Scaling With Purpose Kit: Purpose and Employee Engagement

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Scash** (0:17)
Welcome back to The Bliss Business Podcast Series, Scaling with Purpose, our 10-minute podcast series where we explore how to embed purpose into every level of your organization. I'm Stephen Scash here with Tullio Siragusa. Hey, Tullio.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:33)
Yeah, this is going to be a good one for sure today.

**Stephen Scash** (0:36)
All right. So today we're talking about purpose and employee engagement, how connecting employees to your organization's purpose can drive engagement, satisfaction, and retention. And I don't just want to say employees to your founders, everyone, right? So Tullio, let's jump in here.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:55)
Yeah. So we know that employee engagement is one of the biggest drivers to business success. How do we know? Because when organizations struggle with it, they struggle in every area of their business. So the good news, there's good news, that purpose might just be what's missing, the missing piece of the puzzle. So because when employees feel connecting to a meaningful purpose, they're not just working for a paycheck. They're working for something bigger. And that's the key thing, connecting to something bigger. It's a natural human desire to do something that makes us feel like we're participating in something bigger than ourselves.

**Stephen Scash** (1:39)
Yeah. So the latest Gallup research shows only about 33 percent of employees are engaged at work. And that's obviously a huge miss opportunity, but it's also kind of a tragedy in so many ways. I mean, I know so many friends. I'm just like, they're like, I just have zero blanks to give anymore at work.

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:03)
I mean, could you imagine if 10 people, three, only three are engaged. Imagine having a Zoom meeting with 10 people and only three people are talking or engaged. That's just sad.

**Stephen Scash** (2:13)
Yeah, like I said, it's actually a tragedy in a lot of ways. That, you know, seven, like I said, it's almost seven out of 10 people are just going to work with being engaged anyway. This is not the way to live, right? So when employees, though, can connect their day-to-day work to an organization's purpose, this 33% number climbs, and it gives people a reason to show up fully and bring their energy and their creativity and their commitment to the table, right?

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:46)
Right. And that's the thing. It's about giving people a reason to show up fully. And the paycheck is not a reason for it. It's like a thing, because there's an exchange that's happening, right?
But if you give people a reason, and that's the key thing, it's not just about completing tasks. It's about feeling that their work matters and contributes to something meaningful. So that's where you begin to have the kind of engagement that's like alive in the organization. When people feel like they are contributing to something greater than themselves, and that what they're doing has meaning, it's important. Those two things go hand in hand, that drives people to make a greater impact, which drives people to grow. So when you have all these things coming together, that's where the magic happens.

**Stephen Scash** (3:40)
Yeah. And so how can organizations use Purpose to boost that employee engagement? And again, I want to say not just employees, but if you're a founder of a company, this is the kind of thing that's really important to you as well, because it will change the way you run your business and live your life. If you're one of those 7 out of 10 showing up, that is not in your leading company and you're not engaged. Yeah. That's even more important.

**Tullio Siragusa** (4:07)
Sadly, there's a lot of owners after a long time, they just kind of go in like it's time to make the donuts, like that old commercial from Dunkin Donuts, the guy would go, it's time to go make the donuts. It just becomes robotic.

**Stephen Scash** (4:20)
Yeah. So like I said, it's a tragedy. And we really want to help employees and owners and stuff, really show how their work connects to their purpose. So the first strategy here is really to help us, you know, employees, see the connection between our work and the organization's purpose. So people need to understand how their individual contributions make an impact.
And it's up to leaders to really help bridge this gap. And this can look like, you know, like we mentioned in some previous episodes, sharing stories that connect an employee's work to real-world outcomes. You know, you don't want to just treat everything as numbers, right? These are stories behind a lot of this. And then recognizing and celebrating projects or wins that align with the company's purpose. For example, if your purpose is to improve access to clean water, you know, don't just celebrate a new product launch, show how that product directly improves lives in communities that need it most. This is where you really find that heart and soul of your business, I think.