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Employees often spend more than 50 percent of their waking hours focused on work. Feeling satisfaction and passion about work can make a big difference in the quality of life for employees, and higher productivity and retention for employers. The Ken Blanchard Companies, following up on their 2006 study, have redefined their "passion" framework while updating the analysis on what employees find most important and relevant to their overall enthusiasm, desire and commitment to the organization.

"From Engagement to Work Passion" creates a new definition and terminology for Work Passion. Designed to encompass all employees, regardless of roles, Work Passion is defined by Blanchard as an individual's persistent, emotionally positive, meaning-based state of well-being stemming from continuous, reoccurring cognitive and affective appraisals of various job and organizational situations, which results in consistent, constructive work intentions and behaviors. Researchers at Blanchard have determined that Work Passion is a crucial prerequisite for organizational vitality.

The new study also updated its data and analysis by redeploying its passion assessment to collect responses from more than 1,200 managers, HR and training leaders, and frontline employees from industries and companies worldwide. The assessment was designed to determine if the original Work Passion factors (Meaningful Work, Autonomy, Collaboration, Connectedness to Colleagues and Leaders, Fairness, Recognition and Career Growth) changed in regard to being more present in their respective workforces when comparing employees of differing tenures, genders, ages and departments.

The results of the study showed that while gender and tenure had little to no statistically significant differences in their results, other comparisons did have noteworthy outcomes. Managers tended to see meaningful work, autonomy, collaboration, fairness and career growth as being more present in the organizational culture than their non-manager counterparts. In addition, baby boomers felt that meaningful work was more often present in their company compared to Generation X respondents, while employees from small companies tended to see all eight factors as being more present in their organizations when compared to employees from medium and large companies.

Ongoing research into Work Passion will continue exploring the extent to which specific strategic and operational leader behaviors support or hinder an individual's perception of the eight Work Passion factors and the individual level of Work Passion. Key findings of this and past studies are patterned through Blanchard's Leadership Profit Chain, a model that is used as a blueprint for the success of a high performing organization.

A copy of the study is available at: www.kenblanchard.com/img/pub/Blanchard_From_Engagement_to_Work_Passion.pdf