Your WHY @ Work Report ~ Part 3
Understanding your Satisfaction Scores
Your own personal assessment scores can be found in the email you received. This report (Part 3) helps you to interpret those scores and better understand your satisfaction at work.
A: Each dimension is scored between 1 and 100. The higher the score, the more satisfied you are with how your organization is supporting you in fulfilling your purpose in each dimension at work.
B: Your Overall Satisfaction Score is based on all six dimensions. The higher the score the more satisfied you are with how your employer/organization is helping you pursue your purpose at work.
A: Your Satisfaction Score in each dimension
For each of the six dimensions, check your Satisfaction Score and review the description of that dimension.
The higher the score, the more satisfied you are with how well the organization is supporting your needs and motivations in that dimension.
For example, if your Purpose Score in the 4th dimension, Existential Purpose, is high—meaning that personal achievement and recognition at work are important to you—and your Satisfaction Score is also high in the 4th dimension, then you probably feel that the organization is providing the opportunities and challenges you need for achievement and advancement.
Making sense of your scores
The Satisfaction Scores are solely concerned with how well you feel the organization is supporting YourWHY@Work in each of the six dimensions.
To help make sense of each score, ask yourself:
Is the organization meeting my expectations in providing the psychological or physical resources that I need to pursue my purpose in that dimension and help fulfill my reasons for working?
If your score is high, then you are mostly satisfied with the level of support you are getting. You are in a good place, work-wise, in pursuing your reasons for working in that particular dimension.
Of course, things might possibly be better. But remember, your worklife is dynamic, unfolding over the course of years and decades. There will always be pluses and minuses in every job. But being aware of your motivations at each level, whether cultural, existential or transcendent dimensions, can give you the context for engaging yourself and the organization more deeply in the fulfillment of YourWHY@Work.
Consider each dimension in turn and determine whether the score is to your satisfaction. This is a fairly straight-forward process, but the actual decisions you take to address low scores are highly contingent on the context of your employment.
If you have a low score for a particular dimension, ask yourself what you can do – or change – at work to increase your level of satisfaction. Using this assessment to help you articulate specific areas of concern, you could talk to your boss or engage your colleagues in a conversation about how the organization might better support your needs in fulfilling your various motivations for working.
Note that It could also be the case that you might not have any expectations of organizational support for a particular dimension. Maybe your motivations for working have little to do with the 3rd, 5th and 6th dimensions? If that’s the case, the level of support you’re receiving might be little to none in those dimensions, which may suit you just fine. YourWHY@Work exists primarily in other dimensions and you might be quite satisfied with that.
Your worklife is a highly personal, highly subjective affair that exists within a complex set of variables and relationships. The six dimensions of purpose can go a long way in helping you make sense of it all so that your life at work can evolve into a richer, more fulfilling experience and a profound expression of who you are. In doing so, you will influence your organization and the work you do will lead to a better future for yourself and the world at large.
B: Your Overall Satisfaction Score
Your Overall Satisfaction Score is an indication of how satisfied you are with how well the organization is doing collectively in all the dimensions with helping you find meaning and pursuing your overall purpose at work.
The higher the score, the more satisfied you are with how well the organization supports YourWHY@Work.
Spending a few minutes reflecting on this score can generate insights into your relationship with your employer overall and how satisfied you are with your situation at work.
If your score is between 1-30
Analysis
If your overall satisfaction score is low, it implies that the organization is not meeting your needs and expectations for why you work. Whether you are working just to make ends meet or to help make the world a better place, we all want to work for an organization that supports our WHY@Work. This does not appear to be the case currently.
Recommendation
If you want to stay with your current employer, you can use the six dimensions of purpose to more fully inform your relationship with the organization. Maybe you can more fully engage your boss and fellow workers and enroll them into supporting your purpose at work in the various dimensions more fully? Alternatively, it may be time to consider seeking employment with an organization that better aligns with your purpose at work.
If your score is between 31-50
Analysis
At this score you likely feel that the organization is giving you a certain level of support towards your own purpose at work. You may feel satisfied overall, or at least partially, but you’re probably aware that your employer could do much more. There is certainly an opportunity to get your employer to be more engaged and supportive of your own purpose at work.
Recommendation
You may well be at a stage where you want to take your career to the next level or dimension of purpose, but your employer isn’t providing the support you would like. Maybe talk to your boss or colleagues to get them more fully committed and contributing to your needs at work. Share the six dimensions with them to get them on-board. Meaningful and purposeful work should be something that everyone appreciates having and a positive, supportive team environment ought to be the norm. Use the Six Dimensions of Purpose@Work to uncover ways in which your employer can more fully engage with you and fellow employees in order to make it more meaningful and fulfilling to you. Maybe explain to your boss or others how the organization can tweak their policies or do things a bit differently to provide greater support for your own purpose at work and those of your colleagues.
If your score is between 51-80
Analysis
A score at this level indicates that you probably have an overall sense of satisfaction with how well your organization is supporting you at the various dimensions of purpose. While you may not be working for your ideal employer, you probably have a certain sense of satisfaction that your purpose at work is being supported by your employer and others you work with. You’re likely in a good place work-wise, so all you need to do is communicate your needs more forcefully and help the organization to better provide support within all the dimensions of work.
Recommendation
Overall, you may have the sense that you’re working for an organization that provides good alignment with your needs. But there’s room for improvement. Use the six dimensions to figure out in which ways your organization might better support you. How you go about that is entirely dependent on the context of your work.
If your score is between 81-100
Analysis
A score at this level indicates that you have a high-degree of satisfaction with your organization as it relates to how well it supports your purpose at work. Whether those expectations are low or high, you’re probably in a good place workwise.
Your career is likely doing quite well—you’re feeling happy and fulfilled at work—and you also feel aligned with where the organization is headed and its purpose. Your employer likely supports broader themes beyond profit, such as sustainability, social purpose, and high-levels of corporate social responsibility (CSR). You're doing good at work and so is your employer, not just providing good products and services to grateful clients and customers, but actually making the world a better place.
Recommendation
Because you and your employer are likely aligned in your expectations of each other, the only thing that is needed is fine-tuning your relationship. Your worklife, like the rest of your life, is a work in progress. There is always room to grow and develop. Everyone has the potential to become more fully themselves and more authentic expressions of who they can be. And organizations have the potential to seek higher levels of meaning and purpose is what they do. The opportunities for using work to create more meaning and fulfillment are found in the six dimensions. It’s your choice how far you go.