D M J R M

You probably thought that I just gave you my password to my CRM system. If only it
were that easy to remember. No, the letters above stand for something much more
valuable than a password. They stand for perhaps the most important question a
good business leader should always be able to answer. They also stand for the
one question every employee should be asking of their employer and should
demand an answer from them.

That question? Does My Job Really Matter? I am convinced that the vast majority of problems that companies face with disgruntled, disengaged and disinterested
employees can be traced back to a failure on the part of the company to answer
and address this question at time of hire. I am also convinced that the
majority of workers (better than 68% by some surveys) who say that they don’t
enjoy the work that they do, are not happy in their jobs would feel differently
if they had asked this question of their employers.

In the award winning book, The Great Game of Business, Jack Stack took a low performing soon to be closed division of International Harvester and created a very
profitable employee owned company by making sure that all of the employees knew
that their jobs really did matter. An early proponent of open-book management
Stack knew that the only way his company could succeed was by making every
employee a stakeholder in the company. Weekly meetings were held, the company
balance sheet was explained and Stack and his management team made sure that
each and every employee understood his/her worth to the company.

If you are a business leader, look at your own company. Does every employee know their value? Does every employee feel that their job matters? As recruiters we find
it easy to sell an opportunity to a prospective candidate based on position,
career path, benefits etc. We find it even easier to sell the candidate on the
opportunity if we can show them where they fit into the organization, what
their value is and how much the job matters to the company.

As a worker, whether you are looking inside or outside your company for your next opportunity it is important that you get the answer to the question posed
above. In the interview you should ask not just what the job entails, but how
important it is to the company, where it fits into the overall goals for the
business, does it really matter.

If workers knew how important their jobs were would they be happier, more engaged, more productive? As a business leader I would like to think so. Telling employees
that their jobs really matter and showing them how much you value what they do
could go a long way to making “our people are our most important assets” much
more meaningful.

Now I need to find the password to my CRM system.

Comment by Mark Lennard on August 16, 2010 at 12:42pm: Great piece and totally agree.. As a business owner and director at MyResourcer.com it makes sense to ensure that my team are with me and understand how valued they are.

Without my team I have no business and hence who wouldn't want to ensure this happens? Complacency sets in when things are going well and business owners just see the profits without recognising who helped to achieve those profits.. when things are going bad some business owners tend to behave like ostriches and place their heads in the sand which does not help those staff who need leadership and motivation.

Comment by Nick Tubach on August 16, 2010 at 1:39pm: Thanks for the comments Mark. It does surprise me that something this simple could change the way most employees feel about the work that they do. If you knew how important your job was to your company would you feel differently about your job? This is true for any job at any level. If the job does not matter why does it exist?

Comment by Chuck Summerland on August 20, 2010 at 4:40pm: Hi Nick,

I really enjoyed your post. I believe that it is incredibly important that an employee knows their job matters. Sometimes we may all feel like it doesn’t and are there other things we should be doing with our life. I found that people develop a sense of identity which comes from knowing “who they are, how their world works and how they fit in with and related to the life around them.” Forming social connections with co-workers, understanding the organization, and understanding personal roles all add to a stronger work ethic and become more productive when they care about the company.