2010 July 29 | The Business Success Blog

Employees Are The Best Investment for Your Business

July 29, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

As a Business Consultant I encounter many business owners who concentrate investments into their business mostly toward marketing, advertising and product development. This concentration is premised on the thinking that these areas will contribute to the company’s bottom line. While this is partially true and businesses need this sort of re-investment to be successful, I find that most overlook the most important business investment available. By overlooking this vital investment, the pay off for the investment into marketing, advertising and product development is significantly reduced. The absolutely best investment a company can make is in its employees.

Without Good Employees, a Company is Just Throwing Its Money Away

You can pour dollars into Marketing, advertising and product development, but with out good employees to implement these vital evolutions, you are just throwing away your money. It is the employee who will bring more business in the door. The higher the quality of the employee, the improved skill set of the employee, and the happiness of the employee all add up to success for a business, making its investments into growing the company much more successful and profitable.

Concentrate First on Getting Good Employees

Before pouring your business investment cash into a robust Marketing and Advertising Campaign, or an aggressive Product Development initiative, make sure you have the right employees on board to successfully design and implement these programs. Bringing talent in house or training potential in house is a business investment that will pay ten fold when it is time to grow your business. A talented and skilled employee will obtain a far greater Return on Equity (ROE) with a mediocre product or service than an average employee with a stellar product or service.

Train Your Employees Well

I see a lot of companies who have great talent in house or acquired great talent, but their training was so mediocre that the personnel investment was simply being wasted. Well trained employees will find ways to innovate, cut costs and improve profits and profitability. Give your employees the opportunity to be a great investment for you and a bigger payoff for your ROE. You will gain the best potential out of all your employees by providing ample opportunities to receive training.

Support Education for Your Employees

Acquiring new employees can be expensive. Improve your skill and talent base by supporting education of your employees, helping them to reach higher potential, and in return, help you achieve a better return on equity. Marketing and Advertising are very expensive. Supporting the education of your employees in those areas will help you minimize those costs and get a much better ROI for those dollars spent, whether you decide to bring some of that function in house or more effectively deal with outsourced marketing and advertising groups. You can foster better innovation and product development by giving your employees incentives to go after more education. This will spawn their creativity, while making them more productive.

Treat Your Employees Well

Spend time on your Compensation and Benefits Packages. Normally if designed well, compensation and benefits packages will more than pay for themselves with the return on productivity. Also a good employee package can attract higher talent for less dollars spent. For many talented employees, it isn’t just about salary. It is about growth, stimulation, incentives, and most importantly, happiness. Think of ways to foster a great environment in your company for employees, and the payoff in company profits will be significant. Happy, well trained and skilled employees will help you attract more talented people in the future for much less investment. The company environment is what will attract them primarily with salary and compensation coming in second. Happy Employees = Productive Employees = Company Profits

When You Have Good and Happy Employees

Now is the time to make your move. Your investment into your company to grow and sustain it will be much more profitable. Innovation will soar. Creativity will spawn great product development. Enthused employees will become your best marketing and advertising channels. Your ROI and ROE will be much better allocated, giving you the opportunity to sustain growth in your business. Also, you will retain your best talent and significantly reduce your turnover rate, which can be the biggest reason why companies lose profits and fail.

So before you spend a bunch of hard earned dollars into growing your business, think about whether you have the right employees and company culture in place to make it happen for you. Also review your Executive and Management levels to ensure they will help foster employee growth and happiness. If not, make those changes first on the upper levels. This needs to be a top-down thing to be successful.

Video Resource: Finding and Retaining Good Employees

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