Tuesday's Tidbits - The Power of Engagement (no, not that kind)

Hello! Thank you for stopping by and reading this post. Whether it's your first post or you've read every one, I appreciate you stopping by, and as always, I hope that this post can offer some insight, spark a conversation, and genuinely help in some way.

Shiny object, in case I tricked you

Today's Topic - The Power of Engagement! Unfortunately for those that clicked on this hoping this post would be about weddings, emotional and physical unity, and/or shiny objects, this post is about Employee Engagement. Gotcha! That's probably the closest to clickbait I'd ever want to be, so I won't apologize. Employee Engagement - What is it? Why is it important? Why is it a trending topic? How can I boost my company's employee engagement, and how can I tell it's working? Now those are the right questions, and if you're thinking of those, you're in the right place.

Employee Engagement - What is it? Social Chorus has a great summation for what Employee Engagement is, and they define an engaged employee as having these characteristics:

• Absorbed by and and enthusiastic about their work

• Takes positive action to advance the reputation and interests of the company

• Has a positive attitude towards the company's values, interests, and goals

• Contrasts employees that are "coasting" or just looking to do the bare minimum to get by

Could you imagine a workplace that had nothing but these types of employees? As a business owner, C-level Exec, Director, and even Manager, you should hope that your business is always moving in a direction that can keep your employees engaged, because that's the difference between barely meeting your annual business goals and knocking them out of the park. I think unfortunately, we still see a lot of businesses today that have the Churn & Burn mentality when it comes to employees, especially BDRs, SDRs, CSMs and Account Managers. They hire a lot of people at a time, burn them out with unrealistic expectations, then turn them over for new employees in a matter of 3-6 months. Can this work? For immediate goals, maybe, and the CFO will probably like it, because you're always spending the absolute least you can for half your staff, which looks great on paper, but that's missing a lot of the picture.

Didn't imagine this one, did you?

It's the equivalent of buying a brand new Corvette or Porsche...or whatever fancy car you want to picture. Lambo? Go for it. But what happens when you buy this beautiful new piece of machinery and instead of the Full Synthetic oil the car requires, you go with regular oil? What happens when you constantly pump 87 fuel instead of 93? What happens when you replace every part that needs replacing with the cheapest you can find? Well you do still have a nice car, and I'm sure after a cheap car wash, your friends will still be impressed, but when it comes time to compare your car's performance to another that's been taken care of properly, it'll be no contest. That's the same with businesses - If you cheap out on talent, you'll consistently underperform your competitors.

To put it in Sales terms, think of how long it takes to ramp up an employee to where they can host regular, high-quality Sales conversations related to your individual product. Does it take 6 months? 9 months? I've heard a lot of people say that average time-table is about 6 months, so let's take that as our number. Now think if you're laying off and re-hiring about 20 SDRs or AMs every 6 months...what quality of conversations do you hope to have if you're always relying on employees that have barely met the minimum time requirement to learn your product, so that they can come across as professional, helpful, resourceful, and truly a voice worth listening to in your vertical? Not exactly a recipe for continuously growing numbers.

Me coasting...as a stock photo

Full disclosure from someone who used to be an average employee for a large company - I absolutely coasted during times, and when I thought back as to why, it was the times where I felt that my efforts didn't seem to matter. I wasn't getting recognition, I wasn't getting coaching, and I wasn't happy, and I absolutely had entire days where I was checked out. No telling how much revenue I could have added to my position at the time, but it's difficult sometimes for employees to put forth that effort knowing that they're not getting any investments from the company, not advancing any skillsets, but getting all of the blame for when any little thing goes wrong. The crazy thing was that I wasn't intentionally checking out. It was only after I left that I realized what I was capable of, and I realized that I was just...zoned out. A desk zombie, and I didn't realize it until after I'd wasted the day doing almost nothing. So yeah, all of this happens, and it happens to people all the time!

To prove this, that same article from Social Chorus states that good Employee Engagement leads to the following:

1. Good Employee Engagement leads to higher Retention rates for your top-tier talent, reducing the turnover, and the costs associated with onboarding new employees

2. Good Employee Engagement leads to higher productivity. "Companies with a high level of engagement report 22% higher productivity...The Workplace Research Foundation found that employees who are engaged are 38% more likely to have above average productivity."

3. Talent Culture found that increasing employee engagement investments by 10% gave them an ROI of $2,400 per employee!

That's crazy to think about. If you have a team of 10, and you increase your employee engagement investment by just 10%, you'll see an ROI that could be $24,000 from your team? For a lot of companies, that's truly significant.

Obviously we've gotten to the part of the program where we're answering the question "Why is Employee Engagement important?" To add more to this, our Soft Skills Seminar page refers to a post by Bamboo HR where they found the average cost to onboard a new employee was about $4,125 between new equipment and the time taken in salary to train that new employee. So if your team budget is $850,000 per year for a team of 10, you're losing about $4,125 just by having a disengaged employee leave your team, let alone the cost of lost revenue from that position being vacant, and the added stress of someone else to cover that position for a few weeks while you interview. Efficiency takes a major hit, and that's part of your P&L that's not coming back. Investing in a higher level of Employee Engagement truly can make or break your team.

If you're a stats person like I am, check these out from Achievers.com related to Employee Engagement:

1. According to their stats, only 25% of employers have an Employee Engagement strategy in place. That means if you join the 25%, you'll have a significant advantage in luring top-tier level talent

2. Only 30% of employees feel encouraged to grow with their current company. 30%! That's insanely low, especially when the fine people at SweetHart Entertainment can help them grow their professional skillsets through Soft Skills Seminars!

3. Companies with higher employee engagement levels see a 21% increase in profits. Again, what else can you find that will give you that level of ROI?

4. According to a Harvard Business Review report, disengagement costs employers roughly $450 billion to $550 billion a year

These stats are in...sane!! For me personally, the amount of revenue lost per year from disengagement is baffling, but the stat that sticks out most to me is that 1st one - 25% of employers have an employee engagement strategy. That is stunning! Again, for me personally, I think the reason it's stunning is because coming up with an employee engagement plan is probably one of the most fun parts of anyone's job. Now, why did I just say anyone instead of HR or the People & Culture teams? Because that's probably the biggest misperception of an Employee Engagement strategy - That it's their responsibility and only their responsibility. FALSE! Employee Engagement is the responsibility of everyone at the company. Managers should be fully investing in their employees, getting to know them, and making sure they're getting feedback from their employees. Directors should be engaging with their managers, and CEOs should be engaging with their Directors & VPs. Teams should be actively engaging in other teams, and veteran employees should be making sure newer employees are being engaged with at a high level. That's what efficiency looks like when it comes to Employee Engagement - Everyone should know what the strategy is, and what their role is!

I'm sure everything I've said up to this point kind of helps answer this already, but another question I posed at the beginning was "Why is Employee Engagement a trending topic?" Did you guess Covid? Of course that's part of the answer! But according to a Gallup World Poll, only 15% of employees worldwide felt engaged at work. See? Covid, right? Wrong! That was actually done in 2017, and Entrepreneur.com suggests that this was the writing on the wall that made the work-from-home life that Covid brought so difficult for so many people. Employee Engagement was a trending topic before this madness even started, and it's because companies are evolving. They're starting to find out what Engagement truly looks like, and what it doesn't look like.

I've heard of and from a lot of companies that talk about their cultures, and there are so many ways that you can tell a healthy culture from a secretly unhealthy one. Here are a few examples based on feedback I've heard over the years:

• Good - We prioritize our company culture. We have a lot of different internal groups to join, we ask feedback from our employees, and we have many different team-building events every year

• Suspect - Our culture is pretty laid-back here. You can dress in gym shorts all the time, and we have a foosball table. Pretty cool, right?

• Good - Our managers are going to invest in you as an employee by prioritizing monthly meetings that get your feedback and help you always have a plan for your advancement in the company

• Suspect - Well, every manager has a different style, and we keep our managers pretty busy, so I can't guarantee you'd sit down with them every month, but most have a pretty open-door policy

• Good - We have specific volunteer days that you can use, and we're going to make sure you can maintain a healthy work-life balance. Our managers are also pretty good about making sure you take your PTO when you need to

• Suspect - We just can't offer any flexibility at this time in terms of promising you can work from home or take time off. Our PTO requires a 2-week notice ahead of time no matter what

Lots of differences there, but those aren't even made-up statements. Those are actual things I've written down over the years from interviews, and though I won't say which businesses were which, because I want to protect that for them, I can tell you that at least 1 of "Suspect" statements came from a company which is no longer doing business. Turns out they couldn't keep good employees, and they weren't able to reach their Sales goals...The major takeaway here is that if your company doesn't have an Employee Engagement strategy, that's not a decision that's going to immediately close your doors, but you're getting further and further behind compared to other companies. If you're in a highly competitive area, not having a healthy company culture or an employee engagement strategy will likely prevent you from attracting the highest tiers of job-seekers out there, causing the growth of your team and/or company to be slower than others.

Alright, so that's a lot of stats and a lot of references, and that's all good and everything, but the biggest question out of all of this is probably "How can I improve my employee engagement?" If you've read any of our posts so far, you can probably guess that it's shameful product plug time!! SweetHart Entertainment is uniquely geared to help improve a company's employee engagement in the following ways:

1. We can provide Corporate Entertainment options in an event that you host either in-person or remote for your employees

2. We lead Soft Skills Seminars so that your employees feel invested in, and know that you're prioritizing their career paths, making them much more likely to be more efficient, but also to stay with your company longer

3. We host Power Hours that can boost employee happiness, employee recognition, and help promote teamwork while simultaneously helping promote a healthy work-life balance. Trivia Power Hours are getting increasingly popular!

4. We boost teamwork, employee morale, and employee motivation through our Teamwork and Motivational Seminars

5. We can help diagnose the health of your company's culture and/or employee engagement strategy through a Consultation! As professionals who know a lot about company culture and have seen/been a part of a lot of different cultures, we can do an assessment to see what your employees think, providing you with a score of where your company is currently at, and developing a plan to improve that score that's broken down into 3 month, 6 month & 1 year goals that you can track

Make your employees happy like this guy!

Obviously, the hyperlinks are there for you to see more information on each, and I'm obviously going to promote our company as the go-to for solutions to improve your company's culture and/or employee engagement. However, the major takeaway here is that there are so many different solutions that can help promote a healthier culture, which leads to a higher retention rate for your most valuable employees, more productivity among your teams, and a higher efficiency rate for your business. The stats in this post should show you a lot about what ROI you can expect, so what are you waiting for? If you don't have an employee engagement strategy or a healthy company culture, get in the game! (And we can help!) If you want to improve your culture or strategy, get started today also. Don't wait, because every day you wait, more and more of your employees are looking for other opportunities that will provide them with a better culture.

As always, thank you for reading. We hope these blog posts will help provide value into the lives of those around us through a laugh, a new idea, or helping companies prioritize their employees at a higher level, which makes everyone happy. The business sees higher efficiencies and profits, and the employees see a higher level of happiness in the process. We welcome positive comments, and hope that you follow us to see more in the future!