Source | CactusSoft

Companies have long since realized that employees are their true assets. As you may already have seen, companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and a couple of others make tremendous efforts to ensure that their employees have the best of everything. Their belief is that a happy employee will always strive to give his or her best in the workplace. Other companies outside Silicon Valley too have realized the importance of making sure that their employees are happy and productive.

However, in recent years some alarming statistics have been revealed. A number of studies have been conducted by Gallup, Dale Carnegie and a few other reputed firms to identify if employees are really as committed as their companies hope. It was found that almost $11 billion is lost annually due to employee turnover! (Source: Dale Carnegie) This is just in the U.S. Worldwide the figures are quite astounding.

(Image source: Dale Carnegie)

These numbers alone are sufficient to show that companies need to address this issue as soon as possible. If the management is not able to identify what motivates or demotivates their own employees, how can they expect to understand what their customer requirements are? It is your frontline employees (for example, sales guys) who are going to interact with your customers and prospects to gain insights into their buying habits. If these individuals are not actively engaged in their role, do you think they can really succeed in getting the right information? Imagine how much this misinformation would affect the company.

“Customers will never love your company until the employees love it first.” Simon Sinek

The question that plagues many companies is, “How can we increase employee engagement?” Some focus on increasing the number of team outings while others increase the benefits and perks. Such initiatives may increase employee involvement but they are not 100% foolproof.

The management needs to realize that perks or higher salaries alone do not guarantee higher engagement. It is often the lack of guidance or inefficiency at setting goals that make employees unhappy. They have to meet unrealistic expectations with minimal direction. It puts pressure on them. Most struggle for a while before eventually giving up. The root cause of this is traditional performance management techniques that are still being used in the majority of organizations.

Read On…