Four Strategies to Create a Culture of Accomplishment and Engage Employees

“Humans seek results for the sake of results, simply because we derive pleasure from accomplishment.” ( Happiness Research Institute, 2015).

This video about why you should make your bed went viral a few months ago. The basic reason behind it being this: by making your bed, you’ll “have accomplished the first task of the day.” This resonated with thousands and thousands of people who shared the video in every form of social media there is.

There’s something incredibly human about accomplishment – checking things off a list, getting things done. And making goals and reaching them is the fourth most important influencer in employee engagement according to the Happiness Research Institute.

Satisfaction derived from achieving goals depends, oftentimes, on who set the goal. So it’s not as easy as a jumping-through-hoops analogy with the manager at the top of a pyramid hollering down below.

Goal setting for employees is just as big a part of engagement as goal reaching. This goes back to the blog post from a couple of weeks ago about the importance employee influence has in employee engagement.

An organization’s leaders and senior management need to be the catalyst for goal alignment and working with employees to set goals and reach them. Strategic alignment entails trust, communication, accountability and feedback. When employees accomplish these goals, it’s important to celebrate the milestones. When a team flounders, as a leader, you have to regroup and learn from the setbacks. The dialogue between the team and manager has to be constant. And goals should be reached daily to boost team esteem and employee engagement.

Here are some tips on how to make reaching goals and accomplishment part of your every day engagement and company strategy:

1. Break big goals into small projects: It’s so much easier to feel a sense of accomplishment by getting over some speed bumps along the way, instead of only having the end goal in sight. Small celebrations, baby steps, however you want to call them, really work to keep employees on track and feeling that important sense of achievement.
2. Be available: A great leader is a guide. Constant feedback is needed to make sure the team is on track. This doesn’t mean, however, that you should slip into the pitfall of overseeing every aspect of the project. If your employees can smell what you’ve had for lunch on your breath, you’re too close.
3. Be clear: An organization’s mission statement and goals must be clear. Top management, frontline managers, and all organizational leaders must be able to communicate clearly what those goals are. If, with your team, you can build these goals together, better. If not, make sure you are clear about what you expect from the employees and how their roles are critical for company success.
4. Celebrate: Give credit to your team when they’ve done well. Celebrate small and big accomplishments. This creates a culture of appreciation. One of employees’ biggest grumbles is they don’t feel valued. Change the way the organization sheds light on the big, and small, achievements.

These four strategies can be implemented in your organization today when it comes to creating a culture of accomplishment and achievement. Employees need to feel like they’re getting somewhere to be truly engaged.