I announced in May, 2010, the 52 - Week Employee Recognition Plan. This is the 22nd week. The lesson this week is:
Invest in their health.
Why wouldn’t you invest in your number one asset? Why wouldn’t you invest in its upkeep, its maintenance, its repair, its need to reboot, the proper fuel, the adequate security, and operate at a pace consistently below red-line?
If your business has a car, you buy insurance for it. You take it in for regular maintenance and repairs. You add the proper fuel, the best fuel. You keep the tires inflated. You protect it with alarms and park it inside your garage. You keep its RPMs below that red-line.
If your business has a computer, you buy support packages. You install the updates for operating systems and applications. You install the proper security. You train your other asset how to use this tool. You conduct diagnostic checks and security checks. You run scan disc and defragmenter...(You do these things, right?)
But for some reason...too many companies look at their most important asset, their employees, as a disposable, dispensable asset whose maintenance they choose to ignore, whose repairs they choose to forego and whose redlines are exceeded...all day, every day.
And then when that asset is burnt out and unproductive...well, these same businesses then blame the asset whose care and support they chose to forego.
It’s no wonder that ROA, return on assets, have fallen by over 75% for public companies since the mid-60’s. ( Link at Edge Perspectives. )
And maybe that's why only 11-24% of employees proactively help their organization towards its goals. *
Companies who ignore the health of their number one asset often see that their product quality declines, more customers are less happy, more employees are less motivated, fewer sales conversions are seen, their sales conversion rates decline,, more customer churn, more employee turnover...higher recruiting and training costs. And too often the choice is let’s hire a new marketing director or ad agency. Hurry up, too!
But what have they got to sell? A burned out shell of a company, one created by that same company ignoring the health of its number one asset. That's just like the burned out shell of your hard drive or the burned out engine of your car when you choose to forego their upkeep.
Now. There’s more to our health at work than the terms, accurately stated or not, of the current healthcare legislation.
- There’s the health that comes from training and motivation and building the right culture.
- There’s aligning incentives and purpose and tasks.
- There’s the emotionally healthy and simple act of saying thank you and encouraging that simple act to be a daily if not hourly habit.
- There’s recognizing the families of your employees and the sometimes unplanned needs of those families.
All of these are omitted from any health insurance or healthcare legislation. They do require the investment of your most precious resource: time. Time to listen. Time to care. Time to learn. Time to wait. Time to fail. Time to change.
But that investment is an investment in your number one asset: your people. Those people are your company, their company.
And that investment can turn that declining ROA into a resurging ROA. And that turns those assets again into people. The ones who create your, all of you’s, success.
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You can start with any week of the 52 - Week Employee Recognition Plan and make that your first week.
You can take one of those weeks and turn it into a month or commit to an accelerated pace and complete 6 of the weeks in one month.
You can create your own week of employee recognition. Share that journey here. Share it in your blog or Twitter or Facebook.
But, do something to recognize your employees! They set your brand apart as your ultimate competitive edge. And the more you recognize their achievements, the more achievements you'll see and they'll enjoy, along with your customers and and shareholders, partners and vendors.
* Brad Federman, author of Employee Engagement in his interview with Success Factors.
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