Employee Engagement is Key to Profitability

In a global study of over 88,000 employees, it was determined that barely 21% (1 in 5) are engaged in their jobs.  Employee engagement is a measurable degree of an employee’s positive (or negative), emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organization.  An employee’s level of engagement profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work. 

The percentage of employees in the study that were fully disengaged was 8% and the remaining 71% were partially engaged or partially disengaged.  In other words, they are on the fence about the organization and their role within it.

Why should you care?  Research shows that companies with higher levels of engagement experience 50% higher sales, 38% higher productivity and 27% higher profits. According to the Gallup organization, disengaged employees cost the U.S. over $300 billion each year in lost productivity.  Any way you slice it, the time and money spent to improve employee engagement delivers on the investment. 

The Goal of Business Planning is Behavior Change

Many people think of business planning as a high level exercise that sets the direction for your business—which it does. But the real goal of business planning is to change behavior in your organization. 

Not all business planning changes behavior—but business planning with on-going plan review, scorecards, and progress reports ties personal performance to business outcomes.  Consistent communication and discussion of expectations is the primary method for changing behaviors in an organization. Ironically, employees frequently don’t know what is expected of them in their roles.  The entire process starts with the planning process which identifies desired outcomes and defines expectations.  

Effective Sales Training Requires On-going Coaching & Training

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According to research between 85% and 90% of sales training has no lasting impact after 120 days. At the same time, companies are spending billions of dollars on sales training each year. That's billions of dollars being wasted on limited sales performance impact and only short-term boosts in sales at best.

The key to lasting results from any training is an organized and consistent program for reinforcing the learning and practicing the new skill.  If you question the need for that on-going investment of time and resources, think about the last time you learned a new skill.  Imagine learning to golf or play the piano without on-going instruction, correction and practice.  Improving skills and competency in a professional area without that follow-up support is a feel good but ineffective exercise.

Planning Provides a Roadmap for Decision Making

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Eisenhower said, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”  Planning was important to Eisenhower because he used it to guide his decision making in the heat of the battle.  It’s not much different for us when we’re competing in the marketplace, which can often feel like a battle!

Top leaders understand that instead of viewing planning as a low-value but necessary exercise, it’s a worthwhile endeavor that will prepare them to make more informed decisions throughout the year.  When challenges or opportunities come along, they can be evaluated against the plan for overall fit with the strategies and tactics that have been chosen.

So it’s not about the long, fancy plan, it’s about roll-up your sleeves and do the dirty work kind of planning that will be a roadmap for day to day decision making.

The Best Performance Management is Done in Real Time

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The ‘best performance management’ often doesn’t get done because it requires the discipline of honoring an on-going commitment.  It’s akin to exercise—everyone knows it’s good for you and you need to do it on a regular basis to get the full benefit, yet many people don’t do it.

Often companies do a good job of evaluating employee’s on a yearly basis in the form of a performance review which usually include goals for the coming year.  These might include revenue goals, new initiatives or projects to launch, or developmental areas to focus on.  All worthwhile topics for discussion and review, but often those documents are only revisited again at the end of the year.

Effective performance management needs to be an on-going process so that individuals can make adjustments to their activity in real-time, rather than reflecting back over an outcome, good or bad, months later.  Ideally the performance management discussion is held monthly and reporting out is done in advance of the meeting, so face time is not wasted on reviewing of spreadsheets and reports.  Once the habit is established within an organization, it feels odd to not be reviewing performance in real-time—it leaves people with the vague feeling that they’re missing something important.