SESWS
SESWS ROI on Employee Engagement
The new MD was challenged to double the turnover and treble profits of the business in a 6 year period – pretty tricky against a background of little or no historical investment in the employee engagement agenda and a largely change averse workforce. We asked the question, ‘How much of your marketing budget do you spend on your existing staff?’. The answer, as always, was not enough.
As always it starts with listening – to the staff, to the customers and to the Leaders. As we always say, ‘The staff and the clients have all the answers, you just have to get the listening right’. From there we could formulate a clear plan in line with the business growth goals and lay out our engagement and communication priorities. It was a long list but the key was to focus on what could be achieved, how and when. Baby steps to start with. Easy wins. Low hanging fruit. To show we’d listened, understood and then acted. We also put in a new internal comms environment, both to listen and ensure the key messages were understood; de siloed the business; and trained the Leaders to lead and the Managers to manage; and, crucially, removed the barriers that tended to stop engagement in its tracks. Engagement surveys were forums for action not inertia and we actively sought the staff’s input into the transformation and the change they wanted to be and see.
Overall engagement has gone up from 51% to 64% – a 25% increase. However, these are just numbers and don’t really mean anything. Or do they? Customer compliments are up and complaints are down. Staff absenteeism has reduced by 50% (it was killing the business). Sales from staff leads have doubled to £250,000. Staff ideas on new products and efficiency savings are worth another £250,000 per year and go straight to the bottom line. And net
profit? Up 50% in less than three years.
“ DNA worked seamlessly with the leaders and managers to drive employee engagement. We can transparently see where the growth in engagement has driven sustainable bottom line benefits – in teams, in departments and in the company as a whole.”
Neil Chapman – Managing Director
In categories: Employee Engagement, Engagement Strategy, Engagement Surveys, Culture