The Vital Growth Driver

The Vital Growth Driver

20/07/2022 by

Gail Biddulph

Understanding how the employee experience directly influences productivity and retention rates is crucial in a post-pandemic world. 

Every organisation is only ever as good as the people working for it. 

Many companies are providing numerous employee benefits and encouraging employees to take full advantage, but the companies are still not reaping the promised rewards. 

Instead, human resource professionals are finding themselves overwhelmed and working longer hours trying to manage the hundreds of programs implemented to meet the needs of employees.  The paperwork, administration and time taken to manage the different programs simply does not work, nor does it support the diverse needs of employees. 

So what’s the answer? 

Enable employees to feel better whilst they are working. 

Uh? 

So what’s the difference?  Isn’t that what employee benefits are supposed to do? 

Yes, the wellbeing perks of gym membership, massage, pilates and so on do help people to feel better.  But if there is something in the day to day work that irritates or frustrates or causes stress, then no amount of independent wellbeing perks will change feelings and enable the employee and team to work at optimal performance. 

The key to integrating well-being is to empower employees to feel great whilst they are working and doing the job they have bee trained, and employed to do.  

Here’s a quick example:

I was consulting for a law firm and specifically mentoring and coaching one particular team.  Overall, the team I was working with was improving all of the KPI’s.  But, there was one lawyer whose performance was sub-optimal.  The lawyer was technically brilliant, but was pulling down the team results because he missed the required performance standards. 

I discovered there was one aspect of his role that caused him so much anxiety and stress that he created the most brilliant workarounds to cover what he simply couldn’t bring himself to do. 

The solution was to provide additional training, personal support and coaching for him and to adapt the role so he was happy and the team delivered excellent client service. 

Making the small, but fundamental change created a new dynamic, shot the team to the top of the internal performance league and the lawyer was once again happy and a pivotal team player. 

Chatting to the team leader, she said she wished they had spotted the problem.  But, it usually takes an independent, external perspective to spot the key change that’s needed to create a high-performing team who are happy and healthy and delight clients. 

To find the opportunities for benefiting from integrating well-being and creating a high-performing team you can contact me for a confidential, no-obligation chat.