from the organization or its purpose.

Those who just want a job are not looking to build future utility or to reinforce their expanding interests within the organization. These employees will likely be resistant to any attempts at instilling purpose, because that’s not why they’re part of your organization. An overreliance on purpose alignment can actually demotivate this group.

Leaders who misdiagnose these workers as sharing the organizational purpose without asking them whether that is the case may promote high-performing employees to positions they don’t actually want. This can cause an immense loss of motivation and their eventual exit from the organization.

Instead, leaders need to home in on what matters to the job-oriented employee: developing professional skills, and tangible rewards. Opportunities to advance their skill sets may be particularly appealing to this group. Similarly, the pay and benefits they receive most likely will directly affect how long they stay in the organization. Rather than asking them to sacrifice for the organization’s purpose in some way, put effort into making sure their compensation package is competitive because that is why they stay.

Leading Those Who Want a Career

Careerists want to find long-term, stable job assignments that allow them to master their roles with the possibility of future advancement. Their identity is likely not wrapped up in their work. While they can buy into some of their organization’s purpose, and even proselytize it to others, their heart isn’t fully in it.

In our experience, engaged employees are more productive, so leaders should figure out ways to harness and unleash that energy and enthusiasm. The overwhelming majority of employees want to be challenged and do something meaningful. They want to learn, so let them; give them the opportunities and experiences they seek to keep them motivated and engaged.

The challenge is that few organizations do much to promote and capture such engagement from the outset. The organization might go out of its way to recruit the best and the brightest, but these eager employees are immediately subjected to a death-by-PowerPoint presentation for new hires. They’re then shown where the bathrooms and the cafeteria are located and are then ushered to a cubicle where they’ll spend 40-50 hours a week. The excitement of a new position can quickly fade in this context for even the most enthusiastic employees.

Leading Those Who Want a Purpose

Purpose-oriented employees believe in their organization, as well as its mission and values. They are intrinsically motivated by those factors to excel in the workplace; beyond just seeing a set of tasks to be completed, they find meaning and a sense of shared purpose in their work. Certain types of organizations naturally inspire this sense of purpose — such as humanitarian organizations or first responders — while others might need to carefully craft and articulate their vision to engender the same level of employee support.

Purpose seekers want to change the world and have definitive ideas about how to do it. Leaders need to embrace this enthusiasm by showing these employees the impact of their daily efforts and by finding ways, even outside of their job descriptions, to foster their passions. Mentorship, cross-functional training, and leadership storytelling can go a long way in attracting, engaging, and retaining this dynamic cohort in the workforce.

Work with a sense of purpose is key to engaging this type of employee, so good managers will foster this orientation to purpose and point it in constructive directions. Make each task mean something; illustrate for employees how to see the big picture, and outline how their role is helping it become realized. Offering an opportunity and the empowerment to contribute early and often is what this group is seeking from their leaders in the workplace.

Three Key Takeaways for Leaders

Below, we recommend three things leaders can do better in managing their job-, career-, and purpose-oriented employees.

1. Make it OK for employees to not share in your purpose. Today’s pressure for purpose alignment can make it nearly impossible for employees to say, “I don’t share in our purpose.” Accept that not everybody will want to work in the same way that you do but that they can still be integral to the success of your organization.

2. Everyone has a purpose — it just might not be the same as that of the organization for which they work. Work harder to understand what motivates people and how it might change over time. People change; purpose orientations can shift. It’s critical to meet your employees where they are and identify the right opportunities for them.

3. Try to instill a sense of purpose in your employees — but don’t force it. This article is not intended to provide an excuse for organizations to overlook their own purpose; a motivating purpose is an incredibly powerful tool for any organization and its leaders. But if somebody is looking for purpose at work but cannot find it because they never engage with your mission, you will never get them to realize their potential.

Purpose is important, but it shouldn’t be a requirement in the workplace. Everyone, at all levels of purpose, has a role in the organization: The job-oriented are the backbone, careerists are the continuity, and the purpose-driven are the pipeline of future leaders. Some may naturally move across that spectrum, and others will be carefully nudged up by a leader, but most will simply stay put. Leaders’ understanding — and acceptance — of that will make all the difference.

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