In this bonus episode, Aoife revisits her conversation with John Bernatovicz and offers her expert insight on purpose, HR culture, ownership, and finding meaning at work. If you haven't listened to the full episode with John yet, make sure to give it a listen.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Most companies don't actually have a defined purpose John's research found that outside of not-for-profits, the vast majority of companies don't have a real, articulated sense of purpose, often only turning to "giving back" once they've already made significant money. Meanwhile, 80% of employees say they want to work somewhere with genuine intention behind its purpose.

Purpose doesn't have to be a "big, grand thing" Purpose isn't only about world-changing missions. Aoife references the "big P vs. little P" purpose concept from her episode with Sharath Jeevan, plus Adam Grant's take on the same idea, purpose can simply be about the impact you have on the people and community around you.

Connect everyday work to real impact One of the biggest levers for engagement: clearly linking people's day-to-day tasks to the outcomes and impact they create, for clients, colleagues, or the wider mission. Without that connection, people can feel like they're just going through the motions.

Purpose vs. profitability Money is fleeting, chasing wealth, lifestyle, or "toeing the company line" for a paycheck eventually takes its toll. The conversation touched on leaders who reach a breaking point when the job no longer aligns with their values, and the idea that compromising your values catches up with you eventually.

We spend ~15% of our lives at work That's a meaningful enough chunk of life to make sure you're spending it somewhere that feels worthwhile.

Recognition matters If your contributions aren't being seen, heard, or valued, it may be time to look elsewhere, you deserve to have your work recognised.

Connect with Aoife O’Brien | Host of Happier at Work®:

• Website
• LinkedIn
• YouTube

Connect with John Bernatovicz | Author of “HR Like a Boss” and founder of Willory:

• LinkedIn
• Website

Episodes You’ll Love:

Episode 120: The Journey to Self Mastery and Success with Sharath Jeevan

Episode 267: Creating A Positive Workplace

Episode 191: The Pursuit of Purpose: Shifting Perspectives with Will Polston

About Happier at Work

Happier at Work is the podcast for business leaders who want to create meaningful, human-centric workplaces. Hosted by Aoife O’Brien, the show explores leadership, career clarity, imposter syndrome, workplace culture, and employee engagement — helping you and your team thrive.

If you enjoy podcasts like WorkLife with Adam Grant, The Happiness Lab, or Squiggly Careers, you’ll love Happier at Work.

Join Aoife O’Brien for weekly insights on leadership, workplace culture, career clarity, imposter syndrome, and creating work that works for you.

Editing by Amanda Fitzgerald.

Website: https://happieratwork.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HappierAtWorkHQ

One of the biggest things I took away from my conversation with John Bernatovicz on the Happier at Work podcast was this idea of purpose and creating a sense of purpose at work. If you haven't listened to that full episode, do go ahead and check it out — it's full of little gems throughout the episode, and I'm going to be summarizing the key points and takeaways in today's bonus episode.

I'm Aoife O'Brien, a career and culture strategist for People First Leaders.

So, coming back to this idea of purpose — one of the stats that he shared was that the vast majority of companies don't actually have a purpose unless you're a not-for-profit. That really surprised me, because I thought a lot of companies were set up with a sense of purpose.

Obviously, if you're in business, you have to make money, because that will help you fulfill the purpose that you set out to fulfill. But —

I found it really alarming that most companies don't.

I thought it was just a case that people don't necessarily talk about it on a regular basis, or maybe individual employees don't know about it because it's not really spoken about.

But he shared, from the research that he did, that the vast majority of companies don't actually have a purpose, and when they make enough money, they kind of go backwards and think, "Oh, now we need to find a sense of purpose. Now we need to start giving back to the community." So that really surprised me. Another stat that he shared was the idea that 80% of employees, when they're looking to work somewhere,

really want to work in an organization that has an intention behind the purpose —

something that they're actually doing.

Now, we didn't talk about this on the podcast, but it's something I came across a few years ago that I think is really interesting:

the idea that purpose doesn't have to be this big, grand thing.

It's come up on the podcast before — I'll pop some notes below.

Back to a great episode with Sharath Jeevan, where we talked about the "big P" and "little p" purpose. And another interesting one — not my own podcast episode, but another podcast episode — where Adam Grant was talking about how this big sense of purpose doesn't have to be "I'm going to change the world." It doesn't have to be "save the whales" — this big, grand thing that we perceive it to be.

It can be a better understanding of the impact that you have on those around you and the community, and the change that you would like to see in the world.

One example of an impact-based, for-profit organization is TOMS Shoes. Now, I have a pair of TOMS shoes myself, so I can relate to that. And the idea of purpose is that it attracts people who believe in the same things that you believe in — that's the whole reason for having it. You get more customers who believe in and can get behind the cause that you're fighting for, essentially.

We talked about how best to communicate that purpose, and I think making that link between the processes that you have, the people that you hire, the expectations that you set — being really clear, like, "This is why this is important to me" — making that connection between what people do on a day-to-day basis and the impact they're creating, or the importance of the work they're doing, is so underestimated at work.

And I think it's something that really helps people understand the impact they're having, and it's a core motivator as well —

to understand

the impact that their work is having. On the one hand, they're doing that work on a day-to-day basis, but they're not necessarily seeing the outcomes it's creating for clients or for other people internally, because they just don't know.

And no one has made that connection for them.

We talked about balancing purpose and profitability, and something that's come up in several conversations I've had recently — these are with individual leaders getting paid a lot of money, but they kind of stay because they get used to that lifestyle. So they get paid a lot of money, but eventually it takes its toll, and they can no longer toe the company line.

And so they end up leaving. To me, it's reiterated in this podcast: money is fleeting, greed is not what it's about. It's not about the nice house. It's not about the nice car. It's not really about the wealth you accumulate over the course of your life.

It's really about what you can give back to the community. It's about your own health and well-being, and it's about the relationships you can build over time. He made a comment saying, "If you sell your soul to the devil, you know what's going to happen further down the line — it will always come back to get you."

So, think about things like that, especially when it pertains to your own situation.

Another interesting stat that John shared was that we spend 15% of our lives at work. To me, that seems actually quite a low number — I thought it would be much higher. I'm sure I've seen elsewhere that it's a bit higher. Now, I'm in the lucky position that I really enjoy what I do, and I don't see any time when I'm going to retire.

I'm at least 20 years away from retirement anyway, but when I get to that stage, I don't see myself retiring — I see myself continuing to do the important work I'm doing, because it gives me a great sense of purpose and meaning. But coming back to this idea of 15% of our entire lives at work — it's still a significant amount. It's about half the amount of time we spend sleeping.

So, in the grand scheme of things, it's actually still quite significant.

We didn't go into this in a huge amount of detail, but we did talk about the idea of recognition at work —

where your ideas and your contributions are not being recognized, not being heard. It's so important to go and find somewhere where that contribution will actually be recognized, where it is actually valued.

One of the things that really stops people from reaching their full potential at work is imposter syndrome. If you want to help your team reach their full capabilities, you can download my latest *State of Imposter Syndrome at Work* report today from impostersyndrome.report. In it, I address the organizational cost of imposter syndrome, as well as putting forward some really practical strategies you can implement straight away to address this issue.

That's impostersyndrome.report. Download your free report today.

We talked about this

in specific relation to HR — if you work in HR, you will absolutely relate to this. People tend to enter the profession because they really like people and want to make a difference.

I think eventually they get to a stage where they hear all of the bad stories, and so they start to maybe lose

empathy.

They kind of lose that love for people that they had when they first started. But they're also very much underappreciated —

managers tend to deflect to HR. So instead of dealing with the issues themselves, they'll send things to HR and think it's an HR problem.

One of the processes outlined in John's book, *HR Like a Boss*, involves several steps. The first is about thinking differently,

being different,

being better,

taking action, and then making an impact. I love this idea of impact — I wanted to go a little deeper into that.

Again, it ties into what I talked about before: making the link for people, connecting the impact they're having back to a sense of purpose — why does your company exist, and how does the impact people have on a day-to-day basis

tie to the outcomes the organization is trying to achieve, whether related to purpose or to profitability.

Another way to think about this 15% of your time at work — John has, I'll call it, a two-step framework: it's all about taking ownership and loving what you do. Taking ownership is all about agency. Do you have agency? Do you feel like you are controlling the things that you can control, or do you feel like you're being controlled by circumstances, by something else?

Do you have a tendency to blame the person who was there before you, or your terrible manager, whatever it might be? Or are you taking a sense of ownership? Obviously, there are things we cannot control — things that are totally out of our control — but there are things that are absolutely within our control, and things we can influence around us as well.

So think about those things and how that's impacting how much you feel in control in

the job that you have, and how much sense of agency you have. Then there's loving your job — that is the entire premise of Happier at Work. How do we create more environments where people feel fulfilled in what they're doing on a day-to-day basis?

And if you don't love that, or if you don't feel valued for the contribution you're giving, you do have the agency to go and look for another job. I know it's not always that easy —

but you do have a choice if something has changed recently, if you don't love your job anymore, or if you never loved your job. Some people have this perception that work is supposed to suck.

For me, that goes against everything — especially if we're spending 15% of our entire lives working, then you definitely don't want to be spending that time doing something

that sucks the life out of you.

One of the other frustrations John mentioned about HR is the idea that people are burning out, feeling really frustrated in the role, maybe not having a seat at the table, feeling their contributions aren't necessarily valued. So they're trying to make these changes, trying to make these recommendations — and I know certainly from experiences I've had, they don't have a seat at the table, even though the people side of the business is one of the biggest investments companies make, and HR is best placed to manage that. But they don't necessarily have the language to explain the value they bring, or to show the return on

investment of the investments they're making — whether that's in training, or in getting people to be the best version of themselves, to reach their full capabilities at work.

I'd love to know what you think of HR. One of the things that always comes up — you know, it's in movies, it's in the media — is the perception that they're the "fun police." And one of the things that John pointed out is that being sent to HR is like being sent to the principal's office.

One of the other really powerful things I took from my conversation with John is the idea that everything that happens to you is a gift. I know it's a really hard concept to get around, but he said the response to everything is "of course." If someone cuts you off in traffic, you just think, "Of course," and you let these things happen because you cannot control them.

You can control your response to what happens, but you can't necessarily control everything that's happening around you. Whether something positive happens — you got a promotion, "of course"; you got recognition, "of course" — or whether something terrible happens, "of course."

And it just makes us feel really calm. So that's what I'm going to leave you with today.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode. Do go and check out the full episode if you haven't already, and I'll be back again next time.