Companies love to share their goals and objectives with customers and third parties. This is why they appoint – and aren’t afraid to splurge on – marketing teams, brand managers, and PR specialists. Sure, they’re doing a fantastic job at reaching out to customers, but what about the people working hard to build the brand from behind the scenes? What about the employees?

It’s interesting to see that companies are often good at communicating their brand messages to their external market through sales processes and marketing efforts, but when it comes to communicating or aligning these messages internally, they fall short of expectations.

How can you avoid this and align your employees with your company vision and mission? By taking a step back to first understand what company vision and mission mean, why they are important, and how you can align them internally as well as externally.

What Is Company Vision and Mission?

Though they are often confused with one another, vision and mission statements are two different things. Here is a short definition and examples of each.

A vision statement describes what the company wants to be after it has achieved its mission. Often, the vision goes beyond the company’s aspirations and describes where the community – or even world – will be as a result of the company’s products or services.

Vision statement examples:

1. 1. 1. Woolworths:

To be one of the world’s most responsible retailers.

1. 1. 2. Westpac:

To be a great Australasian company. 

1. 1. 3. Baker’s Delight:

To be the world’s best fresh bread retailer.

 

A mission statement, on the other hand, is action-oriented and describes the company’s purpose and responsibility towards its audience.  In a sense, a mission statement is the roadmap leading the company closer to achieving its vision.

Mission statement examples:

1. 1. 1. Westpac:

To become number one for customer service. 

1. 1. 2. Woolworths:

To deliver the best in convenience, value and quality for our customers.

1. 1. 3. Baker’s Delight:

To produce quality bread, provide superior service and create delight for all stakeholders.

 

There are plenty of examples of company mission and value statements that you can look at for inspiration.

Nevertheless, whatever your company vision and mission statements are, it’s essential that you communicate them to employees. This is the only way to ensure your vision and mission are aligned with employees’ goals and motivations. And once they are aligned you can expect to accomplish your goals sooner rather than later.

Why Is It Important to Align Employees with Company Messages?

Aligning your employees with your vision and mission is paramount to its long-term success. Even more so when you have a small to medium-sized business where you need employees to wear lots of hats and you want them to really believe that what they’re doing is making a positive impact on the company and community.

By aligning your employees with your vision and mission you will see an increase in employee engagement, higher productivity, and better customer service – not to mention greater team coordination, communication, and buy-in. When employees share the same goals as you, achieving these goals is a whole lot easier and all the more rewarding.

What Does a Misaligned Company Look Like?

Misalignment within a company can cause a major disruption in business processes and has a negative impact on employees. Namely, it brings about dissatisfaction, affects employee engagement, leads to poor internal messaging, creates a less productive work environment, and results in employees not believing in the brand and what it stands for.

But what does a misaligned company actually look like?

Well, one example would be a training and education company that promotes learning and development but does not offer training or personal development courses to its employees. Another instance of misalignment would be a healthy food company that is an advocate for healthy eating but doesn’t offer fresh food options at the office.

It’s only natural for employees in situations like these to drift away from the company vision and mission. There is little reason for them to stand behind something when the company is doing nothing to earn their trust and loyalty.

How Can You Improve Your Internal and External Messaging?

There are numerous ways you can live and breathe your company messages internally as well as externally:

• Define your company vision and mission in writing.
• List who within the organisational structure will be in charge of specific activities.
• Develop an action plan for achieving the company vision and mission.
• Communicate the vision and mission to employees and describe their role in achieving them.
• Hold training sessions that relate to the company vision and mission.
• Share progress reports with employees regularly and recognise employee efforts.
• Be open about your company’s goals during the recruitment process to attract the right talent.

OUR COMMUNICATION TIPS: We recently shared some great tips on the benefits of strong internal communication with employees, as well as some suggestions for ways that companies can do this, which you can find here.

Want to Know How to Improve your own Company Messaging?

If you want to discuss how you can refine and improve your company messaging internally, let us know. We’d love to help you. Email us at projects@commongoalconsulting.com.au, or visit our website at www.commongoalconsulting.com.au for more information about how we can help.