The Importance of Employee Impact
Why is the feeling of making an impact so important?
There are two dimensions to making an impact:
- Sense of accomplishment — Knowing you’ve completed something helps create a feeling of autonomy and control over one’s work. It makes things real and possible, creating the motivation to put in more effort and achieve greater things.
- Feeling of contribution to a larger goal — Acknowledging that your work is important in creating the bigger picture is important. Whether you work within product development, admin support, or people operations, knowing that what you do connects to a company’s end product helps you be more committed and dedicated to your task.
Building a Culture of Recognizing Contributions and Impact
CONNECTING THE DOTS:
Adding Impact as Part of a Job Description
When creating and advertising a role, think about how it contributes to the company’s overall success. Make it distinct and clear in the job description; this will not only help with onboarding, but will also maintain a message of the role’s impact from the beginning of the hiring process.
Emphasize Impact via Regular Communication
Highlight employees or show team praise every week by expressing how their work has helped the company achieve important milestones. For instance, the recruiting team hired amazing new employees to help more projects run smoothly and simultaneously. Or a certain team came up with new ideas and planned out new product features during a productive meeting. Make impact an integral part of workplace culture.
Don’t Forget the Indirect Impact
There are some roles that do not have an obvious effect on the end goal, but are still enabling and supporting roles nevertheless. Don’t forget to praise and celebrate these teams as well!
MAKE ACCOMPLISHMENTS HAPPEN
Set Clear Goals with Clear Measurables
It’s easier to achieve something with a clear goal in mind and developing stepping stones to get there. With a coherent vision, you’re able to organize your work and focus on the right measurables.
Offer Support
Set your team for success! Make sure they have everything they need in terms of resources and knowledge in order to accomplish their goals. Ask in the beginning and offer along the way, letting them reorganize priorities if needed. This is different from micromanaging, just be there to support them when needed.
Break Bigger Goals into Achievable Chunks
Instead of waiting to achieve one huge goal, it helps to create a sense of impact by meeting smaller milestones. Break down the larger steps into smaller pieces with deadlines and schedules. It’ll make progress even more obvious and culminate into one large accomplishment little by little.
Remember…
- Communicate, communicate, communicate! As a manager or director, it is your responsibility to create understanding and clarify how everyone’s contributions maintain company success.
- Paint a big picture. Understanding the purpose and goal for your own employees helps to connect the dots towards individual contribution and impact.
