Recently I heard a presentation by Jim Gibbons, President & CEO of Goodwill Industries. In it he said that “every job matters.”
Every job has someone relying on the incumbent of the position to do their job well so that the other person can either:
- benefit or
- do their own job well.
Your client/customer is either internal or external.You serve (or produce for) the external client or someone who delivers to the external client. This is true whether you operate in the private, public or non profit sector.
This is a powerful concept to help your employees find meaning in their job. Ask them who their customers are. Ask them to whom doing their job well matters. Ask them how doing a good job will matter to these individuals, in other words, what value they add. Invite them to realize this value they add, not necessarily to the huge company company that employs them but rather to real people who depend upon their good performance.
This approach applies particularly to employees who work in the lower levels of the organization, those who work in the back office or on the assembly line or in the warehouse. They need a line of sight between what they do every day–no matter how repetitive and boring it might be–and the impact it has.
Like all of us, when they go home at the end of a work day they need to know that what they did today mattered…to someone.