When is a job not just a job? When does a career become a vocation? Where do you link customer service with service to humanity? The answers to these questions are highly individual and becoming increasingly blurred as organizations and the people in them change.
Beyond pay, most workers will cite that what makes them happiest is that they have a meaningful level of contribution to their organization or enterprise, that they can take an active role in shaping the outcomes and results. Others love their career when it strikes them that they are fulfilling their unique interests in the world and growing. Others find challenges in their work that help them to develop skills they would not have developed anywhere else in the spectrum of human life, opening new aptitudes of capability, learning and interaction with others.
Education and business is another world that is becoming more blurred day by day. Every business has an interest in educating employees when these employees are the vested intelligence capital of the company.
So, what is the difference between those organizations that offer meaningful work with purpose and those that don't? Here are some shaping considerations starting with the top.
Leadership: "Nothing is more important says University of Toronto Professor Gareth Morgan, "than developing leaders in organizations. If you get the leadership right, organizational performance will follow.
Professor Morgan claims there is a revolution going on about "how we develop people. Most of the corporate development has been largely behavior based rather than results based. He related research that showed companies who increased profits by 66% (10% per year) as their positive organizational climate increased. Clearly, treating people well pays off.
"Corporate strategies Professor Morgan recounts "used to come from a corporate retreat. Now most strategies come from operational breakthroughs. We're in a stage where many of these breakthroughs will occur BELOW the leadership level.
We're seeing the evidence from many years of overpaid bad dog CEO's.
Hmmm&..Could empowering people have something to do with it? Look at this next category.
This area consistently scores the worst. Most organizations showing a glaring need to focus on better people management, but not yesterday's people management. If the bottom line is employees engaged in meaningful and purposeful work supported by a cohesive and focused management practice, there is no reason for outmoded management practices that deflate rather than inspire, discourage rather than encourage.
Some organizations have managed to be successful despite their bad management. But as the saying goes "The chickens come home to roost eventually. For today positive management is the only sustainable solution. Churning trained people out of your organization will only cost you - now or later. The average cost of losing an employee are 1 to 2 times his or her annual salary. Are you competing to keep your staff?
No employee needs to be loaded down with the frustration of bad management and low growth opportunities in this day and age. It's simply short-sighted and na ve.
Professor Morgan states "The real learning is occurring in the operational side of the business.
Organizations simply cannot afford to not have time to learn.
Learning includes making mistakes and correcting them and solving problems with urgency.
Learning engages multiple senses, hearing, collaboration, and engages innate curiousity.
Action learning is very important today. You start with a problem or challenge using a group process. This generates knowledge-sharing and new questions and a chance to reflect on them. The realness factor is that the learning is in the process. Once the problem is identified, the solution identifiers become the implementers. Other key roles such as implementation coaches become an important integrator. They help increase the learning commitment and build the skills along the way.
The end-note is this. If you want engaged employees who are meaningfully involved in your company, look to the support factors above as essential components.
Arupa Tesolin is a Speaker, Trainer and Innovation Coach. Her company Intuita provides live learning, e-learning courses and a Retail Training Store for innovation performance, management, workforce, career and personal development. Arupa is the author of the newly released international book "Ting - A Surprising Way to Listen to Intuition & Do Business Better. Visit www.intuita.com for details.
