One Page Plan To Happier Employees
Following up to our blog about 3 Focus Points For Business, we have a SUPER guest-blogger joining us this week: John From Envisionable. Want happier employees? He explains how to get them!
Happy employees are critical for small business success. Unfortunately, studies show that over 60% of all employees are not engaged - which means they are not enthusiastic about their work or take positive action to further your organization's reputation and interests.
Happy employees are engaged employees.
So how do you create happy employees?
One simple way is to tune them into where you are leading the business by sharing your vision.
Easier said than done right?
Well, here’s a simple one page framework you can use to share your vision and drive employee engagement and happiness. Just answer the following questions.
Core Values
List out your company’s core values. Haven’t defined your core values? Jim Collins author of Good to Great has a nice process you can follow to help you discover and define them.
Clear core values help your employees understand what behaviors are important to you as an owner.
Core Purpose - Your “Why”
Define why you do what you do and why anyone should care. I great video to watch on this is Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” video, one of the most watched Ted talks ever.
A clear core purpose acts as a motivator to for your employees. They see coming to work as more that just getting a paycheck.
BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)
Your company’s BHAG is where you are leading the business long term.
I like to break this down into two categories qualitative and quantitative.
Defining your BHAG helps to paint a vivid description of what you want your company to look like in the future.
Describe your qualitative BHAG by answering these questions:
In 5 years….
Our employees act like this (list some behaviors or core values) ___________________and will say _________________about our company
Our customers will say this about our company___________________
We will sell the following products and/or services ____________________________________________
Our products and services would do __________________ for the market (what positive impact will your products & services have on the market / world?)
We will be a leader at ____________________
We will own ______________% of the ___________________market
Describe your quantitative BHAG by answering these questions:
In 5 years….
We will own ______________% of the ___________________market
We will do ________________ in revenue
We will do ________________ in profit
We will have __________ employees
Our Target Customer
Next, take some time to define your ideal customer. This helps your employees to understand the market you are going after and guides decision making. This is something which Hub Digital Marketing can help dial in...
To define your target customer, answer the following questions:
Do you have a target vertical? If so, what is it (i.e. manufacturing,
Are your B2B or B2C
What is the demographic of the target customer?
Age
Location
Gender
Income Level
Education Level
Marital/Family Status
Occupation
How Are We Different?
One of the keys to winning in the marketplace is articulating how you are not only different, but better than your competitors. The more you can tune your employees into this, the greater your potential sales force.
Write down what you see as the top 3-5 key differentiators for your company.
How Will We Market To Our Target Customer
Lastly, to drive even greater clarity around the marketing and growth strategy, define how you will market to your target market. Will it be referrals, organic search, trade shows etc? Help your team to understand your strategy so they can participate in helping you achieve it.
Once you have all these questions answered, compile them into a one page document and share it with your entire company.
Ask if anyone has any questions.
This one page plan can help drive clarity on where you are leading your business and in doing so, you will see more engaged and happier employees as a result.
Learn more about Envisionable, providing a unique blend of software & consulting that helps small businesses achieve their full potential by driving alignment, engagement and focus.