Written By Our Guest Author: Cherri Holland

Are you wasting a million dollars a year? If you have sales over $15Mil, you could be – 7% of annual revenue has been attributed to poor leadership.

Stats show:

  • The #1 reason employees leave is a ‘bad boss’ (the best leave)
  • Productivity can be improved 5-12% through better management practices
  • Every 5 point change in employee satisfaction causes a 1.3 point change in customer satisfaction

An ‘employer of choice’ has an obvious edge in a talent shortage. What are the key factors associated with engaged employees and high productivity?

The answer isn’t to conduct engagement surveys that management analyse and respond to. No; the answer is to create a workplace where people talk to each other and where there are formal and informal ways that people collectively create the optimal work system where everyone wins. That is the role of leadership.

I use six factors to assess engagement that have been consistent in my experience in organizations I have observed in many different countries, cultures and types of enterprise over many years.

  1. Importance: the extent to which people feel valued.  It includes what is noticed and acted on by those seen to be in power.
  2. Work environment:  the atmosphere, mutual respect, cross-functional collaboration and how people treat each other.
  3. Productivity: how work is organised/allocated, workflow design and being able to get things done efficiently. You can see you are getting somewhere and achieving something. 
  4. Fit: the match of capability to tasks.  To get this right, some tech firms encourage self-selection to teams and to roles.
  5. Aspiration: a key engagement factor – the extent to which the organisation values personal growth and continuous improvement; a requirement to develop and be change-ready as individuals and a whole.
  6. Organisation: both noun and verb. The absence of impediments that simply get in the way of people doing their jobs. This includes regimens of planning and retrospectives, continuous improvement and the readiness to change if something isn’t working. It also includes storytelling – internal marketing to keep people plugged in to, and aligned with, the core purpose.

Leadership capability impacts all these areas to optimise performance and minimise waste and costly turnover. When you get this right, you can expect:

  • 29% higher revenue
  • 33% higher productivity
  • 44% higher retention
  • 56% more likelihood of having ‘high customer loyalty’

(Sources: Gallup, The Ken Blanchard Companies)

Contact Carolyn (carolyn@rapidresults.co.nz) at 09 447 1994 if you want to know how we can help your company to develop.

ABOUT CHERRI HOLLAND

Training Consultant, Rapid Results

 

Work on hundreds of projects, with thousands of managers and staff, in 10 countries, has given Cherri in-depth insight into what’s needed for success. Her work has been across a wide range of sectors in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States, Singapore, Malaysia, China, India and Cook Islands.

Cherri uses a variety of approaches to get results, including facilitated workshops and small group coaching. Her methods work particularly well where change is needed but resisted by people and/or organisations.

Her track record proves the success of her methods in the immediate changes people make to themselves and with others, both inside and outside the organisation.