“Aligned workers are more collaborative, innovative, empowered, and filled with optimistic purpose about their company’s future.”
Slack and Global Webindex released a report covering the complex state of work today to find out how attitudes, experiences, and core beliefs among employees affect worker engagement and organizational success. The state of work is “people-powered” in the age of transformative technology.
Worker alignment was key among the findings: “Without insight into that organizational vision, people struggle in the workplace.” The report laid out eight rules of engagement in the context of employee alignment to create a culture of innovation, engagement, and ultimately more growth and revenue.
Just as Deloitte outlined in its Global Human Capital Trends report an employee’s sense of belonging to a workplace is critical to organizational success and consists of three key attributes: comfort, connection, and contribution. An “aligned” worker feels connected to the organization and agrees with the statement “I feel aligned with my company’s vision, values, and operating principles.”
Employees want (and even need) to be involved in the big picture. They need the support and understanding in order to perform their best, to be engaged, and to go the extra mile.
Those who feel disconnected from their organization are classified as “unaligned” with responses linked to low morale and a lack of innovation at work.
- Invest in alignment
Aligned workers are more collaborative, innovative, empowered, and filled with optimistic purpose about their company’s future.
- Lead with strategy and vision
Workers who understand their company’s strategy are more likely to rate their company positively in: collaboration, employee morale, and workplace culture.
- Communicate strategy monthly
Monthly communication of company strategy is directly correlated with people rating their company as “excellent” against career progression, collaboration, communication, effective use of technology, productivity, morale, training; work-life balance; culture; and openness to feedback. Employees who are frequently updated are more likely to view their company as agile and open to new directions.
- Allow people to be more human at work
When employees are able to bring their full selves to work, they are more likely to bring innovative and creative ideas to the table and thrive.
- Empower all leaders to share the strategic vision but start at the top
Employees feel more in the know about the company’s vision when they hear it from CEOs or executives. Three-quarters of knowledge workers who receive strategy communications from the CEO feel that they understand the company strategy.
- Use meetings and collaborative channels to share strategy
To uphold inclusivity, allocate time for efficient, scheduled meetings to keep employees up to date and supplement in person meetings with a clear communication channel. Streamlining channels for important company updates leaves little room for error.
- Aggregate tools
Digital tools will only improve in the future: now is the time to aggregate and consolidate, streamline and clean house. Avoid supplementing challenges with dozens of quick fix, “freemium” solutions that ultimately clutter and further distract employees with “context switching” that happens when floating between multiple apps and devices throughout the day.
