If business leaders weren’t already exploring the concept of corporate purpose over the last decade, the turbulence of the last few years may have sped up their efforts. The pandemic’s unprecedented impact combined with ongoing societal issues had Americans reevaluating their personal purpose—and companies struggling to hire and keep employees as they left in historic numbers.
As beliefs and values increasingly influence where people shop and work, defining a greater corporate purpose becomes necessary for business success. But creating a purpose-driven organization isn’t only about your brand story and marketing. It needs to be implemented throughout your organization so that all employees understand it and benefit from pursuing it in their daily roles.
Truist Leadership Institute surveyed approximately 1,300 U.S. employees to determine their personal perceptions of organizational purpose. Our research focused primarily on the impact of personal purpose and organizational purpose on employees. The results highlighted some misconceptions around the need for purpose within an organization.
Fiction #1: Purpose isn’t important to employees.
Purpose matters. The research indicates that U.S. employees do, in fact, care about purpose. Seventy-eight percent of respondents agreed in some measure that they think about their personal purpose in life. And separate research by McKinsey & Company found that 70% of Americans said their sense of purpose is largely defined by their work.1 Both studies included executives and nonexecutives, indicating business must encourage employees at all levels to foster and live their purpose at work.
Fiction #2: Employees prefer profit over purpose.
Purpose is a corporate responsibility. Seventy-four percent of employees we surveyed agreed that companies should at least focus equally on making money and doing good for society, and 31% of our sample agreed that commercial companies have a duty to improve society beyond simply providing jobs. In a world where purpose matters, companies should clearly communicate about both profit and purpose.
Fiction #3: Only younger employees care about purpose.
Purpose matters to everyone. Although the popular press depicts millennial and Gen Z employees as more interested in deriving meaning from their work, our study found no evidence that age had any relationship whatsoever with the respondents’ opinions on purpose and profit. The takeaway here: Leaders should carefully evaluate any generation-based research when implementing purpose-driven programs and assume that corporate purpose has meaning for everyone.
Fiction #4: Organizational purpose has little benefit to employees.
Purpose creates engagement, meaning, and organizational trust. Respondents who agreed that they can pursue their own purpose—as well as their organization’s purpose—in their daily tasks were more engaged, had more clarity on their specific roles within the organization, and derived more meaning from their work. Similarly, employees who agreed they can pursue their organization’s purpose in daily tasks felt more connected to top leadership in terms of communication and trust.
Fiction #5: Purpose doesn’t retain employees.
Purpose improves retention. Alignment between personal and corporate purpose can reduce an employee’s desire to look for employment elsewhere. Respondents who felt their personal purpose aligned with their organization’s purpose reported higher levels of engagement and lower intentions to quit.
