Want to create something big? Your employees must know their part in it

What if every single person in your company truly grasped your vision and knew what they specifically needed to do to bring it to life? This is an incredibly powerful and important concept to me. Even so, it can sometimes feel like a pipe dream, out of touch and out of reach. How is it possible to guide your employees on a shared journey toward professional and personal fulfillment, especially considering the daily demands on your time and the necessity of day-to-day tasks made even more difficult during COVID-19?

If you think this sounds nearly impossible, I agree. But I’d argue that failing to do this sets your entire business up to fail. Particularly if you’re in the services business, your people are your product. If you’re not investing in them and bettering them, your business will suffer the consequences. Plus, if they don’t feel like their role matters in the bigger picture of your organization, productivity and retention will take a hit.

So, I want to invite you to think about the three aspects required to successfully bring your employees into the bigger story you’re writing in your business.

Do your team members know…?

Your history.

Many times, employees are onboarded without much of a history lesson. They may be told a little about the founding of the company, but then they’re brought to the present and trained in their role. This overlooks a really important part of bringing a new team member into the fold of your organization. To feel like they belong and feel compelled to give your business their very best, they need to know why you exist and the blood, sweat and tears it took to get you here. When you share these stories, make sure you’re telling them in a way that resonates with the individual person you’re speaking to. It needs to make sense and be relatable, or it’s entirely possible your employee will tune out.

Your vision.

It’s often a company’s executives who spend time hammering out a vision statement for their company. They’re all bought into the conversation because they believe in the business and they were part of the process of creating it. But what about everyone else? A vision statement can seem no more meaningful than text on a page. Invite your employees to see, hear and give feedback on your vision. Use your storytelling skills to explain why the vision came to exist. This will make an emotional connection with the employees and ensure that every person understands what it means and why it was created.

Beyond this, make it visual. People tend to think in pictures, so they respond well when you paint one for them. Instead of simply posting a sign on the wall that says, “Further together,” create a slide deck that makes the vision tangible. Maybe you plan to achieve your vision by uniting your internal team and acting as advocates for your customers. By giving them pictures behind the words, the idea will implant in their minds and hearts — and feel more real and less fluffy.

Their part in the story.

This might be the most important point of all. Do your employees know that they matter to your organization as individuals? Does each person understand that their role is crucial to fulfilling your vision? If this hasn’t been made abundantly clear, it’s time to make it so. If you think of your organization’s story like a book, each employee contributes their own chapter to it. They have ownership over it and value within it. The importance of this cannot be overstated.

Now, it’s time to ask yourself:

Do you know what’s important to your employees?

It’s imperative that you work to support each team member fully as a human, which means knowing their desires and providing opportunities for them to become better professionals and embrace their passions. Some business leaders fail to even try to do this because it sounds daunting. I hear that — the idea of nurturing each employee individually sounds time-consuming and exhausting. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In fact, you can systematize it just like you would any other important process in your business. For example, you could make use of something like FranklinCovey on-demand learning. Create a system in which employees can use this type of resource with their managers and select trainings that offer them the chance to grow. They could get training in their particular craft, leadership training or even instruction in an area completely unrelated to your organization that matters to them (e.g., guitar lessons). The only onus on you would be to grant access to such a tool and empower managers and employees to make use of it. It’s an efficient way to support your team members as human beings with their own priorities and purposes while not draining your time and still allowing everyone to accomplish your business’s mission.

Again, it’s worth reiterating that your people are your product, especially in a professional services firm. If you’re hiring your team for their passion for their craft and ability to create, don’t you have an equal responsibility to give them the tools they need to be their very best?

As you write the story of your organization, remember that your team members are major characters — and they need to know that. You cannot afford to miss this, or you’ll lose out on the best talent and the most productive employees. As you invest in your team, you’ll see your NPS and productivity rise. It’s a positive snowball effect from the inside out, and it all starts with your people. You don’t have to start big, but you absolutely need to start.

This article originally appeared in Phoenix Business Journal