How to Make Data Work Meaningful
Data is invaluable, but working with it doesn’t always feel meaningful. Four strategies can help make data work more engaging.
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As data work consumes more of employees’ energy, their engagement continues to decline. Managers can implement strategies to make these tasks more meaningful. Four key approaches can help: employing information architects to manage information flow, connecting data tasks to personal growth opportunities, ensuring contact with leaders and beneficiaries, and soliciting employee insights from their data work.
For all the emphasis on employee satisfaction in recent years, the experiences of millions of workers have worsened. The latest Gallup poll on the topic, from November 2024, found only 18% of U.S. workers are satisfied with their company. After holding steady at more than a quarter of employees during the previous decade, satisfaction scores plummeted in 2021 and have not recovered. Engagement, meanwhile, is down to 30%, the lowest it’s been since 2013.
Organizations are struggling to make changes that really work for their staff. Three key factors most powerfully affect how people feel about their work: belonging, configuration, and inspiration or purpose. Two of these — belonging and purpose — are driven largely by human interactions. (Configuration, which can refer to where and when a person gets their work done, involves interactive atmospheres for some people, while others prefer to work from home.)
My research found that people in human resources roles generally find more meaning in their work — and experience more satisfaction and engagement — than those in finance roles. Why? People in HR roles tend to have more interactions with fellow employees than those in finance do. Through interpersonal interactions, many people find a sense of belonging within the organization, which involves a shared sense of identity. These interactions also afford people greater opportunities to learn about the results of their work, and how their actions are impacting people’s lives.
Interpersonal interactions afford people greater opportunities to learn about the results of their work, and how their actions are impacting people’s lives.
Now, more than ever, working with data has become a larger part of most jobs. Some people have even taken to saying, “Almost every job is a data job.” A study of physicians found that they spent 45% of work time inputting data into electronic health records. A survey of teachers found 30% spent more time working with data than they did preparing for lessons.
There are myriad benefits of using data to calculate diagnostics and make strategic decisions. But data work also runs specific risks of reducing a sense of meaning. These recommendations can help your team tackle data work with intention and a sense of significance:
Employ information architects. Recent research has found that workers quickly face