Sadly in today’s throwaway world the employee has now become almost a throwaway by product and simply disposable.
This mentality was highlighted when we came across a well known company in the UAE, they literally have the same relationship with their employees as a man would have with a disposable razor, it works to start with but quickly becomes blunt inefficient and past its sell by date, and like a disposable razor the time frame was horrifyingly short, and the employees get thrown away with another bunch brought in to go through the same process.
The good old hire & fire churn process.
So imagine in life every time something breaks and without looking at the reason why, we just throw it away and get another one, obviously we hope the new one will work better but the reality is we don’t know that.
However is that the most efficient method?
Specifically when you look at surveys showing the cost of new hires ranging from £12k to significantly higher and that is per employee.
The higher figure in some cases will factor in lost revenues while new hires are learning their skill (hopefully to a higher level than their predecessors).
This doesn’t factor in the damage to employee morale, the total insecurity and lack of value felt by employees and in turn the overall damage to productivity caused through lack of engagement.
So what is the alternative?
Appraisals,
Where does your organisation stand regarding these, it would appear to be fairly common place today that if these are conducted, they are not performed well and are really in place to protect a company in the event of terminating an employee.
If you think the idea of an appraisal is to allow employees time to develop into their role supported with on going training and guidance, that’s great, however the obvious challenge is who provides this service?
If the role is target related it really shouldn’t be an HR role as they have no understanding of the pressures and nuances of the work, so that leaves possibly their direct managers?
Sadly this is another area of challenge as the majority of these will have received little to no training in how to conduct an appraisal, they neither have the time or inclination and really don’t want to get involved in trying to fix things, they would rather just get new ones in.
When you think about this, the cost’s are ridiculous and are almost never factored into annual budgets, this covers all departments, sales, marketing collections CRM, asset management all support staff across the board.
We know from our experience when you bring in external facilitators they will see your challenges from a different perspective enabling more solutions to be explored, and also this is a genuine investment in your team which is totally appreciated by them all.
So what is the alternative?
Smaller companies for example don’t have the resources, larger companies tend to go through the motions, we have seen so much of this, they adopt a hire & fire mentality and then give excuses why the company has no budget for external training, even though they know the difference is significant across all departments.
We believe we have the solution.
At VOS we have created a new program, TEEM,
The Efficient Evaluation Method, quite simply we will conduct your employee appraisals, and then create a strategic plan to move forward on and also provide very specific 1-1 monthly training with the individuals in order to increase their engagement levels and also productivity, helping them to overcome any challenges or obstacles that are currently blocking them, leading them to constantly achieve and surpass targets as set by the company.
The benefit to company’s are multi fold and huge, increased efficiency and productivity combined with reduced costs, almost the Holy Grail.
We have tested this and it works, it’s perfect for smaller to mid size companies as the only impact in your budgets will be positive.
So instead of throwing money away and accepting the ever tiring inductions of new hires, plus the damage to employee moral, why not redirect a small % of it and invest it back into your teams, after all your employees are the ones that can make or break the business & the benefits are incredible.
So our message is instead of replace, let’s look at review re-engage, & re-train.
If you would like know more about TEEM and its benefits for your Company,
Please contact me on kevin@vosconsultants.com