Building a Strategic Framework: Helping Employees Understand the Company's Mission and Goals

Employees provide the fuel for every organization, and the performance of each individual does impact the bottom line, as well as the company's capacity to serve its mission and meet its business objectives. In many companies, however, employees cannot independently assess how their own efforts specifically contribute toward these overarching goals. While such information may not be critical to the daily performance of their jobs, employees who lack this knowledge are at risk for becoming disengaged and apathetic — at which point, according to one author, "success is a crap shoot." It is incumbent upon managers, therefore, to convey this information in clear, respectful, and accessible ways. This ExecBlueprint discusses how HR can support managers in the process of helping employees understand and serve the core values of their organizations. The authors share multiple ways that this can be accomplished: in frequent company meetings and training sessions, via the intranet and other company communications channels, and, perhaps most importantly, in performance reviews.