A Case study of Morale and Motivation: Go the Extra Mile

I have recently finished my Year in Industry and have had some time to reflect on what I would call my first ‘real’ job.

I say that because I found myself working in Marketing, the area of business that I want to be a part of following my brilliant year at Salts Healthcare. We all know how important experience is in the job market and the Year in Industry is a perfect opportunity to experience the world of work and gain an understanding of how a business operates, and in my case has given me direction for my career.

I would like to open up my Tick Marketing account by sharing something with you from my time at Salts Healthcare, so here goes…

Introduction to an Open Mission statement

Mission Statement: To effectively introduce a Mission statement into a board of directors who cannot see its relevance or day-to-day benefit.

It seems that throughout my Year in Industry this year, the term mission statements has been bounding around a lot. This has often been because I believe that it is fundamental in communicating your objectives to employees, whereas other do not. Looking at mission statements in real life is completely different from looking at them through academic textbooks and papers. Business texts are more often than not, in favour of a Mission or a Vision statement, but in practice, many organisations see it as another fluffy admin task, that the marketing department can create when they’ve finished doing all their colouring in.

Internal Marketing, why bother?

Throughout University, and many modules of different marketing formats, one area that has never been covered, is internal marketing, and the benefit it can have on the both motivation and communication given to your employees. Whilst I agree that external marketing will always have monetary gains, from experience, I believe that this is dependent upon the Industry you are in, and that in some industry’s, especially the heavily manufacturing industry, internal marketing could be as/if not more important.

When I refer to internal marketing, I believe it can be summarised as: an employee motivational tool to effectively satisfy its customers. So it is not just about displaying information about the business, or about news and events that are happening (although they do play an important role), it is about providing your employees with information that will focus their judgments and decisions on customer satisfaction. Having the recognition and therefore the motivation to go beyond your day-to-day duty, could change the perspective a customer has of your organisation. If this can be achieved through simple recognition, and a greater emphasis on pushing key information to your employees, then this should be facilitated within your organisation. As identified by ‘thesocialworkplace’, employee recognition is not just about employee motivation, or working harder, but could also give an increased employee retention, which is now very hard to sustain within the UK’s ‘itchy feet’ culture.

So does your organisation focus heavily on external marketing? Does it not do any marketing at all? Would you, as an employee feel more wanted and valued if you had access to up to date information or are you in a position to offer greater information to your employees? Internal marketing will only create a more informed workforce, and the time and resources to manage such a project, are far smaller than the potential ROI that it could have.

It’s not a complicated topic, but it is one that I think is often overlooked because it is not seen as a physical or monetary gain, and this is a real shame.

James

Ps. I’m as shocked as you are about how serious I was just then. My comical genius will be back soon, but just then, for five minutes, I enjoyed being serious.