For some workers, a job is just a means to an end. Take the worker who repeatedly checks the clock as afternoon ticks toward 5 p.m. Or the worker earning $10 an hour, who has a job only so he can afford to escape to the desert on weekends to ride dirt bikes.

There is nothing wrong with this, unless you are the company that employs these workers.

According to Moshe Engelberg, president of a consulting firm, it is an aspect of human nature that people work harder when they care about what they are doing. And that is something every employer should be concerned about.

He further stated that clients complain that no one knows what their company does or that they misunderstand the company which actually means that they have no internal focus.

Before a company can create public image or establish brand identity, an internal identity must be developed.

A lot of businesses ad to its work force but sometimes they are not as attentive as they should be to keeping corporate goals in the minds of their workers.

Engelberg uses the Center for Disease Control (CDC) as an example. He was called ion to consult at the federal agency, whose work force had different ideas about he organization’s identity.

Some workers thought of the agency as the keeper of America’s health and safety. Others saw it as a trusted information source on health issues. Still others saw it as an important conduit among the nation’s public health agencies.

Engelberg said that the workers in CDC saw different aspects, but they did not see how they fit together into the broader picture.

He was able to link the organization’s focus with those three main aspects, building a unified image for its employees.

According to him, people want to do work that matters. He said that if there is a focus for the company, it helps them connect with the goals and makes them want to work harder. Companies such as Southwest airlines, Nordstrom and Home Depot are high-profile examples of companies that have energized their work forces and corporate goals.

He stated further that those workers who seem to be happier in their companies than other workers in other companies are people who know what the company is trying to achieve and feel that they are contributing toward that.

Some companies never reach that point. Engelberg contends that they lack customer focus by failing to realize that those employees are one set of customers.

Workers who see a connection between their jobs and the success of the company feel it within themselves, and the company benefits.

That internal commitment translates into everything the company does, and it is reflected in how is customers view it.

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