Most employees are highly engaged when they join a company. But often this enthusiasm and motivation vanishes over time. Gallup Organization Research reveals that in average the longer an employee stays with a company, the less engaged he or she becomes.

The question for you as a manager is: What can you do to retain employee’s engagement? If you read books on management you’ll find a bunch of tips and tricks you should apply in order to get an engaged and motivated workforce.

And yes, there is a lot of truth in these tips: You should give respect and create trust. As a manager you should act fairly. You should say thank you in all kind of ways. - But that is not the most important thing you must get right when you want to have a highly engaged workforce.

Steve Jobs was not always fair. Did he respect all his employees? I don’t know. But there are stories telling quite the opposite. But Steve got one thing absolutely right: He had a vision. He was able to answer the most important question and that is: “WHY?”

People want to know why. If you want to build a highly engaged workforce you have to explain the purpose of your company or the purpose of your department. Don’t focus on telling your employees what and how they have to work but talk about why. Simon Sinek wrote it in his book “Start with why!”:

“It doesn’t matter what you do, it matters why you do it.”

And that is how most of the people feel. If you want committed employees who contribute, you must first explain what the point is. Why is their work important? What is the purpose of your company?

A lot of managers don’t have an answer to the question: Why does your company exist? Some managers even tell you that the purpose of their company is to make money, to earn profits or to make sales. That is nonsense. Money is not the answer.

The purpose of your company or your department must entail benefits for others outside your company or your department. Only when your company has such a purpose and you openly communicate and demonstrate this, will you have employees who work with passion and are fully committed to you and your company.

Don’t get me wrong: Without making profits a company will not survive in the long term. But sales, profits and cash flow are not the purpose. They are only a means to an end.

So don’t get confused with pseudo corporate vision statements like:

“We strive for 20 % market share” or

“We want to double our profits in 3 years!”

These are business goals which might be useful or not – but they are not visions and they don’t answer the question why. These statements carry no emotional meaning. Hardly anyone is inspired by it.

But a true vision inspires. When an entrepreneur or a company truly strives to solve a meaningful problem that makes the world a better place: That is a vision! For example: If a company is deeply committed to develop a cure for breast cancer: That is a real vision! A company with such a vision will have little difficulties attracting employees who are and stay highly engaged.

What is the purpose of your company? Why should your employees support your department? What is your company or department doing to make the world a better place?