Blog Post

Keeping Your Best Talent In Our Competitive Marketplace

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school they asked me what I want to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘Happy’.

They told me I didn’t understand the assignment…

… and I told them they didn’t understand life. John Lennon

In most of our businesses and organizations, ‘model’, USP, service, or ‘technology’ is not our differentiator. It’s the quality of our people and how they relate and communicate with each other and the world around them – (our stakeholders and our customers!) that determines our success. In short, attracting and keeping great people is our ultimate pathway to sustainable success. And it’s a very challenging market out there for great talent, particularly in South Florida…

‘Management’ often seems complicated, sophisticated, and even obtuse. ‘Leadership’ is even more esoteric, and harder to qualify and quantify. They’re  both really about understanding human motivation and making people happy. As Maslow taught us, once our basic needs are met (wellness and safety), it‘s the higher needs of love, esteem and growth that keep us motivated – and happy.

Assuming your people are healthy – and in a healthy environment – and they’re receiving a fair compensation for their contribution to your organization’s success, creating an environment of ‘likeable’ and ‘happy’ is the single best strategy to keep your best people engaged and loyal. The Association of Accounting Technicians in The UK did research that was absolute in its result.

“Good colleagues ‘beat high pay’: Eight in ten workers would turn down a higher salary if it meant working with people they didn’t like.”

Happy people make happy customers, which make happy shareholders…Oh, they’re all people!

When you look deeply into Apple, Google, Zappos.com and other hugely successful, stand-out companies, you’ll find they nearly all have something in common that helps separate them and keep them soaring. From the bottom to the top of the organization, their people:

• Are passionately engaged advocates for their business,
• Understand what the business strategy is – and their part in delivering it
• Go above and beyond what they’re paid to do
• Have an emotional engagement with the business, the product and with their client or customer.
• They are happy where – and with whom – they work

This is what separates the mundane from the good, and more importantly, the good from the great.

Employee happiness actually has a huge impact on productivity. Here are just a few statistics that should catch your eye (Source: 2016 Global Corporate Challenge Insights Report):

• Happy employees are more productive by 12%
• Companies with happy employees outperform others by 20%
• Happy employees take 10 times fewer sick days

On the flip side, the cost of having a disengaged culture is huge– probably a lot larger than you realize. Factor in absenteeism, low morale, poorer customer service than you can imagine, lost sales, lost long-term customers…

…you can see the costs of unhappy people.

The most important business and leadership objective to sustain business growth is to attract, retain and grow great people. 

To do so,  you need to help them to ‘be happy’ by helping them fulfill the following needs:

Are you happy at work? Do you help others be happy?  It is the simple way to so many rewards in business and life!

If cultivating a happier, more productive organization sounds interesting to you, please feel free to contact us for more information. Our team will help you begin 2018 with an attitude of gratitude and position your business for great things in the new year! Info@ThirdLevel.com or +1-800-262-0705