“I have a clear understanding of the goals and priorities of the organization.”
Would your employees agree with this statement? This is one of the questions we ask employees in our engagement assessment because it relates to a key driver of engagement … the feeling of having meaningful work that contributes to what’s most important in the organization. Interestingly, among all of the measures in our engagement assessment, this item consistently surfaces as one of the lowest scoring!
Not surprising. It’s estimated that in most organizations, only about 5% to 14% of employees understand their organization’s direction and strategy. When employees rate this item low, they may be conveying that:
Their leaders don’t communicate this information, or information isn’t shared frequently enough.
They don’t know how to translate the information they get into what it means for them personally or professionally.
Or (and this is the worst case scenario) they feel their manager doesn’t think they are important enough for this type of communication.
In other words, they see their manager as believing that employees should just do their job and they don’t need to know anything else, essentially sending the message that employees aren’t worthy of hearing important information.
The fact is, your employees want to be “in the know” about what matters most in your organization. They are interested in the direction and goals of your company and why these goals are important. AND they want to know that what they do on a daily basis has some purpose behind it.