The Profits Of A Happy Staff

Old corporate slogans such as "the customer is king" speak to a narrow, short-term, sales-driven corporate strategy that ignores the vital importance of one's own employees in the equation for long-term, sustainable growth and profitability. However, we're now seeing companies sobering up to the fact that employees matter as much to the bottom line as customers do. After all, if employees are disengaged, then they're not going to deliver the high-quality products and services that ultimately drive customer satisfaction in the first place. So the spotlight is steadily turning toward HR departments to ensure that employee satisfaction and engagement is at its highest possible level.

Employee Engagement

According to a Gallup poll of U.S. workers, employee disengagement inevitably leads to a dramatic loss in productivity, which in turn costs the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year. At the company level, this translates to many thousands per employee per year, and makes employee disengagement one of the greatest obstacles to growth and profitability.

To identify and reverse this trend in your own workplace, reach out to your HR department. Whether through surveys, one-on-one employee sessions or careful observation, work with HR to find out exactly where your company stands with respect to employee engagement. Once you know where the pain lies, here are three of the best ways to dramatically raise the level of employee engagement company-wide:

Give your employees clear goals

If your employees don't have a clear view of the target they're aiming for, they're not likely to hit it. Some business gurus may argue that tolerance for ambiguity is a virtue, and it is, but only with respect to the day-to-day tactical details of getting a job done. If your employees are fuzzy on what they're actually working toward at a high level, the company is in trouble, and your employees will disengage as fast as they would from a basketball game with no hoops.

Demonstrate to your employees how much you appreciate them

It's hard to overstate the importance of consistently showing each employee, both privately and publicly, that you actually care about them: their well being, their progress, their struggles and accomplishments. If you don't, they're not likely to care much about you or your company either, and that translates to real trouble for productivity and profits. Of course, creating a mutually supportive corporate culture will not happen overnight, anymore than making a good friend does. Therefore, it's important to think long-term and to slowly steer the ship (through farsighted employee-centered programs and policies) in a direction that has your employees' best interests at heart.

Give your employees the tools and training to accomplish their goals

Time and again employees complain of not having the tools or the training to accomplish their tasks. Whether it's the right kind of specialized software or the right kind of specialized training, without the resources to complete the job at hand employees will be forced to disengage even when they're eager to push on. For this reason, make the rounds with individual employees, teams and your company as a whole to ensure that everyone has everything they need to perform at top form and meet deadlines every time. With the right tools and training, output will increase dramatically, driving profits and employee satisfaction at the same time.

The connection between happy employees and healthy profits

Old slogans such as "the customer is king" that once dominated corporate cultures are now coming under question, and it's easy to see why. Without employee engagement, all the factors that drive profitability, including customer satisfaction, will inevitably suffer. Thus the importance of working with your HR department to improve employee satisfaction by ensuring they are fully engaged and on board. We've looked at three ways to help get them there: give your employees clear goals, leaving no doubt in their minds about the target they're aiming for; demonstrate to your employees, both privately and publicly, how much you appreciate them and care about their futures; and give your employees the necessarily tools and training to alleviate their frustrations, accomplish their goals and meet their deadlines every time. By following these three steps you will find that employee satisfaction is just as powerful as its counterpart, customer satisfaction, in driving growth and profitability.

One of the best things an organization can do is value their employees. To look at this topic more in depth, join us for our upcoming webinar, "Raising the Bar on Employee Well-Being," presented by David Weiner, OMH Solutions. Platinum Group's Human Capital Management and Business Enrichment Webinar Series features local and statewide professional experts offering valuable insight into successful business practices.

Platinum Group is a full service human capital management (HCM) resource that allows businesses to manage their payroll, benefits compliance, track time and attendance and other various human resources functions in a way that maximizes efficiency and eliminates redundancies with the platform, iSolved. For more information about Platinum Group or to schedule a demo of iSolved please visit our website.