The subject of this thesis is meaningfulness of work. The commissioner at this thesis is a financial team of a large company. There is about sixteen employees in the team and their work varied between accounting, account receivables and account payables, payment transactions and handling of travel invoices. Aim of this thesis is to find out which factors influence the meaningfulness of work and how to further enhance it.

The theoretical part first opens the term “meaningfulness of work” and then describes the factors that influence to meaningfulness of work. The factors for meaningfulness of work are divided into four sections; relevance, challenges at work and opportunities to influence, physical work environment and support, salary and reward. This is followed by the role of employee and the role of leadership. The role of leadership has taken into account, in particular, the role of an immediate supervisor and a potential management tool SMART. Finally, the knowledge base will examine the meaningfulness of work from productivity point of view.

Qualitative data was collected through a browser-based questionnaire, containing six open questions. The first four questions sought answers to the current state of meaningfulness of work, and the last two sought answers to increase the meaningfulness of work. A link to the questionnaire was sent to fourteen team members via e-mail. Answers were received from every one of them, so the response rate is 100 percent.

More than half of the employees felt their work meaningful or fairly meaningful. Based on the data, it can be stated that the factors that came up in the knowledge base affects the meaningfulness of work. The respondents mentioned few factors that increase the meaningfulness of work, such as independence, flexible working hours and ability to work remotely. Factors that decrease the meaningfulness of work were routine work, inequalities in employees and poor working atmosphere.

The data provided concrete modifications that could increase the meaningfulness of work. The respondents were hoping to get clear job descriptions, sufficient premises relation to the number of staff, more challenging and versatile work. The respondents also discovered that their own positive attitude and thinking affect to the meaningfulness of work. It is also important to take care of the balance in life so that you can feel meaningfulness at work.