Employee Engagement – How to get your employees to think and act like business owners

According to a recent Gallop Poll – only 18 % of Australians “loved” their work – 27 % is the international average.

• 2/3 of Australian workers are emotionally detached and just do the bare minimum.
• 20 % are “actively disengaged” – dislike their organisation, hate their boss, are indifferent to their job, but they just won’t leave.
• 1/3 of employees with low levels of engagement had “chucked a sickie” during the previous month, whereas only 11 per cent of engaged employees had done the same thing

A Mercer survey of 30,000 workers worldwide, which showed that between 28% and 56% of employees in 17 spots around the globe wanted to leave their jobs.

According to a study by the University of WA, absenteeism costs the private sector $2 billion in lost productivity a year

“The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.” Sir Walter Raleigh

Dale Carnegie study – top 10 reasons people HATE their jobs:

10. Grass is Greener

9. Values not aligned with company

8. Dont feel valued

7. Job insecurity

6. No room for advancement

5. Unhappy with pay

4. Too much red tape

3. Not being challenged

2. Lost the passion

1. BOSS SUCKS

But …If we can get it right ..

Some common elements the researchers found among employees who declared they were highly engaged:

• Engaged workers were more likely to say their organisation is hiring and expanding its workforce
• Engaged workers were more likely to rate their personal life favourably
• Almost all engaged employees said they were treated with respect “all day yesterday”, and were less likely to have experienced anger or stress
• Those with good physical health reported higher engagement than those with health problems.

Employee Share Ownership Plans ( ESOP’s ):

The National Centre for Employee Ownership provides a summary of key academic studies on ESOP’s and corporate performance. The studies highlight the performance impact over non-ESOP businesses:

• Sales growth +2.4%
• Employment growth +2.3 %
• Productivity growth +14.8 %
• Return on assets +5.5 %
• Net profit margin +10.3 %
• Wages 5 – 12 % higher
• Total retirement assets 2.6 times greater

In fact there is very little, if any, negative academic research on ESOP’s and their effect on company performance.

Craig West

Managing Director | Succession Plus

Craig West is a strategic accountant who has over 20 years’ experience advising business owners. His background as a CPA in public practice, provided invaluable experience in the key issues of concern to business owners. Following 6 years of study to gain two masters degrees, Craig focused on Capital Gains Tax (CGT) for business sales advising on strategic management of tax issues. This experience formed a very strong view that business owners (and often their advisers) were unprepared and unaware of the steps required to prepare a business for exit.

Craig now acts as a strategic mentor for mid-market business owners and has written four critically acclaimed books on employee incentives, succession planning, asset protection and exit strategies. Craig has conducted numerous seminars and keynote presentations throughout Australia & internationally, including adviser education programs for the Institute of Chartered Accountants and CPA Australia.