A company director who lost a joint venture, a manager who burned out and got sick of being in the middle…that was me years ago when I became a corporate roadkill.
By definition a roadkill is an animal on a road killed by a collision. In the business world it is something similar…a lost employee on the pavement of the corporate lifecycle and the collision might be with peers, managers or the overall company culture. It can happen anytime and anywhere starting from recruitment all the way to losing someone after decades of service.
Due to the rise of technology and the information age most organisations compete based primarily on their people. The ability to recruit, engage and retain quality employees is the most challenging and expensive priority.
90% of executives said keeping new hires is an issue in their organisations (Korn Ferry). There were 5.6 million job openings in the USA in 2016 with an average 118 applications for each of them…that is 684.4 million opportunities to match the right candidate to the right corporate culture. That sounds rather time-consuming and costly.
It’s well-known that employee turnover rates come as a high cost to companies, however very few discuss the true extended costs and the multiple ways that it impacts the business. It’s important that successful business not only find the best employees, but keep them engaged as well.
1. Direct cost to employers
Gallup has estimated that employee disengagement costs the overall US economy as much as $350 billion every year:
- Disengaged employees take more sick days and are tardy more often.
- Disengaged employees undermine the excellent work their more engaged colleagues accomplish. Constant complaining is a common characteristic of disengaged employees.
- The decreased productivity of each disengaged employee costs each employer $3,400 to $10,000 in salary (Gallup).
Customer complaints often rise with employee disengagement. Disengaged employees create disengaged customers because frustrated workers can’t help but pass on their cynicism and negativity.
2. Low employee engagement and low company performance
Employee disengagement definitely contributes to inadequate company performance:
- Highly profitable companies have 50% more engaged employees versus unprofitable companies
- Teams with high levels of engagement sell over 20% more than teams with low engagement
Bottom line: disengaged employees drag down overall company performance.
3. Turnover costs to train new employees
Each year the average company loses 20-50% of its employee base (Bain & Company) and $11 billion is lost annually due to employee turnover (Bloomberg BNA)
Once your employees are engaged, they will pass on their excitement to the customer in the form of extraordinary customer experiences. And you won’t have to lose any more sleep over how much your company is losing as a result of disengaged employees.
An employee lifecycle starts with the recruitment and ends with the person quitting the job…According to Glassdoor’s statistical analyses the number one reason for people to leave a job is COMPANY CULTURE. A lot of applicants land jobs with certain expectations, only to be disappointed by the reality. Before any CEO gets insecure…this can happen usually for 3 reasons:
- The company culture needs to be improved. It is really bad.
- The applicant believed the advertised values the company was promoting on their website and external communication but those had nothing with reality.
- The applicant had no substantial self-awareness and was not aware of his/her own values, cultural orientation and she/he had to realise it was a mismatch despite everyone’s best intention.
The capability of matching a candidate’s personal values to the company’s culture significantly increases employee attraction and retention.
Having a complete solution that is able to map the company culture, match it to the right candidate, improve team building and engagement through a culturally intelligent and inclusive leadership is the ultimate competitive advantage.
CALOMM (Culturally Aware Leadership and Management Model) is an award-winning, proven solution designed not only to minimise the number of corporate roadkills, but to dramatically improve a company’s performance by aligning values and turning their diversity into inclusion.
Csaba Toth
Latest posts by Csaba Toth (see all)
Copyright © 2017 ICQ Global. All Rights Reserved.