How to achieve (and maintain) a mission-driven workforce
Ensuring that your employees feel cared for increases the likelihood that they truly care about the work they’re doing.
What if every day you did something that mattered?
At GreatCall, that’s the question we ask prospective employees. We come to work every day to help empower independence, health and wellness, and we want our employees to strive for the same results. In order to impact the lives—and health—of our customers, it’s imperative to have people that embody meaningful work and embrace the mission of wellness and changing the lives of older adults.
In recent years, companies have prioritized the well-being of their employees, viewing it now as a “must have” versus a “nice to have.” Whether you are implementing workplace wellness initiatives, unique benefits or development opportunities, ensuring that your employees feel cared for increases the likelihood that they truly care about the work they’re doing and the customers they are serving.
Related: Employee happiness: More important than pay?
Start with a vision
You must have people on your team that want to do meaningful work, and for that to happen, you need to create a vision and nurture an environment that invites growth, mindfulness and compassion. Creating real change requires a healthy injection of caring, not just for customers, but for employees as well.
To start, you must develop a clear definition of what meaningful work entails for your company. For us, it means finding fulfillment in helping others, creating products and services that can change lives and setting a standard of top-tier care and attention. Each workplace is different, however, so take the time to determine what meaningful work means for you and your company, share your vision with the rest of the leadership team and actively encourage them to participate. Just as getting a new initiative off the ground requires leaders who have faith in its success, so to does building a culture of meaningful work. It is vital that your senior-level employees are willing and eager to participate.
It’s incredibly important for businesses to encourage their employees, at all levels, to live a meaningful life and in doing so, challenge them to define what is truly meaningful to them. Remember that in empowering employees to embody meaning, you must think beyond traditional wellness. An employee’s well-being, which translates directly into their work, can encompass physical, mental and even financial health.
Once you’ve achieved a workplace environment you’re proud of, how do you sustain it?
You have to focus on both your current team as well as potential hires. Your current employees must help drive home the importance of meaningful work for it truly to become a part of your culture. As you bring in new talent, it is important to hire people who feel the same way and thrive on personal connection, have a true belief in the company’s mission and the motivation to make their workplace a productive, safe and thriving environment.
Transparency and collaboration are crucial to success. The concept of making decisions in a conference room, with no input from the people who are affected by changes created by those decisions, is a distorted reality. Your broader team—both executives and the wider workforce—should have a hand in decision making, particularly when those decisions impact culture.
To foster this transparent, collaborative workplace, make sure all employees are cared for and listened to. From C-Suite executives to hourly employees, treat all employees with the same amount of respect and ensure that they treat each other that way as well. Help them make meaningful change and offer things that employees cannot find at other organizations in your field, such as great benefits, generous time off, and of course, company transparency.
Offering the most sought-after benefits requires finding out what employees want. Whether it be the newest trend in fitness classes or additional amenities to the office, keeping your ears open to suggestions is always important.
When your employees feel comfortable coming to you with suggestions, don’t be afraid to introduce these new programs. Sure, they might fail – but they also might greatly succeed. Whether it be meditation, open office hours with executives, or a financial planning training, initiating programs that focus on the physical, mental and financial health of employees are critical to maintaining a culture of wellness. Just because a program hasn’t been done before, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it. And just because a program doesn’t match what we first think of when we hear wellness, doesn’t mean that it won’t impact health.
On the flip side, if something isn’t working, change it. Set measurable, relevant goals at the start of the program, and track metrics to determine success. If consistent pain points continue to appear, incorporate changes where necessary. Above all, be flexible.
For anyone leading an organizational change towards meaningful work, it is crucial to reinforce the vision in everything you do. Just as you make time for the things that ground you, enable your employees to do the same.
How can you tell if your mission is being embraced? How do you track progress?
Obtain employee and customer feedback. Once your initiatives are off the ground, make sure you’re checking in with your employees. What’s working? What’s not? What needs to be updated? Equally as important is customer service feedback. Are customers happy with their interactions with employees? Working in such a customer-oriented field, it’s critical that employees are not only treating their coworkers well, but they’re treating their customers well and ensuring that they’re having the best possible experience. This is more likely to happen when employees are happy in their day-to-day lives.
Pay close attention to employee retention. When there is turnover, find out why. What could your company and leadership be doing better to keep your employees and customers coming back? What could you be doing that makes employees excited to go to work every day, and remind them that their work is valuable?
Obtain and leverage metrics. If you’re working with both feedback and data, you can refine your vision of what success will look like and how you can measure it.
Don’t get comfortable. Without ongoing feedback and reinforcement, your plan won’t stay on track. It’s not about knowing all the answers, but working through the unknown and finding the resources you need.
Once you’ve mapped out your mission and goals, you can start to bring in employees who share and understand your mission. If your people are passionate about maintaining a thriving work environment, this will carry through to their work, regardless of what level they are at in the organization. Be in touch with all employees about what’s working, and what they want to see change. Adjust and improve as needed in order to cultivate an environment of true meaningful work, because a happy and healthy workforce is the vehicle necessarily to sustaining a happy and healthy customer base.
Lynn Herrick is chief operating officer at GreatCall.
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