Yet again the most recent Gallup statistics paint a very dire picture of how low employee engagement levels are across the world. In the UK only 10% of employees are highly engaged which is marginally worse than the global average which is 15%.
Imagine what would happen if as business leaders we were able to double or even triple this. The impact on productivity, profitability and general levels of employee happiness would be demonstrable, and I bet a ripple effect would result in a better planet for all of us. You don’t get to be in the 100 Best Companies to Work For, for 19 years in a row, just by luck.
But how do we learn how to improve employee engagement and put people at the forefront of the business. A great solution is to learn from companies who have consistently been voted in the top 100 places to work. JM Family Enterprises is one of the largest, most innovative and diversified companies in the automotive industry. Based in Florida, its principal businesses focus on vehicle distribution and processing, finance and insurance, retail vehicle sales, and dealer technology services.
Stephanie Slate, Director of Talent Acquisition at JM Family Enterprises, shares one of the ways they create great levels of employee engagement is by referring to their people as Associates and not employees. This makes people feel that they work with the company and not for them. It instils a culture of inclusion and participation. (Personally, I hate the word employee as the word derives from the word employ, which means to use and to my mind this infers that we use our people, which simply is not right).
Secondly, she attributes the high associate engagement score to the fact that the company put People First. Everything the company does supports this culture including the recruitment process, where only people are hired who fit into the culture. Even if someone has amazing technical skills they will not be hired if they are a cultural misfit. This is a philosophy that both Zappos and Google also follow. In fact, they even encourage people to leave after 30 days by offering them a paycheck for doing so. This quickly weeds out anyone who has slipped through the recruitment process and does not align with the company culture.
Companies like JM family Enterprises, Zappos and Google take cultural fit so seriously that they will train Associates in the relevant skills needed for the job, as long as they have the right attitude and are a great cultural fit. After all the skills needed for different roles are changing at a rapid pace – think Facebook and Instagram didn’t even exist 15 years ago – yet the company culture is like its DNA and lives on long after different technological fads have been and gone.
Here are the six ways that you can create an engaged people-centric culture.
- Show Respect – make associates feel both valued and respected. Encourage the new associates to ask questions, to be curious, and they listen to them. With every new change that comes along, ensure that one of the first questions asked by senior management is “how will this impact our associates?’
- Demonstrate Caring – When a company cares about its associates it can show that by offering an excellent benefits package, but the caring can extend well beyond that. It could involve having medical staff and daycare services on-site; or providing support that helps associates in times of hardship. Some companies event have LifeCare Programmes, which is like an Associate concierge service that helps with non-work related issues.
- Communication and Connection – Communication is key to ensuring that your associates feel like they work with you and not for you. During the onboarding process, ensure all new Associates get to meet with a Vice President for a day, as well as meet and ask questions with the CEO. This not only helps the communication flow but also helps to make good connections between the new Associates and the Executive Management team.
- Encourage Empowerment – Encourage associates to ask questions and to challenge things, although this has to be done constructively and in ways that will benefit the company. Encourage associates to try new things and to learn from their mistakes, rather than to punish or criticize them for it. This helps to create an empowered workforce that is proactive when they see opportunities to benefit the company.
- Create Opportunities – One of the key reasons people cite for leaving their employers is a lack of career development and opportunities. When a company takes an approach where they hire for cultural fit and willing to train for a position, and they have five different divisions, there will always be opportunities to either advance or to try something different.
- Show Appreciation – Appreciation is one of our most basic human needs, after food, shelter, and safety, and JM Family do a great job at showing their Associates that they are appreciated. They have regular appreciation dinners and awards, and they also have a peer to peer appreciation program which allows people to recognize their colleagues for great work that they have done. Sometimes great work goes unseen by management, but programs like this allow for people to be recognized by their peers and for their efforts to be brought to the attention of the management.
Now for those of you thinking that creating an engaged workforce is a nice-to-do activity, think again. The results are compelling
- JM Family’s staff turnover rate is 7.1 per cent, which is well below their competitors, which helps to reduce cost, which increases profit.
- Their staff stays with the company 10.1 years on average, which compares very favourably with the national average of 4.2,
- Staff are happy to recommend the company, and the majority of new hires come from referrals which help to keep down recruitment costs and ensures that any open positions are filled quickly.
- The company has achieved record revenues in each of the last five years, with an average revenue growth of around 12 per cent per year since 2011.
So the result is when you put your people first you create an engaged, excited and empowered workforce, which helps to keep costs down and revenues growing, and who wouldn’t want that.
If you want to get more engagement in your team why not grab a copy of our new online training course. For a limited time, you can get free access using the COUPON CODE JF2 at check out. Simply register at https://www.engageandgrow.com.au/video-course
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
