One of the great things about working with other businesses on their marketing is that you  learn a lot about them. Over the years I have built up quite a wealth of knowledge in areas as diverse as steel vineyard trellising systems, to the point where I can’t drive past a vineyard without checking out what kind of posts they have!

Recently I had the opportunity to learn about employee engagement when Mark and I met with new clients, Amy Milner and Deidre Graham of Kissing Frogs. This aptly named company works with medium to large sized corporate clients to identify and leverage the potential of staff  through ‘active engagement’.

Now these might sound like the latest management buzz words, but the reality is that a business whose staff are actively engaged will see a return on investment that will far outweigh any knee-jerk cost cutting exercises like laying-off staff and cutting back on marketing. Great news at a time when all the mainstream media can talk about is economic doom and gloom.

Quite a different business from the vineyard trellising industry, and a great opportunity for me, as a business owner, to learn more about an aspect of business many are not aware of.

This is an area of potential saving that many businesses don’t realise they can tap into. The return on investment can (and should) far outstrip the cost of implementing an employee engagement programme. Having staff that are engaged means your business has more chance of retaining staff for longer, costing you less to recruit and train new people. There is less absenteeism, less pilfering and dishonesty, and consequently an increase in productivity.

“The combined effects of improving employee engagement is an increase in productivity of 18%, and an increase of over 12% in profitability when compared with disengaged employees.

When your workplace becomes fully engaged you can expect an increase of around 10% on annual earnings per employee.”
say Amy and Deidre of Kissing Frogs

There are some appalling statistics in NZ that show that the majority of us have businesses with staff who are not engaged.

• 74% of employees are either disengaged or actively disengaged.
• Public sector employees are significantly less engaged in their work than those in the private sector.
• Disengaged employees are 27% more likely to be absent from work than their engaged colleagues.
• Workplaces with a high number of disengaged employees have 31-51% higher staff turnover and 51% more unaccounted inventory loss.
• Disengaged employees ‘intention to stay’ is 45% lower than those who are actively engaged. An engaged employ is less likely to leave their job, costing your business time and money to replace and train new staff.
• Businesses scoring in the upper quartile for employee engagement gain up to 12% higher customer service scores than those in the bottom quartiles.
  

As a customer, you’ve probably had firsthand experience of disengaged staff many times. Who hasn’t been into a shop or business and received bad service from staff who just don’t seem to care? We’ve all got tales to tell. Here’s mine…

I recently purchased around $300 worth of clothing from Wild South to wear on holiday. The staff in the store were nice and helpful, with a ready smile. No hint that below the surface lay a underlying problem of dis-empowered and ultimately disengaged staff.

Unfortunately two of the garments had faults, which weren’t revealed until I went to wear them on holiday – and without a back up wardrobe.

On returning home I took them back to the store, fully expecting to get this sorted quickly so I did not remain inconvenienced any longer. The staff again were pleasant, but company ‘policy’ dictated that all returns had to go back to head office.  I let unsatisfied, still out of pocket and out of clothes.

Five days passed and no word from Wild South. My receipt for the returns had no phone number or explanation about the process, only a website address. I managed to track down the number for the parent company, Kauri Clothing, so rang them.

They couldn’t help – I’d have to ring the store and they in turn would ring Head office and talk to the appropriate person in the factory.

So I rang the store. My garments were still there. They had not been sent to head office because company policy dictated they only send returns every Friday, which was 5 days after I had returned my garments. The staff were too scared to go against this policy because they would be ‘told off’.

I rang head office again, who blamed the staff at the store for not telling me about the policy. But the problem is not that I wasn’t told, it is with the policy itself – a policy which disempowers and demoralises the staff, contributing to their disengagement.

And where is the customer in all this? The very person that directly contributes to the success of the company by buying their products? Completely forgotten.

I am reminded that this is not the first time I have had this type of experience with Kauri Clothing. Suffice to say this will be the last purchase from a company who in my experience fail to recognise the value and needs of their customers and staff!

You don’t have to be a management expert to realise that:
Disengaged staff = disengaged customers = lost business

Solution = contact Deirdre and Amy of Kissing Frogs on 027 229 0067 and change the equation!

Posted on October 14th, 2008 by Wendy Riley-Biddle
Filed under: General