Where do you get your sense of purpose in the workplace from?
Maybe it’s the purposeful work itself, or the challenge that it brings. Maybe it’s the fact that you’re able to help others. Or, maybe it comes from a sense of community with your colleagues.
It could be a combination of all of those factors.
Many companies emphasize the importance of the team having a common sense of purpose. But how does a company actually make that happen? When a company is made up of thousands of employees, or its workforce is distributed, how do you boost a sense of purpose and employee engagement on that scale?
Here you’ll find 12 actionable ways to help inspire a sense of purpose in the workplace.
1. Inspire Employees by Starting With “Why”
Too many companies only focus on what they do and how they do it.
What’s missing? The “Why.”
For Simon Sinek, the author of “Start With Why,” more companies should focus on why they do what they do. By defining your organization’s purpose, you can communicate this higher calling to your employees and use it as a guidepost for everything you do.
Here’s one of the best examples of purpose at work: Netflix’s culture deck was key to preserving their culture as they grew in their early years. Eventually, they released it to the public where it’s been seen over 15 million times on LinkedIn alone.
Another example was Holstee’s Manifesto, which was written by the company’s founders so they could define their own success. They eventually released their manifesto on their website. It went viral and has now been translated into 13 languages.
2. Foster a Sense of Purpose Outside of Work
When companies go all-in with instilling a sense of purpose at work they tend to overdo it and hammer it over the heads of their employees. They also tend to forget their employees have their own lives—and purpose—outside of work.
Organizations should be encouraging their employees to pursue their passions outside of work, and give them both the time and resources to do so.
For example, Basecamp, a project management software company, provides its employees with a $1000 annual continuing education allowance. You can also allow for flexible schedules to give your employees the ability to pursue their interests outside of work.
3. Make Work Matter
Managers and leaders need to understand the importance of the team having a sense of purpose.
Today’s purpose-driven employees don’t just want an important title and a nice salary from their job. They want to know how they contribute to the organization’s purpose.
As Daniel Pink, the author of “Drive: Self-Direction, Mastery & the Purpose Motive,” says, “When the profit motive becomes unmoored from the purpose motive, bad things happen.” Profit and purpose need to work hand-in-hand to keep employees motivated and boost employee engagement.
4. Ask: Where Do You Get Your Sense of Purpose in Work From?
Short-term goals can be great for motivating purpose-driven employees to reach a deadline. But what about long-term motivation?
Researcher Amy Wrzesniewski found that those who thought of their jobs as a calling were more satisfied than those who thought of it as just a job. She interviewed hospital janitors who believed their role went above cleaning and was about helping patients heal.
Asking employees what their sense of purpose in work is can unlock surprising reasons for why they’re motivated in their role.
If you’re using an employee communication tool like Beekeeper, you can get feedback from workers and use the results to:
- Better define their roles
- Adjust responsibilities to better fit their sense of purpose
- Make sure they’re engaged in their work
- Improve employee engagement strategies
5. Create Opportunities for Growth and Learning
One way to make employees feel like they matter is to invest in their education and training.
And that applies to all employees, not just a select few VPs. Offering growth opportunities to a select few can make others feel undervalued.
Investing in a culture of continuous learning will:
- Give employees more confidence in their abilities
- Encourage employees to take on challenging tasks
Along with one-on-one support, powerful communications software can foster that culture of learning. And remember: learning and development don’t always have to be in the form of a manual or standard course. Gamification is a fun and effective way to engage employees.
6. Make Collaboration Easy
Collaboration highlights the importance of the team having a common sense of purpose. If a team collaborates on a project and they don’t have a clear sense of why they’re doing it, the project isn’t likely to succeed.
This is particularly important to consider in a post-COVID world when so many employees are working remotely. Remote workers don’t always have the opportunity for spontaneous collaboration. They rely on communication tools to reach out to colleagues and find mentors.
For remote workers, successful collaboration is largely dependent on the tools they use.
Using WhatsApp is a bad idea if you’re concerned about data security and scalability. When you’re choosing collaboration software, keep in mind:
- How and how often employees will interact with the team app on a daily basis
- How easy the app is to implement
- The app’s security and integrations capabilities
7. Give Rewards and Recognition
It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind. That’s why recognizing employees for their contributions to the team and company helps them understand why their work matters.
We’re motivated by how our purposeful work helps those around us. Knowing that what we do daily makes a difference in encouraging employees to have a greater sense of purpose.
It’s not just the big achievements that deserve recognition. Small-scale accomplishments matter, too. But it can be hard to keep track of those in a big company. If your team is distributed, celebrating in person isn’t always an option.
That’s where software and automation can make a big difference. With a tool like Xoxoday, you can automatically send gift cards to employees to celebrate meaningful work anniversaries. With Beekeeper, you can survey an employee’s peers to ask what they enjoy most about working with their colleagues. Then, you can use that information to post a virtual thank you card.
8. Focus on Frontline Workers
The majority of advice about motivating employees assumes that those employees work in an office. But what about frontline workers?
Finding the right strategy for motivating frontline workers and giving them a sense of purpose can be difficult. Without the proper tools, frontline workers remain disconnected from the organization they work for. And given the stress caused by the pandemic, many frontline workers are taking labor action to fight for their rights.
Keeping frontline employees motivated starts with empowerment. With a tool like Webalo, for example, process engineers are able to update apps remotely without relying on corporate resources. MobieTrain is a mobile-first microlearning platform that lets frontline workers improve their skills and knowledge wherever they are.
9. Make Safety a Top Priority
When employees feel that the company they work for prioritizes their safety, they’re much more likely to be invested in the meaningful work they do.
Improving safety starts with using the right communication tools.
At Beekeeper, we’ve helped our customers measurably improve workplace safety.
Our customer, Bad Kleinkirchheimer Bergbahnen automated their accident reporting with workflows. They are Carinthia’s largest cable car company. Before Beekeeper, their first aid team wrote accident reports by hand.
These paper-based records were super hard to track down and organize efficiently. Often they would get lost in the shuffle.
Now their first aid team can access a digital accident report form directly on their phones:
They fill out the form and upload a photo
When the form gets submitted, it gets transformed into a PDF (like magic)
The PDF is emailed to the office admin and comms teams
They can also automatically upload each PDF to the Document Library so they can easily reference it later
“Beekeeper has transformed the way that we run our accident report process. It saves us lots of time and gives us the peace of mind knowing that we have accurate, and easily accessible records of any accidents that take place. And this all in accordance with legal requirements. The ability to upload photos directly to the form and for it to be automatically transformed to a PDF and sent to the relevant places is fantastic!”
– Hansjörg Pflauder, CEO at Bad Kleinkirchheimer Bergbahnen
10. Create More Opportunities for Submitting Feedback
In order to give employees a sense of purpose in the workplace, they have to feel their feedback is welcome and needed.
It’s helpful to use a survey planning checklist to make sure that you’re:
- Asking questions based on specific objectives
- Using the right tools to conduct surveys on a regular basis
- Using the right types of surveys to reach employees
Frequent surveys show employees that their feedback will have an impact. They can also give you real data for employee engagement and satisfaction.
11. Involve Your Company Cheerleaders
Every organization has its cheerleaders. They are the people who:
- Are natural leaders within their team
- Speak up most during meetings, often to express what others are thinking
- Organize non-work events for their colleagues
- Are most likely to be the ‘face’ of the company
When we’ve lost a sense of purpose in our work, looking to a cheerleader we know can rekindle our motivation. If they’re fired up about their job, maybe we can be, too.
But often, the reach that cheerleaders have is limited to their immediate co-workers. By giving cheerleaders a platform on a company-wide communication tool, you can inspire less motivated workers to follow their example.
12. Make Sure Company Values Are Still Relevant
Finally, it’s worth asking the obvious:
Are the values our company drafted 10 years ago still what we want them to be today?
We’re living in a post-COVID world where the very definition of work is changing by the month:
- Remote work is the new normal
- Work/life balance isn’t what it used to be
- Safety and employee mental health awareness are new priorities
In many cases, company values are abstract enough to be able to withstand current events.
But priorities change. Maybe flexible scheduling and freedom to choose your own hours transforms from being a perk to an important value. Maybe improving employee access to mental health resources becomes a key value, too.
Values are what give a company and its employees a sense of purpose in the workplace. Make sure those values still matter.
Download our “15 Best Practices for Employee Engagement” eBook to learn more.
Most Frequently Asked Questions
Having clear reasons for what one has to do can increase one’s intrinsic motivation.
This blog post covers 12 ways to create a sense of purpose at work. Some of the solutions are making work matter, creating more opportunities for submitting feedback and focusing on frontline workers
