Your People, Your Success

Is your company’s goal to grow sales, improve margins and/or reduce costs? One or all of these can be achieved with a focused structured approach, and your organisation can be rewarded with improved profitability. But, no matter what strategic or operational plans have been put in place, success will only be achieved if your most important assets are working with you. The more they are aligned the greater your organisation’s success will be.

Within any organisation the most important asset is its STAFF. If an organisation can ensure staff understand the company’s key objectives, strategies, plans, and goals, then these can be translated into individual objectives – and success will follow. This is often referred to as Employee Engagement and is linked to high performing workforces.

Doug Conant who was the former CEO of Campbell's Soup is famously quoted as saying "To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace."

As leaders of businesses, or functions within a business, we are all stretched to make the most of our valuable time. The goal of this column is to help you, by offering a step-by-step guide on driving success. Each month, I will share with you a topic and plan that you can follow to help you improve your performance.

Outlined below is a summary of these key areas, so you know what you have to look forward to.

• Next month, we will address business strategy. Whilst the most important asset is “colleagues” the most important thing is the customer. Without the customer we have no business and no jobs. It is important that employees and colleagues focus on key actions that delight customers and that facilitate the delivery of enhanced sales, improved profit or lower operational costs. However, taking business strategy and linking this to employee objectives is key, so we will start by explaining how to link them to department objectives.
• Most companies operating appraisal schemes and objective-setting recognise these must be linked to strategy. This article will focus on individual goal-setting and discuss the needs of monitoring, supporting and regular following ups.
• As feedback is given there is often the need todevelop staff to meet those business goals. Many training models look at 70% of training coming from line managers, with on the job training. So skills linked to coaching and mentoring are key and we will offer guidance in this area.
• What is heard and understood is really important, so how you or your organisation communicate with staff is important. For this section we will look at options and timing to manage this effectively.
• How often do we hear the words, “thank you” at work? Often areas like bonuses are used to motivate staff. However, there are a number of other ways of giving recognition and we will help you think about these and decide what might suit your organisation best.
• Training is a way of developing skills but when you choose to spend money on training it has to be in the right area. We will review how you can assess this.
• Sadly, some staff members do not achieve the standards we are looking for. This means there is a need to manage non-performers and later recruit replacements. Over two separate months we will address both of these areas.
• “A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”. Or should there be other incentives such as bonuses? In this section we will look at ways of managing financial recognition.

Please join us next month as we start this exciting and rewarding journey through HR services.

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