The Evolving Employee Focus

By Neal Glatt, CSP, ASM

The way that world-class companies are thinking about their employees is evolving dramatically. If we want our people to be more engaged, more productive, more satisfied, and more likely to stay with our organizations, then not only learn from this new perspective but we can execute it faster and be a more competitive employer.

The CEOs of the companies I’m talking about belong to an organization called The Business Roundtable. They represent more than 250 of the leading companies in the U.S. including places like Amazon, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Dell, Ford, Home Depot, Marriott, Proctor & Gamble, UPS, Visa, and Xerox. Together, these companies touch every single sector of the economy and employ more than 15 million people.

From 1997 until 2018, The Business Roundtable published what they called a Corporate Purpose. This statement is what every major CEO believed was the reason for business to exist and what good leaders should deliver. The basis of their Corporate Purpose was based on the philosophy of Milton Friedman and for which he was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Economics. In summary, he believed that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business: to engage in activities designed to increase its profits.”

But nearly 50 years after this ground-breaking theory won global acclaim, the CEOs of The Business Roundtable realized it wasn’t working for them in today’s world. They determined that putting profit first didn’t deliver the long-term benefits they needed for their stockholders and that it was not a sustainable business philosophy. So, in August of 2019 they published a new Corporate Purpose.

This new purpose prioritizes value for customers, investing in employees, fostering diversity and inclusion, dealing fairly and ethically with suppliers, supporting the community, and protecting the environment ahead of delivering long-term value to shareholders. They explicitly state “too often hard work is not rewarded, and not enough is being done for workers to adjust to the rapid pace of change in the economy.”

These CEOs know more about managing people, motivation, and building successful companies than anyone. When they say that employees need more recognition and skills development, you can bet it’s a successful plan. In fact, Gallup has shown that teams that have seen progression in their development in the last six months are 10–15% more productive than those who haven’t.

The problem is that 250 CEOs can’t change the culture and execution of job training for 15 million employees nearly as fast as our small and nimble teams can. So, we can leverage the philosophy and beat them to the punch by investing in our people starting immediately and becoming a superior employment option as they struggle to pivot.

The studies prove that when we care about and invest in our people’s development, they’ll be more involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to our work and workplaces. What’s more, productively, profitability, and safety increase while turnover, absenteeism, and defects decrease. So, the only question is where do we get started?

If you’re not sure how to train your team for the next level, you’re not alone. Fortunately, we started GrowTheBench.com to provide affordable, on-demand, virtual education for the green industry to help. When you set up your employees, they’ll be learning and developing the skills they need to succeed in the workplace and become more engaged in the process. There is even content that is 100% free. It’s never been easier, or more important, to invest in employees than it is today.

Neal Glatt, CSP, ASM is a managing partner of GrowTheBench.com – a leading provider of affordable online education, professional development and peer networking for green industry professionals. Connect with Neal via email at Neal@GrowTheBench.com.