22 March, 2022
Purpose: A Key Driver of Employee Engagement
‘The highest challenge inside organizations is to enable each person to contribute his or her unique talents and passion to accomplish the organization’s purpose.’
Building on the words of eminent author/businessman Stephen Covey, cultivating a purpose-driven workforce with mutually beneficial aspirations is a momentous challenge faced by businesses across the globe. It should come as no surprise that employees who feel a sense of purpose in their work tend be happier, healthier, and more productive. Thus, instilling a higher purpose and making employees aware of their contribution to organizational success is crucial to ensuring consistent and substantial employee engagement.
The Power of Purpose
Working towards a higher purpose reflects a deep, aspirational mission that gives a sense of meaning to an employee’s role. The conventional notion that the employer-employee relationship is purely contractual wherein the employees’ interests are transactional and mechanical in nature is undergoing a much-needed disruption amid the Great Resignation and global upheavals. Organizations have now realized the importance of purposeful management in establishing a thriving, loyal, and healthy workforce.
Research suggests that when the purpose is communicated with clarity, a spike in employee engagement is observed along with a positive impact on both operating financial performance (return on assets) and forward-looking measures of performance. Therefore, by tapping into the power of purpose, you can transform an entire organization. Additionally, Deloitte asserts that more than 70% of employees expect their employers to focus on societal or mission-driven problems; 70% want to be creative at work; and more than two-thirds believe it is the management’s job to provide them with accelerated development opportunities in order for them to stay.
This blog outlines three broad parameters that can help instill a sense of purpose in your employees.
Diversity and Inclusion
Embracing diversity in the workplace is a common characteristic that strengthens the ground for purpose, ergo, companies that make diversity and inclusion an integral part of their purpose experience higher levels of engagement.
An employee engagement platform can help to administer pulse surveys that encourage employee listening, as well as discussion forums or focus groups can be organized virtually through the platform to ensure inclusion of a hybrid workforce. The employee rewards program can be digitized to ensure transparency, accessibility and fairness. Performance appraisals can be better informed through tracking recognition data and manager feedback on KPIs through the year.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility is now being viewed as an optimal measure of a company’s overall value and vitality. Apart from the evident competitive advantage, it also spikes engagement within employees, courtesy a philanthropic and charitable goal.
An employee engagement software can act as a host for organizing team activities, CSR initiatives, and making/announcing charitable decisions via group surveys and social walls. Incentivizing or rewarding CSR can also be made possible through theme-based employee recognition tools.
Professional Development
Building an organization with a keen focus on professional development of its employees is a key step to connecting your people with a higher purpose. By offering lucrative growth opportunities, the employee’s job becomes an incubator for learning and development, which results in invigorated confidence and thereby increased contribution towards the organization’s growth.
You can leverage a digital R&R platform for incentivizing L&D sessions and accelerating purpose-driven growth in employees
Align Purpose with Employee Engagement
Rallying the organization behind an authentic higher purpose that reassures employees as to how they are making a difference inculcates a deep-set sense of belonging. The actionable steps mentioned above can help build a more engaged, fulfilled, and productive workforce, thereby elevating performance and boosting employee retention. Implementing the same depends on an organization’s ability to adapt, upscale, and transform its HR functions. Thus, adopting a robust digital employee engagement platform can be a significant development toward furthering a purpose-driven workforce.
Get in touch to know how Gratifi’s R&R technology can be instrumental in leveraging purpose as a key driver of employee engagement!