Many small and medium sized firms are under pressure.
High calibre applicants are in short supply, so how can you ensure that your most valuable and precious resources – your people – will achieve their potential and help you maximise your investment in them while building brand value and competitive edge?
Many companies are suffering from issues of staff retention and talent attraction, often losing vital team members to the bigger fish in the Not for Profit or the commercial world. While there are many people out there, the choice of good quality candidates is often limited.
“We are often overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of applicants. However, the quality is often low” says Michael Denehey, partner at Collins SBA.
So how do you protect your investment, improve staff retention and attract talent? Simply throwing money at the problem is not the answer. Developing your staff over a period of time and recognising their contribution and performance will make them more valuable and they will become an appreciating asset to your business.
“Involving the team in all aspects of the business they work in goes a long way to helping them feel valued, worthwhile and involved. Key is to ensure that the team are engaged and motivated, have a clear understanding of where we are heading, and the role they play in getting there. Recognition of their involvement and achievement plays an important part in this” says Michael.
Staff who feel valued, appreciated, respected, involved and recognised for their contribution to the business have been proven to significantly outperform staff who do not receive recognition for their efforts. Team members who do not receive recognition often leave to find fulfilment elsewhere.
Getting it wrong can have catastrophic consequences, as the real cost of staff turnover is more than 150% of salary according to global employment specialists Mercer Consulting. Cost of staff turnover includes:
• Recruitment costs (advertising, interviewing, screening)
• Onboarding costs (training and management time)
• Productivity loss (a new person may take up to 12 months to reach true productivity)
• Lost engagement (other employees who see high turnover can become disengaged)
• Client relationship costs (client relationships may suffer with regular changes of personnel)
It has also been proven that there is a direct correlation between staff engagement and brand value. Building brand value is an important part of the corporate strategy when developing a competitive edge.
“Staff engagement has the potential to have an enormous impact on brand value. When staff are engaged they love coming to work, helping clients and colleagues and building the business. We ensure the team is involved in decision making and we recognise and reward them generously for innovation and excellent performance” says Michael.
Brownie Points is aiming to lead the way in solving the problems of staff retention through its innovative award winning recognition and engagement software.
Brownie Points software is designed to deliver measurable business solutions that are focused on improving motivation and engagement, resulting in reduced staff turnover, increased productivity and improved brand value, by recognising excellent performance and contribution, measured against pre-determined criteria. The resulting solutions deliver significant business value as they can reduce costs, improve efficiency and increase business performance.
The days of giving staff rewards with little or no thought about what motivates them or considering how they prefer to be recognised, with little consistency or transparency across the organisation, and little idea on how a reward adds value to the business, are old hat. People are different in how they like to be recognised, and it is important that your methods for recognition and the reward for effort reflects these differences. If you give your staff rewards and cannot measure the benefit to your business you are wasting money.
“It has been proven that recognition is significantly more important to staff than rewards” says Tony Delaney, founder of Brownie Points. “Staff who ‘go the extra mile’ and consistently perform to a high standard, suggest improvements to the business, come up with innovation or cost saving ideas are valuable to an organisation, and need to be recognised for their contribution to the performance of the business. However, it is also important to know how someone likes to be recognised, privately or in person, formally or informally, so managers needs to understand their staff, and not operate a one size fits all policy” Tony said.
Brownie Points can help raise the level of staff engagement by recognising excellent performance against corporate values or pre-determined criteria, and rewarding staff who consistently ‘go above and beyond’, to reduce highly expensive staff recruitment and training costs.
Brownie Points is designed to work across the organisation, making it ideal for back office staff who rarely get the credit they deserve, while often delivering critical business performance.
The business focused software is an ideal low cost of ownership, high return on investment solution to motivate and engage the entire team, delivering corporate value in a number of areas including:
– Increased staff retention
– Improved talent attraction
– Enhanced brand image
– Reduced training and recruitment costs
– Increased client satisfaction
– Competitive edge
– Increased revenue opportunities
So, if you are not convinced that employees need to be viewed as investments, just consider these three points.
• Comment. Reducing costs will keep our competitive edge.
• Response. Your people are your competitive edge.
• Comment. It’s easy to find people.
• Response. Yes, it’s easy to find bodies, but talent is always in short supply
• Comment. We want long term success, but need to survive in the short term.
• Response. If you don’t operate a policy to retain your top performers in the short term, there won’t be a long term.
According to Michel Denehey. “If staff engagement is done right, then it will translate into sustainable revenue and profit growth and staff engagement has the potential to have an enormous impact on brand value”.
To learn how Brownie Points can help you attract and retain top talent, improve performance and enhance brand value, call today on 03 9909 7411 or email the team at info@browniepoints.com.au
