Your employees are key to your business’s success. Creating a working environment that inspires and motivates your staff to do great work will enable your business to achieve its goals.

Your purpose — the why

Each of us has a sense of purpose, or meaning, and that’s what drives us each day and helps us achieve our aims and goals.

It’s the same in business.

When many of us describe our businesses, we tend to focus on the ‘what’ — what it does, what your customers want and how what you do benefits them.

The purpose goes beyond economic considerations. It provides a compelling statement that describes the WHY of your business. It’s something aspirational — how people can make a difference. It lends a sense of meaning behind what we all do in the workplace.

It expresses your impact on the lives of your customers and clients — or whoever you serve.

If you want your people to connect and identify with what you want to achieve as an organisation, you need to have a clearly defined purpose. And, of course, it’s not enough to just have it drafted — it has to be shared and be ingrained in everything you do.

A study by EY (April 2018) shows firms that prioritise business purpose are likely to grow more quickly that those without a clearly articulated purpose. And you should be able to express this in two sentences at the most.

If you have a purpose already, then ask your employees for feedback – does it motivate and inspire them? If you don’t, ask for their help in crafting one.

Some great examples of business purpose from the Best 100 Small Companies 2020 to work for are:

“To make renewable energy affordable and available to all, creating a Britain that is powered by clean, renewable energy.” Pure Planet

“We exist to create world class spaces that inspire and excite” The Furniture Practice

At Align People HR our purpose is to “help businesses to grow by creating great workplaces for employees". This explains why what the HR support we offer makes a difference.

If you’d like to chat things through, please just get in touch.