We all have work of some kind to do. When this work drains you and leaves you thinking ‘Why?”, over and over each day, you’re on a slippery slope.

I mowed lawns to help my Uncle out when I lived with him and his family. I was in my 20’s and had never thought about what made a job satisfying. It was simple work – we cut grass and took it away on the back of a truck – but it symbolised something bigger that I didn’t realise until much later on in life.

Turning a messy lawn into a tidy one is a cathartic process. As we drove away, we could see the difference our work had made. There was no deep-and-meaningful sense of amazement and wonder at what we had done – it was as simple a job as anyone could have, after all – but seeing the result of your work gave immediate, tangible feedback at the transformation.

Most of us spend our days pumping out emails about emails and attending meetings on everything and anything. Craftsmen and women are still around but in much smaller numbers today. Hitting ‘send’ time after time, rather than cutting grass, building a brick wall, or servicing a bike and handing it back to its owner, does not have the same effect on a human.

Knowledge work – the ‘keyboard warrior’ stuff done by the majority in our world today – has to be fulfilling or it can drain us of positive energy. All work types can be repetitive and monotonous at times and this can be hard to avoid. The challenge is to add meaning of some kind in a personal or organisational sense. Helping employees to achieve this can go a long way to keeping them engaged and away from the vacancies of your competitors.