Why It's Important

People will always be the most important business commodity for any organization. Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why, offers one reason:

Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.

Gallup’s State of the American Workforce (2016) offers all the evidence one would ever need to understand that employee engagement is the root for organizational innovation, growth, and profitability.

But before we celebrate cracking the code to business success, Gallup tells us more than half (51.6%) of the workforce is unengaged. Worse yet:

• 47% of the workfoce says now is a good time to find a quality job
• 51% are searching for new jobs or watching for openings.

Did you know the average cost for replacing an employee is 150 – 200% of the person’s salary[1]? That means if an employee making $68,000/year left, the company cost to train and hire their replacement would be between $105,400 – $136,000.

Most organizations know turnover is expensive. Creating strategies that build a culture of engagement is important in retention—again, something most organizations know. The problem is that organizations often fail to distinguish the difference amongst engaging employees and employee engagement.

Gallup defines employee engagement brilliantly:

Employee engagement is the outcome of actively engaging employees through a strategy that drives improved performance–achieving engagement is simply not as easy as putting together a survey to measure employees’ level of engagement.

Put another way, engaged employees improve business outcomes.

Gallup’s State of the American Workforce, offers even more encouraging news for organizations of high employee engagement:

• 41% reduction in absenteeism
• 24% lower turnover
• 17% increase in productivity
• 21% greater profitability (as a business unit, not necessarily individual performance)

JKC Coaching and Consulting sparks solutions and provides leaders with best practices to create unique workplace cultures resulting in improved employee engagement, retention and profitability; taking organizations from surviving to thriving.

Are you ready build a strategic roadmap to take your organization to the next level?

[1] Bersin, Josh; “Employee Retention Now a Big Issue: Why the Tide has Turned” (2013)