The Key for Your Company to be Profitable - Putting Your People First
The people-first culture that has been increasingly adopted by many organisations has led to a more sustainable working environment. ‘People-first’ refers to treating employees as how a business would treat their customers, in other words giving utmost importance to the needs of their employees.
Employees are Less Stressed, More Satisfied
The resulting effect of this new-found mentally of business leaders is a less stressed-out, less overworked group of employees. Leaders who focus on their employees' well-being tend to take their employees’ feedback and opinions into account, thereby giving them more flexibility and freedom with their work arrangements and tasks. Having more flexibility in the working environment allows one to feel more satisfied with their job, in turn improving their morale and loyalty to the company.
Feel Empowered at Work
People-centric leaders also improve their team’s morale by considering each employee’s competency levels when assigning them work tasks. This is a key practice to follow, since employees will then be able to make use of their strengths and feel more accomplished at work. These leaders also tend to tie their employees’ goals with organisational goals, giving their employees purposeful tasks and a much better sense of direction.
Higher Employee Productivity, Higher Customer Satisfaction
Employees of companies who adopt the people-first culture would then translate their increased job satisfaction into higher levels of productivity and efficiency. This will be evident in the way employees provide customer service, when coming up with new ideas for their campaigns, etc. The increased employee morale and involvement, therefore results in a higher customer satisfaction. The study done by Queen's University Centre for Business Venturing has shown that culture-driven companies do in fact experience 30% stronger customer satisfaction.
Loyal Employees Increase Profitability
A company with higher customer satisfaction is likely to grow in success, and create a better corporate image for itself. A successful company that provides employees with work benefits, genuine care and opportunities serves little reason for existing employees to leave, improving the retention rate significantly. For instance, research shows that low-engagement teams endure turnover rates of up to 43% higher than those of highly-engaged teams, and that 80% of employees give preference to a job with a flexible work schedule. The reduction in turnover rates in turn leads to cost savings for the company, adding to their success. The attractive corporate image would also attract more applicants to the company, allowing it to choose better talents from a larger pool of candidates and have a stronger workforce. It is no surprise that results by Gallup’s meta-analysis show how companies with more engaged and motivated workers are 21% more profitable.
Companies that are Putting its People First
An epitome of the people-first culture is Marriott International, a hospitality service provider that operates hotels and restaurants. They have adopted the people-first culture for 95 years and remained committed to taking care of its employees’ health even during the pandemic by providing health care insurance for all employees, including those on furlough. This has resulted in 88% of Marriott’s employees saying that it is a great place to work, which is significantly higher than the overall average of 57%, making them the only hospitality company in the list of “100 Best Companies to Work At” for 25 consecutive years.
A local people-centric company is Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) Singapore, which has kept its people at its core for 90 years. With the aim of building a safer working environment for its employees, APB Singapore has adopted drone technology to conduct distillery tank inspections, which was previously a high-risk job, as workers had to physically climb up those tall distillery tanks. Despite the high price tag of the drone technology, APB Singapore is still willing to pay for it as the work safety of its people is the top priority.
In conclusion, an organisation with a ‘people-first’ culture prioritises its people over its bottom line, however, it can still be profitable since the employees are less stressed, more satisfied and more productive at work. As such, they will provide better customer experience, increase customer satisfaction and sales. To quote Richard Branson, “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”
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