Why your employees are your company’s most important asset
Leadership consultant and Forbes contributor Rodger Dean Duncan points out that if you got to work one day and discovered someone had stolen your computers and files, you would probably instigate an extensive investigation to determine what happened, and then draft a plan of action to make sure it didn’t occur again. Yet most employers accept the loss of valued staff members as par for the course, whether they are “stolen” by a competitor or just decide to seek employment elsewhere.
In some ways, your employees are even more important than your company’s proprietary files. Here are four reasons they are so valuable :
- Action: In our tech-centric world, it’s easy to forget that behind every great computer is a great employee. While infrastructure and resources are important, remember that it’s your team that is ultimately responsible for your business’ success or failure. This is particularly true if you work in a client- or customer-facing industry, where consistency in staffing is key.
- Expense: Don’t forget salaries and benefits are almost certainly some of your biggest expenses. If you don’t maximize bang-for-your-buck in this area, you are simply throwing good money after bad. On the other hand, talented employees represent an enormous return on this investment, helping their companies meet and exceed goals.
- Innovation: Innovation is the lifeblood of a business, more so today than ever before. While industry leaders and top executives may spend the most time talking about innovation, the big “light bulb moment” that ultimately sets a company apart from its competitors often stems from an observation made by an on-the-ground worker. If your turnover at this level is high, you could be missing out on innovative ideas that would propel your professional interests onward and upward.
- Institutional memory: The kinds of companies where people want to keep working have the strength of solid institutional memory. Employees who have been with a business through thick and thin for years, or even decades, understand its mission, vision and identity in a way that new workers simply will not be able to. This is incredibly powerful when it comes to strengthening your company’s brand. Ultimately, all successful organizations have compelling stories, and no one will tell your business’ story better than the people who have helped build it and make it what it is.
Once you begin viewing your workers as one of your company’s most important assets, it becomes clear how important it is to protect your return on investment where they are concerned. If you made a big monetary investment in a computer system, you would likely spend at least some time and money making sure it continues to work smoothly and operate efficiently. Do the same with your people, checking in with them periodically to be sure all is well.
It’s also crucial to show your team how valuable you believe they are by investing in their professional development. Mastery Technologies provides a wide variety of employee development training courses to appeal to workers in almost every industry imaginable. Whether you want to give your team the chance to learn specific technical skills or general business knowledge, browse our course offerings today!