And are you supporting them so they feel committed?
I was talking with a client over a breakfast meeting just last week and the subject of employee commitment came up. My client, the CEO, was concerned because he felt that employees were not as committed to the organization as he would like them to be. As the organization has grown leaps and bounds over the last couple of years, he felt that he has been increasingly out of touch with employees and that commitment he felt he had from them just is not as solid as it used to be. Certainly he was attributing much of this perceived lack of commitment to be his problem and felt that there was something he must have done, or not done, that reduced the commitment from employees.
In discussing further the changes that have occurred in his organization over the last couple of years, I asked my client these questions:
- Do employees know what their roles and responsibilities are in the expanded organization? (Certainly roles and responsibilities must have changed over the last couple of years.)
- Do employees understand the vision for the organization and the long-term strategic goals?
- Do employees understand how they roles and responsibilities are tied to achieving the vision and long-term goals of the organization?
- How does an employee know if they have contributed successfully to achieving the goals of the organization?
My client needed time to consider these questions. He felt that he really couldn’t answer whether or not employees could answer these questions with any certainty, which concerned him. However, he was ready to move forward with ensuring that he could answer these questions the next time we got together!
Employees need to be supported to feel committed to the organization. This means they need to understand the vision and long-term strategic goals of the organization and how they are important to achieving that vision and those goals. When employees can answer these questions, they have a deeper sense of their importance within the organization and how they help the organization to achieve its goals and vision. And, they are more committed to the organization overall.
