Purpose-oriented employees are those that:
- Have the potential for leadership.
- Actively recruit other valuable talent.
- Refer others to their organisation.
- Value their colleagues and are dedicated to helping them.
- Feel that their job is satisfying.
According to a new study, such employees make up around 28% of the workforce and are extremely valuable.
Employees who are purpose-oriented see work in the same way they do the rest of their lives, as personal fulfillment and a chance to assist others. They don’t view their ‘personal life’ and ‘work life’ as separate things, which should never cross paths. They bring their whole self to work.
As per the Workplace Purpose Index study performed by Imperative (a career site and consulting company) - employees with a purposeful mindset benefit your team/company for many reasons, including the ability to work across a range of functions, while outperforming the other 3/4ths of the workforce.
While purpose-oriented people do tend to be attracted toward educational and non-profit sectors, they exist in every industry out there as well.
Aaron Hurst, Imperative’s founder, knows all about being purposed oriented in the workplace. As the author of the book, “The Purpose Economy,” Hurst has written volumes on this topic.
So how do you identify purpose-oriented people to include into your team? Here are some tips:
- Ask candidates what they would do if they won 10 million dollars. Purpose-oriented people will talk about things that will impact people’s lives and make them better, as opposed to leisure activities or things they will buy with the money.
- You can also ask about their relationship with past co-workers and if they are in touch with many of them. If they talk about co-workers in a very formal business-like fashion and are not in touch with them, then they didn’t really value their colleagues. Also they probably weren’t inclined to genuinely help them.
- Find out if they got any of their friends to join their previous companies and why.
- Probe to see how satisfied/happy they were at work and if they felt fortunate to work with previous organisations and teams.