Weekly Responses

Mortician school is easy. I'm not taking any classes this semester that are funeral school specific- just a couple small business type ones. The hardest thing I have to do every week is post a response on Blackboard to some silly question the teacher asks. The question, and all the answers, are super boring. I try and spice them up as much as possible while still getting credit. Here's week four's question:



Once you write your mission statement for your business, what would you do with it?  Do you think it is important for each employee to have a copy?  Why or why not?  What would you expect them to do with the information? 


Oh my goodness who cares right? Anyway, here's what I wrote back:

Once you have your mission statement written it's important to have other people read it. You can make your employees read it by including it in their training, posting it conspicuously around the office/kitchen/break room, or threatening to fire them if they don't. But I believe people absorb information better if they want to. There are several steps things you can do to turn your employees into veritable sponges, sucking up all the wisdom included in your mission statement.

First thing you're going to want to do is spice up the font. Times New Roman is for old people. "Ctrl A" your statement and make it hip with some Arial/Helvetica, or keep it casual with a little Comic Sans. Type important words like "VOLCANOES", "INVASION", or "WORCHESTER SAUCE" in all caps,  then maybe make them a different color like red or something to really make them pop.

Pictures say a thousand words. This is a good thing, since they're usually the only thing people are going to look at anyway. Make those thousand words count. Do not include a graph and call it a picture. Graphs are not pictures. Graphs are boring, pictures are not. See examples:

Lastly, you're going to want to have employees feel like they can somehow contribute to the mission statement. Have the last page of your statement be like a suggestions page or a survey they can fill out. Having a mechanism in place to act as a follow up to make sure they paid attention that simultaneously promotes interest in the welfare of the company is a boon to any mission statement. But the best part is, you don't even have to read their stupid answers. Because you're the boss.  
 

Also make sure you run spellcheck so you don't look like an idiot.