Make your company’s vision real to employees

Too often people get caught up in the daily routine of their jobs and lose track of the importance of the work they do and the role they play in helping the company achieve its vision. The result can be a career turning into a job, a job becoming work and work feeling like a grind.

When this spiral down progression occurs, it’s easy for employees to become less focused, feel they are being taken for granted and question the relevance of the work they do. The next thing you know, good talent is walking out your door.

As employers, we need to own the role of visionary. Find ways to help employees see the bigger picture and understand how their value and the work they do is needed for the bigger picture to be successful.

Accomplishing this is not easy. It takes creative thinking, planning, risk taking, time, applied sociology and psychology, a sense of humor, a bit of mind reading and focus on the end results.

Once you put your vision together, communicate it to your employees and let them do what they need to do in order to turn the vision into reality.

A company’s vision statement is a key building block for everything that happens in the business, long into the future.

Although sometimes thought to be interchangeable with a company’s mission statement, the vision statement articulates the mental picture of what you expect the company to look like over the next three, five or more years. It defines your ambitions and aspirations.

On the other hand, a mission statement describes what the company does, and for whom.

Walgreens’ vision and mission statements are a good example of how these two elements are connected, but very individual.

Our vision: To be the first choice in health and daily living for everyone in America and beyond.