I announced in May, 2010, the 52 - Week Employee Recognition Plan. This is the 46th week. The step this week is:
- Treat Them As Your Biggest Investors; They Are.
Yep. These are your biggest investors: Employees.
How can I say that? How can I quantify that?
Let's look at their investments. Then add them up.
TIME
Their investment is the majority of their waking hours. That's time. Time is a most precious resource. Once spent, it can never be reclaimed. And they invest the majority of this resource in building a company.
BRAIN-POWER & TALENTS
Statistics show that only a minority of employees are fully engaged, fully invested, emotionally and intellectually with their work. I bet that was not the case on their first interview or their first few days, weeks and months.
That investment is a contingency-based investment. It is contingent on their being recognized, their having the tools and resources to make use of their brain-power and talents. It is contingent on their organization creating a system of incentives, tangible and intangible, that aligns their investment goals with the organization's investment goals.
And yes, it is contingent on their willingness to forge ahead from a grass-roots level in the face of seemingly daunting distractions at the C-Suite level.
LIVES
So many employees give their lives to their work in spite of misaligned incentives, managers who forget to recognize their dedication, companies unwilling to match that investment with an investment in their tools, training and careers.
The stress they acquire, while devoting the majority of their waking hours and as much brain-power and talents as their company can embrace, is too-often brought home. The cost is their health and their family and community dynamics.
Now let's compare these investments to those investments of a financial nature.
When VCs consider an investment one of their first criteria to consider are the founders and their investment of time and talents and intellectual and emotional capital. That investment by the founders is a key, maybe the key, to executing an idea into a marketable product and sustainable business that could, possibly, generate a positive ROI for the VC.
That is no different than with employees. A financial investment is always contingent on the human capital invested and available to be invested in the future. As companies grow beyond the start-up phase, that human capital in the form of the employees is what separates, differentiates, companies from their competition in the marketplace, and continues to do so year after year.
See what your ROI can be without these first-in, last-out, investors, known as employees.
'Nuff said.
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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.
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