The Secret to Success in a Challenging Economy

It’s not news to any of us that we’re operating in a challenging economy. One of the toughest business challenges is how to maintain a motivating environment for people, and keep productivity up. What typically happens is a domino effect. Business leaders feel the crunch; their attitude, energy and consequently, their communication changes. This affects customers, prospects, candidates, employees (including the sales team), and vendors. Opposite of “the sum is greater than the parts” – the amount of damage is greater than the number of causes.

 

Anyone who is in business, at any management level, understands the impact of employee morale on productivity. When people are not feeling good about themselves, or their boss, or the company, the amount of work they do declines. Consider the impact of just one interaction. Cash flow is bad and Susan, the CEO, is worried. Susan is focusing on it too much and pauses for a split second before answering a question from Logan, her assistant. Susan doesn’t make the regular eye contact, and she’s not spending ample time in dialogue with Logan. Logan subconsciously thinks something is wrong. Even being fully aware of the pressure Susan is under, Logan doesn’t make that connection and is slightly affected though not even fully aware of it. Logan then talks with one of Susan’s direct reports, Mike. Mike had experienced a push for better results from Susan, but Susan did not recognize him for his positive results, so this combined with Logan’s experience causes a clash on a simple project. Again, neither is aware of why they are frustrated. You can just imagine the ripple effect, and how much it is costing the organization.

 

Obviously we are not going to track every interaction and calculate how much we are losing. Time would be better spent on helping leaders to be aware of their thoughts and actions, and how it impacts the team, especially in a tough economy. The worst thing a company can do is cut their training budget. The best thing to do is focus the training dollars in key areas, such as leadership, sales and customer loyalty. These are the most influential areas that will bring the most ROI to your human capital asset. The greatest impact is felt by a CEO’s next level management, and it is therefore imperative to focus development on this level so the CEO can ensure the right message is being sent – thus influencing an engaged work environment – even in challenging economic times.

Why Track Training Results?

Most of us spend over fifty percent of our waking hours at work. According to GMJ’s 2004 Q3 survey, “of all U.S. workers 18 and older, 21.2 million – or 16% – are actively disengaged at work. Gallup estimates the lower productivity of actively disengaged workers costs the U.S. economy about $300 billion.” In other words, we have a problem with employee satisfaction, and it’s affecting productivity. The amount of money wasted on disengaged workers could never accurately be counted, but we can only imagine when we stop to think about how much money just one miscommunication costs. It only takes a boss fed up with something, to yell at an employee, and the dominos start to fall. From the recipient of the message, to all the people he or she complains to, there is a tremendous loss of productivity and quality. And the blaming and complaining continues, with little, if any accountability. Then, the dominos keep falling, affecting retention, recruitment, and even health.

 

So what can we do? How can we get employees more engaged and more accountable at work? If you can improve your situation by 50%, you’ll probably save your company thousands, if not millions of dollars a year, especially when you count the cost of hiring employees and health related costs. It’s time to consider our employees as human capital assets- as an investment. When you think of other investments, they usually need time, maintenance and even polishing now and then. The only way you’ll get a return is if you take care of your investment.

 

Taking care of your human capital asset, your people, can be planned, organized, and simplified. It starts by believing that your people truly are an asset, and planning time and money to take care of them. For example, do you have a training budget? If so, what percentage of your revenue goes into that budget? Do you have a plan to align your people’s behavior with your company strategy? Do you know how much ROI you are getting for your investment in training? Are you tracking your “asset” regularly to get the best return?

 

Companies that track training and development experience increased retention and productivity, and they attract much better talent. As the talent pool continues to shrink, it will become urgent to put employee training and development into practice. Taking a proactive, rather than a reactive, approach will save your company time and money.