Employee engagement, collaboration, talent retention, and client satisfaction are all essential elements of company culture. And studies show that each has a significant impact on revenue growth.
When performance numbers aren’t where expected, where do you default your thinking? Most sales managers agree that when sales performance suffers, they think more activity is needed, the right people aren’t on the team, or the processes are broken. Rarely does company culture come to mind.
What happens to revenue when your team lacks clarity and engagement?
Company Culture Impacts Your Bottom Line
Unhappy employees cost American businesses over $550 billion each year — it literally pays to ensure your people are happy and engaged at work.
A strong company culture has a significant impact on business performance and goals. It leads to improvements in productivity, employee engagement, happiness, new skill development, and more. Having a strong company culture is proven to:
- Increase Productivity and Revenue — Organizations with highly engaged employees grow revenue 2.5 times as much as those that don’t.
- Reduce Regrettable Turnover — It can minimize our top performers and the leaders on the team from leaving. Some turnover is good and needs to happen but losing those that are the strong players hurts. Research shows that engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave the company.
- Improve Key Customer Retention — Companies with engaged employees experience 233% greater customer loyalty.
When people feel their voice and values are reflected in their company culture and that they’re part of a bigger purpose, they feel more invested in the company’s success and contribute more to the overall bottom line.
Aligning Business Strategies and Company Culture
Markets change, business strategies shift, and either intentionally or unintentionally, company culture happens. When business strategies change, your company culture must change with it — or vice versa.
When a salesperson interacts with a prospect or client, they’re involved in both business strategy and culture. They want to close the deal and make a sale, but they also want to communicate their core values.
Having a strong culture doesn’t happen on its own. It takes time; it starts with a commitment, and it must begin with the leadership team.
Four Key Components to Building an Engaged Culture
1. Shared Mission
Having a mission statement isn’t just a nice sentence or two written down in a handbook that rarely gets noticed. It’s a shared reason for being that gives employees a clear vision of where they’re going and makes them feel like they are part of something. Find ways to reinforce and to share the vision often.
2. People Development
It starts with having the right people with the right talents,and that are the right fit, on the team. Get to know them, and build those important relations by listening. Set clear expectations and give the autonomy to do their jobs. Provide consistent and meaningful feedback.
3. Valued Voice
Employees want to be informed and have transparent communication throughout the team. Knowing their ideas are heard and listened to drives up the engagement.
4. Earned Trust
Leaders — live out your core values! You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to own and admit if you make mistakes. Reward those that demonstrate your values and refuse to tolerate those that don’t.
Higher Employee Engagement = Higher Revenue
Your people are your most valuable asset. Investing in company culture and employee engagement shows serious ROI. An analysis by Aon Hewitt reports that for every 1% increase in employee engagement, you can expect to see an additional 0.6% growth in sales for an organization.
Study after study shows that positive company culture leads to better employee engagement and supports higher revenue. Next time you’re thinking defaults to needing more activity or changing your people or processes, take a moment to evaluate your company culture. You may be surprised at what you find!
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