The difference between what we think and know can cause a major problem with the human capital in an organization. Over time, the gap will widen creating a steep increase in your turnover rate. We all know it’s more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep an existing customer. But what about employees? While large corporations often have quick and slick hiring processes that leverage resources and cut acquisition time, small business have a much harder go at carving out resources to acquire new employees which makes them prone to settling.
What’s the point? Do you think your employees are satisfied or do you know they’re satisfied? The difference between those two realities could be vast and end up damaging your company’s infrastructure as employees disappear.
All businesses carry the risk of failing to take the time necessary to confirm understanding on both tangible and intangible employee satisfaction. The tangibles aren’t so complicated; pay, benefits, hours, tools, and training. Intangibles, well that’s a Jedi Master topic for another day.
Small businesses are especially vulnerable to losing touch with employee satisfaction. Why? There’s too much work to do and certainly no time to stop and talk about something like intangible job satisfaction. What the heck is intangible job satisfaction, anyway? Good question, but irrelevant if you can’t figure out how to create enough space for the discussion.
As Gino Wickman describes in his book ‘Traction’, “you need to create the transition from working in the business all week to working on the business.” No matter how great your products and services are, at some point, your future success will be defined by how you manage people.
Perhaps you’re reading this and realize that you spend 99% of your time working ‘in’ your business. You may have this picture of your company as a ship with no one at the wheel. Everyone, including you, is up in the rigging working tirelessly to make the ship go faster. “Iceberg, right ahead”, will come out of the mouth of one of your key employees as they threaten to quit if things don’t change.
Let us know if you’d like help with what it looks like to work ‘ON’ your business.