The importance of measuring company purpose—and how to do it

Step 1: Stress test before you measure.

This step is about finding out whether you’re ready to measure or if your purpose initiative needs work. At Truist Leadership Institute, we always suggest going beyond your gut and avoiding solo decision-making. (Learn more in our article on the value of diverse perspectives.)

Ask these questions of stakeholders around you:

• Is our company purpose focused on people?
• Is it authentic?
• Could it be interpreted as crass or self-serving given our current reputation in the marketplace or given current external conditions?
• Does our company purpose meet the needs of priority stakeholder groups—not just shareholders and leaders, but employees, customers, and our community?
• Are we taking steps to implement it in every part of our organization, not just the C-suite?

Ensuring that your entire organization and its stakeholders are aware of and working toward your company purpose can take time and effort. Trying to measure company purpose too early can churn and burn employee hours and contribute to negative sentiment, internally and externally.

Step 2: Learn and listen to set a baseline.

Invest in, listen to, and learn from your stakeholders to gain valuable baseline data for your measurement model. Tap into established listening channels your company is already using and collect engagement data from them.

To make sense of all this new information, assign a team—including the people who helped create your company purpose statement. You can also look for a mix of people with passion for the work related to purpose and people with identifiable analytics, data, and research skills. The team you assemble can use surveys to explore how stakeholders perceive and are being affected by your company purpose initiatives.

Step 3: Establish your measurement model’s must-haves.

Consider the priorities of each stakeholder group. Employees want job satisfaction and fulfillment. Shareholders want economic results. As a company leader, balancing these sometimes-competing goals is where you want to be.

Look at current measurements. Look at your company’s ROI reporting functions as they exist today. How is your company measuring marketing campaigns, product launches, sales initiatives, and employee satisfaction? With some modifications, these reporting functions can be good starting points for tactics to measure company purpose.

Keep the human factor front and center. For long-term effectiveness, your company purpose and measurement should not be focused solely on profit and loss. How are the people connected to your organization doing? Be sure to measure retention, engagement, satisfaction, and other human-based indicators, such as psychological safety or resilience.

Go after the specifics. These initiatives all require time and resources, but they’ll help your workforce see an organization-wide commitment to purpose. Employees can’t see that if you settle for broad metrics like dollars donated, so it’s important to invest in learning exactly how your work fulfills the purpose you profess.

Step 4: Report and repeat.

Give your measurement team a clear focus and the resources to accomplish their goals. They should build a project plan with internal deadlines, regular reporting to key leaders, and the development of actionable recommendations.

Build continual improvement into your model. Just as you regularly revisit and revise other aspects of your organization’s operations, do the same with your purpose measurement model. 

Learn more about activating purpose through your employees in “Why we work: What happens when you connect people and purpose,” a Truist Leadership Institute Purple Paper^SM.