It’s usually said that mission statements motivate employees thus every organisation needs to have one. Some studies indicate that a clear mission statement motivates employees to enhance their better performance compared to the performance of employees without motivation statements. My question is, is this true? This paper has tried to analyse how employees are motivated to work by the mission statement as well as the requirements in composition of the mission statement to enhance its role in motivation.
For a mission statement to be effective in motivating employees and in other roles it plays, it has to be prepared in a way that it’s clear, and free from confusion. A good mission statement should be made in a way that, both the mission values and mission objectives are incorporated, and this has been discussed showing important elements which also need to be incorporated in a mission statement to enhance its effectiveness. The paper has also discussed other related roles of a mission statement in an organization.
A mission statement is a short statement which should always be clear and states the organisation’s purpose which enhances that the employees and the clients of the organisation are informed on the organisation’s purpose. A clearly made mission statement has a positive impact on the organization, since it encourages the business employees to work hard. The results of employees’ efforts and hard work ensures that the business clients are handled the best way, having their needs met, and this enhances the business progress since it’s clients are maintained and new ones received as a result of good work. This encourages the company’s effective operations, and subsequent expansion and progress of the Company. In my case, I would like to use Belvo Learning College to support this explanation.
The College Mission statement is to produce competent, innovative and morally upright graduates who can use these values for both individual and society benefit. This mission statement is set in order to clearly demonstrate the need for competence, innovation and moral values to both an individual as well as the society. (Graham 1999). The College being a learning institution, knew that the institution would form a very important base using the mission statement for the students by providing them with knowledge about the need for competency, innovation as well as the need for good morals not only for them, but also for the society they live in when in school and after graduation.
When setting a mission statement, it’s always good to ensure that the mission statement accurately explains the reason for the organisation’s existence and its inspirational achievements. It’s always very important to point out the organisation’s values, work and nature.
When setting a mission statement, one should ensure that he/she resonates with people working in the organisation and for the organisation. This is because not only does a mission statement give the purpose to its client, but also motivates the organisation’s employees to for the best as per the mission statement. When the mission statement used as an example in this paper was being set, staff, students and other volunteers were involved and each of them was required to draft a word or phrase in respect to the College, and everyone in the College was given a chance to give his or her views. From these drafts and views editing was done to give the current mission statement.
This involvement of both staff and clients enhances their involvement in the mission as well as enabling them to commit themselves. This enhances cooperation of everyone in the organisation as a result of their participation, thus ensuring effective working in the organisation. This is because every individual who participates in development of a mission statement fells honoured as a member of the organization, and this is reflected to their participation in the organizations operations and practices, where they do the best of their capability to ensure the organization progress.
A well supported mission statement has better effects in any organization’s operations, unlike a mission statement that is not supported. When deciding on the mission statement to use in your organisation, it’s good to include elements to support mission accomplishment. These element include the kind of business and the product, services and market, because the mission statements varies depending on the type of business, the products and services which it handles, and the type of market the business associates with when marketing its goods and services. It should be clear on the kind of clients to deal with.
Examples of clients include patients in cases of healthcare and medical organisations, students in cases of schools, colleges or universities, consumers in cases of manufacturing and retailing organisation among others. This enables the organisation to get idea on how to handle the kind of clients thus knowing what to incorporate in the mission statement.
The responsibilities are required to motivate both the clients as well as employees, as they feel secure with the commitment of the organisation to be responsible for their needs. For example in the mission statement that I gave as an example, the students get motivated to enrol in the college, since they are assured of competency, ability to innovate and to create new ideas as well as being sustained in an environment with inculcated moral values. Since this is what the students would have wanted, they are assured that the college is responsible thus able to meet their needs. In cases where the mission statement is ambiguous, it’s hard to tell the organisation’s responsibility thus affecting the motivation of their clients, and their willingness to be associated with the organization.
A good mission statement should be set up in a short statement. A short mission statement is described by not more than five sentences ensuring a mission statement is short enhances better understanding of the statement. The understanding of the mission statement should be achieved not only by the clients and employees but also any visitor a person who comes across the statement.
A good mission statement should be set up in a manner that it has room for changes that keep arising in the organisation’s goods selling or services offering, or in change of clients. This is because; an organization is always aimed at getting better in terms of size and the financial position. This change allows changes in the products and services the organisation deals with, in terms of variety, for example when an organization changes to deal with more varieties of its goods and services, as well as the number and the variety of clients the organisation, where a business can change to deal with a higher number of its clients.
Going back to the example of the Belvo learning college mission statement, the statement is adjustable to contain the newly developed education programs within the institution as well, the diversifying fields which new students are being enrolled. This is because being a higher education institution more new programs are expected to be developed in the institution, to ensure that the arising world needs are catered for. This is achieved by training a higher number of students.
Despite the fact that a mission statement is usually very short, it contains a lot about an organization. It should be noted that an organisation’s mission statement should be able to define the business at all levels showing what the organisation is what the organisation does and the reasons for doing so. All this is contained in a good mission statement, and a person or client who gets a look at the organization’s mission statement for the first time, can easily learn a lot about the organization, including the practices the organization carries out. Thus it is important to produce a good mission statement for your organisation.
There can be confusion in an organisation as a result of combining statements of values and those of objective. There should always be clarity between these statements to enhance the effectiveness of mission statement. In the example, I used that is mission statement, their values are excellence, Academic freedom, ensuring self reliance, giving equal opportunities to all students, moral integrity, self reliance innovation, creativity, truth and professionalism.
On the other hand, the College objectives are learning, research, teaching and community service, to support both staff and student’s welfare services, to enhance efficient management by innovating human resource to improve on dissemination, research participation and knowledge preservation, to create new programmes and to add new facilitation which in turn will enhance higher education chances, among others. This has been set to ensure that the College values are different from its objectives. With such clarity between the two, an organisation can be run effectively since both the employees and the clients can have a clear picture of what they need to achieve, and what they expect in turn.
This clearly shows that a well drawn mission statement can motivate employees in an organisation. This is true because each employee gets to know what is expected from him or her, thus striving to achieve, it. In organisations without mission statements, employees would not be motivated to work like the ones with a mission statement, since they tend to act as if they do not know their work and the need for the work.
The mission statement thus gives the relationship between the employees, the organisation, as well as the clients, showing what the client expects from the organisation and its employee as well as what is expected from the employees. This creates a link between the organization, employer, employees, and the clients. Though a mission statement motivates the employees, they are not the only motivating tools in an organisation. An organisation requires various tools to motivate its employees. Among these is a vision statement which plays similar roles with mission statements in motivating employees. (White 1995).
The vision statement and mission statements are simultaneously applied to enhance employees’ motivation. It sounds so easy to motivate employees using these statements. However just having the statements set in an organisation does not ensure employees are motivated. For employees to be motivated, many copies of a mission statement are required, because each employee require a copy of the statements or at least have a copy within his or her reach to ensure the employees are often reminded on the mission statements. This keeps reminding the employees about their role in accomplishing the mission, and to achieve it, they end up working hard in their various duties.
Mission statements not only motivates employees in an organisation but also ensures that the organisation is kept in focus, by giving the focus to which the organisation moves. This is important because the employees and clients need not to wander around looking for what they are supposed to do and what they expect from the organisation. It’s through this focus that the organisation strives to keep in focus.
The mission statement ensures that the organisation operates freely in the day to day operating decisions. An organisation without mission statement does not have to keep deciding on day to day operations. The mission statement keeps the organisation running because it is involved in decision making, to ensure the mission is accomplished. One way of operations may fail in an organisation, and having the mission statement the employees together with the employer involves themselves in another operation which they find can help in accomplishing their set mission. This shows another importance of a mission statement, and still demonstrating how the employees are motivated by the statement.
A mission statement ensures that the direction to which the organisation is moving is communicated well within the organisation as well as outside the organisation. The statement acts as a communication tool in an organization, connecting and giving direction to the organization’s clients, employees, suppliers, and other related parties. The link enhances good understanding of their clients need and implementation of procedures and processes which satisfies the needs effectively, thus effective operation of the organization.
This is because with a mission statement, one department in an organisation can easily tell the direction to which the other department is moving, and at the end of the day, the all departments composing the organisation are ending to the same direction. In organisations which do not have mission statements, some departments within an organisation might go astray as a result of lack of direction thus dragging the whole organisation back.
The organisation can also communicate with its clients about their direction using mission statements. Here, the clients can choose from the mission statements the organisation which meets their needs, and thus being able to decide on the organisation which can help them. This creates a good relationship between the organisation and the clients since the client gets whatever they require without delay and failures. With this the employees are expected to work hard for the organisation to meet the client’s needs.
A mission statement has a positive impact in organizations. A well prepared mission statement enhances motivation of employees and ensures satisfaction of its clients, thus enhancing its progress. Therefore, by drafting a good mission statement, the organisation mission can be accomplished, making it able to achieve its objectives. This means, the mission, value and objectives can all be achieved, only after a clear and well drawn mission statement.
References
Graham, W 1999, Mission Statement corporate and non profit sectors guide, Garland publishing.Inc, New York.
White M 1995, Reference guide on Mission statement, Associations Council, National Association of Manufacturers, New York.