“Mission, Vision, and Values”—we hear these words so often that they can become empty buzzwords, especially for employees. If this is how your employees feel, then you need to rethink your company mission and how you align it with their goals.
Your company’s mission, vision, and values are essential documents that articulate what it is trying to do and what it stands for. For a company to thrive, it needs happy and dedicated employees, and the best way to have dedicated employees is to help them connect with your company’s goals.
You connect your company goals with your employees’ goals by aligning your mission, vision, and values with your employees’ focus. Show them a path to learn, grow, scale in the company, and contribute to society. Let them know that their work has a purpose and give them goals that align with what the company wants to achieve and stands for.
But how can you create this connection? Creating this alignment is a challenge on its own, and it can sometimes result in you giving the wrong message and your employees feeling even more drifted from your company than before.
To avoid those kinds of situations, be sure to keep reading because here’s how to connect employees with your company’s mission, vision, and values:
What Is Your Company About?
We have all seen the “About Us” section on companies’ websites, where they explain their history, mission, vision, and values. Although similar, these three words strive to accomplish different objectives, and you must identify and understand each of them and what they mean to your company. Let’s start with the Mission:
- Your Mission: What you need to do. Your mission explains what differentiates your company from others in the same industry. The mission is the path that will guide you to achieve your primary goals (your vision).
- Your Vision: Where you want to go. The end goal. What do you want to achieve on a larger scale? Your vision is realizing a company’s dream, giving you and your employees a sense of purpose. Create a company vision that inspires and motivates employees to work toward achieving it. Remember that to remain engaged, employees need to see how their daily work drives the vision forward.
- Values: What You Believe In. Your values are an example of what your mission and vision represent daily. Employees need to know your company’s values and how they translate into actions and behaviors in each role. Values can align employees wherever they’re located, whether they’re working from home or seeing each other face to face, and when they are clearly defined, your values can become the shared thread of company culture.
Check out Give Meaning to Your Corporate Values to have a deeper understanding of company values and how to define the ones your company needs.
Tips to Connect your Team with your Company
To connect employees to the company mission, vision, and values — and each other — they need to see how their daily work affects the more significant business. Follow these tips and learn how to improve your company culture and connect your employees with your company mission:
1. Communicate your mission and core values
Core values are fundamental, and a responsible company should always be a step ahead in manifesting these core values in every employee.
Communication will allow you to unlock every door in your organization and ensure your employees listen to and embody your mission, vision, and values. People learn by example, so ensure your managers and supervisors embody the company values and treat each employee respectfully.
Supervisors and Managers represent what the company stands for. If they are not helping you create a good and healthy work environment aligned with the company’s mission and values, then you know where to start with the changes.
2. Encourage Openness in Your Workspace
Communication issues cause most workplace problems. This may happen because communication channels are not strong enough. If communication between one team and another is unclear or breaks down, it can lead to problems and a chaotic work environment.
Creating Openness in your workplace is part of your supervisor’s and managers’ responsibility. Your organization must create an environment where managers know the company values communication and employees feel comfortable speaking up.
Opening up communication takes commitment and intentional effort, but the results are worth it. Here’s what you can do to encourage open communication:
- Acknowledge that your employees’ views are essential.
- Ask your employees for input.
- Engage your employees on a personal level.
- Be respectful to your employees.
- Acknowledge your employees’ input.
3. Align your processes with your mission
Your company’s processes should be based on its mission and values. That way, you can bring your employees in direct contact with the essential aspects that make your company strong and unique.
Your mission should be reminded and discussed daily, and your employees should see how your company values affect and improve work processes. The more they work on their routines, the more they incorporate the company mission and values, and as a result, they will embrace your values and learn them by heart.
4. Celebrate achievements that align with the company mission
The best work comes from understanding your company’s mission and vision.
When you see an employee working according to the organizational mission, making tremendous efforts, and doing a good job, appreciate that effort. Remember that happy and motivated employees build a comfortable and healthy workspace that encourages people to share their ideas and views openly.
Programs that directly reward employee efforts will motivate employees to make more efforts to incorporate these healthy habits into their work schedules. So be sure to help your employees become more productive with better time and task management skills, conduct regular surveys to learn how they are feeling and what can be improved, and remember to celebrate effort, progress, and personal wins.
These tips will help you have more dedicated and happy employees who will engrain your company values in their hearts.
See more articles by Ender Cárdenas.
