ORSE – Observatory on Corporate Social Responsibility

“We wanted to understand how the question of meaning at work concretely feeds into the quality of working life initiatives we are trying to implement in our organisations.”

Context

The ORSE (Observatoire sur la Responsabilité Sociétale des Entreprises) brings together companies, investors, and trade unions committed to promoting responsible business practices. As part of its work on quality of working life, the ORSE organised a breakfast debate to help its members deepen their understanding of the connections between meaning at work and QWL initiatives.

In a context where organisations are investing significantly in well-being and quality of working life policies, one question often remained unanswered: on what theoretical and empirical foundations should these programmes be built so that they genuinely respond to the lived experiences of employees? This conference set out to address precisely that question.

A Research-Grounded Approach to Meaning at Work

The conference laid the conceptual foundations needed for a rigorous reading of meaning at work. By distinguishing meaning of work (what is at stake in the activity itself) from meaning at work (what is at stake in the work environment), participants were better equipped to identify which levers to act on within their respective organisations.

The conference drew on the findings of a research study conducted with French managers who had made an intentional career break. Their life narratives made it possible to identify four meaning-driven motivations underlying the decision to leave, and to pinpoint the characteristics of meaningful work that had been absent from their previous professional situations.

These findings fed into a collective reflection on the concrete actions that ORSE member organisations could take: evaluation processes co-designed by teams, greater autonomy and flexibility practices, responsible procurement policies, coworking spaces fostering interaction, and skills-based volunteering programmes. Each of these levers maps directly onto a specific component of meaning at work identified by the research.

How the Engagement Unfolded

This engagement proceeded as follows:

1. Frame: understanding the need

A preliminary exchange with the event organiser made it possible to gain a precise understanding of what ORSE members were looking for: insight into how the question of meaning at work can strengthen and inform the QWL and CSR initiatives they are working to develop in their organisations. The goal was not to propose a generic conference on workplace well-being, but to answer a very concrete question for this audience: how can research on meaning at work help illuminate and legitimise corporate social responsibility policies that sometimes struggle to connect with the realities experienced by employees?

2. Illuminate: building a reference framework

Working from this brief, an in-depth exploratory process was conducted to identify the most useful elements for the intended audience. The doctoral research on intentional career breaks offered a particularly revealing entry point: by analysing what managers had sought to recover when leaving their jobs, it made it possible to pinpoint precisely which components of meaning had been missing from their previous work situations, and therefore which levers organisations could have acted on. The six components of meaning at work drawn from the field’s reference literature were selected as the central analytical framework, offering an immediately operational tool for HR and CSR managers.

3. Translate: building a conference that speaks to the audience

The theoretical contributions were shaped so that they would not remain abstract and would speak directly to the professionals in the room. Each component of meaning was illustrated with concrete examples of organisational practices, drawn from the research findings and from an exploratory study I conducted on CSR policies. The aim was for every participant to leave with an analytical framework they could use to assess their own programmes, identify gaps, and adjust their practices accordingly.

4. Exchange: a conference in dialogue

The “breakfast debate” format gave a central place to interaction with participants. This exchange enabled the HR and CSR managers present to raise their specific questions, connect the theoretical contributions to the realities of their own organisations, and engage in collective reflection on how to embed the question of meaning at work into their policies. These discussions also brought to light initiatives already under way in some member organisations, offering concrete illustrations of how the components of meaning can be translated into management and workplace organisation practices.

Why a Research-Consulting Approach Was Relevant

QWL initiatives sometimes suffer from a lack of theoretical grounding: programmes are rolled out without organisations having a clear framework for understanding what, in work itself, creates or erodes meaning. The contribution of the research was precisely to provide that framework: drawing on empirical data from real career trajectories, it identified specific components of meaning and practical levers that HR and CSR professionals could put to use immediately.

For ORSE members, the challenge was to connect their commitment to corporate social responsibility with concrete management and work organisation practices. The research provided the elements needed to build that connection, showing how decisions about how work is organised, technical-seeming on the surface, have direct effects on how employees make sense of their professional activity.