What do you Admire about Your Employer?
Ever since I first discovered Dan Pink's thinking on the concept of motivation in his book Drive (http://www.danpink.com/books/drive), I've found it difficult to forget his three core concepts: Automony, Mastery and Purpose.
I am constantly reminded of the third of these - Purpose - when I see in passing the tables of our company Canteen being laid and tidied up.
The people performing these humble but important tasks are mentally handicapped.
There are over 20 mentally disabled people working on-site, performing a range of useful but simple tasks. Their main employment is in packaging finished goods - counting, sorting, placing batches into boxes, sealing the boxes. Simple but meaningful tasks appropriate to the level of disability, performed in a supervised dedicated area. Tasks where automation makes little commercial sense.
They are treated in many ways like all other Employees: the work is paid, they all have to apply for a position with the Company, have Supervisors, performance reviews, work regular hours with assigned times for breaks. They can - and do, sometimes - quit.
What impresses me most about this is the integrational aspect. By giving these disabled people a role, meaningful tasks, the Company I work for goes beyond its legal obligations (all Germany companies above a certain size have to employ a percentage of disabled people or pay a forfeit).
The Company is helping these people to
build their confidence
increase their sense of independence
improve their decision making abilities.
That to me is a human result, which is never going to be captured on a Balance Sheet.
Maybe it should be. An example of Stakeholder Capitalism, to me it's one of the most valuable activities my Company engages in, one I identify with highly - and as such I feel proud of.
It's one of the things I would always wish other people to know about - so if you like, it heightens my willingness to be a brand advocate.
To come back to Dan Pink's anlaysis - purpose is defined as "the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves."
So when I see and greet our disabled colleagues in the corridors, or by the water-cooler, I feel part of something larger than myself. I doff my cap to whoever initiated this type of engagement - long may it carry on.
Curious, as ever, as to others' views.