How To Get Your Employees Engaged With The Company’s Vision And Mission

Your company is the reflection of you. How it runs is mostly based on how you work. It sleeps when you are tired and it shines when you are in top shape. More than that, the company’s beliefs and its working environment are based on how you shaped it. Its vision is based on how you see it doing after years of operation, and its mission is how you get to your vision.

However, for you to get your business running well, or heading toward where you want it to be, your employees must work together. They must have a shared goal they want to achieve—supposedly accomplishing the company’s vision and mission. But why is it that sometimes managers see uncaring employees? Why is it that despite the rags-to-riches story you want to write, the glimmers of gold you want to rain in your company, your company seems to slack off and show the lack of care you despise seeing?

Here are some ideas for you to get your employees back and engaged with your company:

Communicate and share your ideas. Does everyone understand what you are trying to achieve, or even say with that well-written, jargon filled doctrine you call “vision and mission?” For entrepreneurs, seasoned, low-salt, and starting, you have to understand that the way you say your objective can be interpreted by other people in multitude of ways. You need to learn how to communicate your ideas well with your employees. Why does the company want to go in this direction? Why should we do that? It’s not just about explaining and communicating, but rather sharing your thoughts and aspirations, so that your team will understand and accept the way the company’s vision and mission statement is built.

Show your employees their relevance. Maybe it is not simply about your employees not being engaged with your company’s vision and mission. Do your employees still think they are relevant to the company? Or do they think that you’re only giving them some of the most useless tasks, which may even be done away in the first place? Before you go rushing to the drawing board to think about your new vision and mission, or ranting in the office about them being disengaged with where you want them to be, take a look at your employees’ motivation to work. Maybe they are feeling left out, irrelevant, or frustrated. Take time to show your employees their relevance in the company. Explain to them why they are there in the first place, and why they will still be there after five or more years. In short, show them the company needs them for what they do.

Listen to your employees. Here is the first question that popped up to your mind before reading this article: “How can I get my employees engaged with our vision and mission?” The answer is found only through listening and observing. Are your employees cooperative? Do they like the system that they are in? Are the policies of the company still letting people express themselves in their line of duty, even for just a bit? Is the company aware of the general situations its employees are in? Ask them. What do they find appealing for them in the company? What are the things they think that let the company to compete well? How do they interpret your vision and mission? Once you hear their answers, you might be surprised with far-off interpretations.

Share the foundation-building. To build your vision and mission which your employees and the company will benefit from, understand both sides (management and employees) that have a symbiotic relationship in the business. For one to benefit, the other must do well. For the company to sell more, the employees must work well; for the employees to enjoy different benefits in the company, the business must compete well. This means that your company’s vision and mission must draw a picture of a workplace that not only gives the employees a peaceful workplace, but also manages to boost them to a competitive level. Get your team to rebuild the company’s vision and mission with you. After having shared your ideas and listening to what they think about this whole deal in your business, learn how to integrate the two sides to form more effective vision and mission.

Keep Updating. Finally, as your business flourishes through continuous excellence, with the help of your dedicated employees, remember that it is your responsibility to keep things upbeat and updated. Is your company’s vision and mission statement still updated? Is it still relevant to society or to your customers? More importantly, is it still something that your team wants to work hard to achieve? Or is it too imposing now that you have made adjustments in your daily operations? Remember to review your company’s vision and mission and tweak a few things when you feel that you are drifting away from it. You don’t have to completely change it. You can revise a few lines, or you can even just reinterpret it in a way more suitable for your current working environment. It is top management’s responsibility to make sure that the vision and mission statement of the company is still relevant.

*Originally published by the Manila Bulletin. C-6, Sunday, August 2, 2015. Written by Ruben Anlacan, Jr. (President, BusinessCoach, Inc.) All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or copied without express written permission of the copyright holders.