Your Employees are The Key to Your Success!
No matter what type of business you are in, your employees are the key to your success. The employees’ relationships with one another, as well as with customers, are crucial. How your employees feel about the company, each other, the customers, and their supplier organizations all factor into an ecosystem. Creating this ideal atmosphere is much like planning, planting and caring for a garden.
How employees interact with their employer company is often referred to as Employee Engagement. At the base level it is defined as “the degree to which employees are motivated by, invested in, and passionate about the work that they do and the organization they work for,” as defined by the recruitee blog.
Generally, the higher the level of Employee Engagement, the more satisfied the employees, the better the organizational culture, the better the service to customers, and the longer the average employee tenure.
So how do you improve Employee Engagement? Of course, recruiting and attracting the right talent are important. But let’s assume you have accomplished that goal, and now you need to create the right atmosphere where teams can work together collaboratively to provide optimal products or services for customers.
It is important that the positions offer equitable compensation for the employees’ skills and experience. But there is so much more to consider in terms of benefits packages. While these packages typically include 401(k) matching, health insurance, and dental and vision insurance, some also offer additional benefits, such as pet insurance. Many companies offer paid time off for maternity and paternity leave; some even offer leave for other reasons, like elder care, etc. There could also be flexible schedules, favorable work-from-home policies, gym memberships, free telemedicine, and some free counseling sessions.
In our experience, many employees are unaware of or do not understand the benefits offered by their organization. Therefore, it’s important to continue to educate your employees about your benefits package (and how to access those resources). This should be done more often than just at the annual Open Enrollment presentation.
In addition to the benefits package, employees want to work for a company or a team/manager who:
- Cares for their well-being.
- Allows for work/life balance.
- Has a management team they feel confident in.
- Allows their preferred work setting (at the workplace, home, or hybrid).
- Offers them a position that plays to their strengths.
- Provides job security.
- Demonstrates a career path.
- Recognizes a job well done, as well as recognition for employee tenure.
From the list above, having control over where they work is especially important to American workers—whether it is fully in person, fully remote, or a hybrid of the two—and they’re more satisfied when they have it. According to the American Psychological Association, in 2024, only 38% want to work in person at their company, yet 59% currently do so. This demonstrates friction between employee and employer and thus provides an opportunity to improve employee satisfaction.
Training and maintaining company culture are important aspects of Employee Engagement. It’s a difficult task to train new employees when there are many to onboard at the same time, and resources are stretched thin. This presents a less-than-optimal start for many new employees. In addition, maintaining your company culture can be tough no matter what type of business or business setting you have (all in the office, all work from home, or a hybrid model).
It's important to understand all the key issues your employees have and monitor how they change over time, which can be accomplished by a variety of employee surveys. What are your biggest gaps? A properly designed survey can help to identify the factors you’re performing well on and the ones that need improvement. Spend time with employees and provide a forum where they can give feedback without fear of retribution. In addition, you should review your Glassdoor and other employee ratings.
In our years of experience in working on Employee Research initiatives, Decision Analyst has found that improving Employee Engagement leads to:
- Reduced employee turnover.
- Increased productivity.
- Higher quality of work.
- Stronger company culture.
- More satisfied customers.
- Better financial benefits, in the long run.
If you happen to think you are “NOT in the people business,” I’d like to share a quote from a book I recently read which I think addresses the issue well. In The 9% Edge: The Life-Changing Secrets to Create More Revenue for Your Business and More Freedom for Yourself, by Candy Valentino, a financial analyst, Valentino is quoted saying “Leadership is hard work but can be made a little easier with understanding that people are at the heart of what every company does. You also have the ability to make real, lasting change in the lives of the people that work for you.”
Ultimately, your company’s success depends on your employees, Employee Engagement, and how well you tend to your “garden.” The happier your employees are, the more engaged they are, and the happier your customers will be.
Author
Bonnie Janzen
President
She drives growth for client companies by leveraging strategic consumer insights, innovation, and analytics to shape impactful marketing campaigns and new product development programs. Her consulting expertise includes guiding clients through new business concepts, mergers and acquisitions, including global expansion. She is particularly passionate about advertising and messaging research and has played a key role in the company's strategic direction.
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