How to make sure employees understand your why

The foundation of a high-performance culture is a strong mission, a cohesive vision with clear, achievable goals, and core values that foster a shared sense of purpose.??

Your company vision can be a powerful thing. It can convey to your employees your purpose, your why, your reason for existing as a business. Done right it can motivate your teams, engage them, and provide them with meaningful opportunities.??

Think about Microsoft’s early vision statement; ‘a computer on every desk and in every home.’ Such a strong statement, and it worked! When given that image of what success could mean their employees were incentivized to work to see it through.?

Unfortunately, despite spending time and resources developing a snappy vision statement, many companies simply hang it up, a static poster, on a wall in an office or corridor. Then it fades into the background and is forgotten. Despite the time investment and enthusiasm of the l development phase, it lives and dies in a moment. In my opinion that’s a failed opportunity.?

Why do you do what you do??

The first step in communicating your vision to your employees is, unsurprisingly, knowing what that vision is. What is your why? What are you in the business of doing?? Because let’s be real – we are all here to be profitable! We all want to make money, to return our investors’ money, to grow. You need to look deeper than that.?

Making money, or at least making your investors money, is not a good enough reason for your employees to get out of bed in the morning, to do what they do and be the best at it. Nor should it be.?

So, what are you in the business of doing??

As an example, many people assume that our purpose at Vaco Lannick is solely to help people find jobs and secure meaningful work and to help companies find talent. And we do that. But I feel we are also in the business of building raving fans. Once you have fans, be that your client companies or your jobseekers, then you can rely on future business and prosperity.?

To understand your why is to understand your principles, and that is your guide to making all future decisions. Be they business decisions or personal decisions. Your values and your vision will define how you communicate, how you deal with conflict and, importantly, how you respond to the challenges of leadership.?

It will provide your employees guidelines around behavior, morals, and values. It will show them who you are as a business, where you intend to go from here and how they can help you get there.?

Three great ways to convey your why?

Conveying your why, your vision, should be done daily throughout your employees’ entire lifecycle with your company – and arguably even before they are employees of your company. It should be embedded throughout your attraction and onboarding process and reiterated regularly, giving each employee the chance to step up and engage with it.??

1.Use onboarding to explain where you come from and where you’re going?

Around 10 years ago when new employees started, our method of orientation was very basic. Like many companies, we simply attached new starters to their line manager, or successful member of their department, and said ‘just do as they do’. Since then, our process has evolved.?

We realized people need to understand on a deeper level where we’ve come from, where we’re going and, most importantly, why. Orientation, or onboarding, is the perfect place to start instilling that knowledge alongside the technical and soft skills needed for our employees to perform their job.?

It’s not ideal for this knowledge to come solely from one person. We have employees from across the company, from different departments and areas of focus, participate in the onboarding process. This gives new employees greater perspective and understanding about what the company does and why it does it.?

?2. Put across your purpose daily?

Another great advantage of utilizing employees from across your business as part of the onboarding process, is that by using them to teach your purpose you are regularly underlining that purpose in their minds. They also gain a greater sense of engagement with your why and ownership of it.?

Everyone in your company should know and understand your vision and they should be putting it across to one another daily. For this reason, I like to reiterate our value statement and vision at every big employee gathering, such as an all-hands meeting. This serves to remind everyone that that vision statement and those core values are your brand platform.?

As a result, the feedback we hear regularly is that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet and we’re all in harmony. That’s how you know it’s authentic and consistent.? ?

3. Give people the chance to step up and stand out?

When I was younger, I felt my expectations of my employer to address my individual needs as an employee were unrealistic. As a leader perhaps I’ve tried to overcompensate for that and be more than my employees need!??

What they really need is the chance to be electable, to put their hand up and take on challenges. To give your employees the opportunity to be creative and provide solutions to problems is a core part of ensuring they feel ownership of the company’s vision. Let them help influence and lead positive change.??

Your culture is the sum of its parts and the collection of everyone’s participation. If people aren’t participating, it’s tough for them to be noticed and to be considered for opportunities. This is a great indicator of people truly understanding their role in an organization, how they can shape it and improve it. Those people also have a far greater understanding of what’s happening and why it’s happening.?

Some employees are naturally more introverted and less expressive. In that case they need you to be a communicator, to be a coach, to be someone who people look to solve issues with confidence so they can feel great about where they’re working.?

Be the place your employees want to retire from?

I want to be clear that this change towards employee engagement and ownership of an organization’s values should not be, and in our case has not been, driven by the fact that businesses and business culture are under greater scrutiny thanks to online employee reviews. Many businesses thrive despite negative reviews.?

Instead, this change has been driven by the correlation of success and company culture. Again, some cultures are not great, and those businesses are happy with a revolving door. That’s what I like to call the boomerang effect. In essence, those businesses “don’t care who tosses the boomerang as long as someone is there to catch it.”??

We want people for the long term. Employees should be in an environment where the company wants them to retire there. A lot of companies don’t care to say that, and a lot don’t mean it if they do. I want to retire here; I want my employees to retire here.?

Thankfully we work in an industry that does allow for these meaningful opportunities for people. Putting 2,000 people in work every year feels good and I don’t want to lose sight of that.?