Pictured above: Ellen Morley
A Shrewsbury based business improvement company has endorsed the
view of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development that
"organisational change is essential" if businesses are to survive.
The statement referred to survey findings announced this week which
showed two thirds of organisations have cut their budgets for
conventional training.
Ellen Morley, Principal of The Business Company, believes in the
current climate bosses need to keep good staff who know the
business and are passionate about it succeeding. But to do so they
must engage and develop those staff even if they cannot afford
formal training - and it can be done so that the company benefits
as well as the individual.
"My own research has shown that around 65% of people leave jobs
not because they have not had a salary increase for two years,"
says Ms Morley, "but because they are dissatisfied with the level
of development and engagement they have with their
employer.
"If you want your staff to make a real contribution to the
business you must engage them and involve them in the planning, not
least because some of the best ideas come from the bottom up. Blue
Chip companies recognised this some years ago but at The Business
Company we have been surprised at how few local SMEs recognise
it.
"When we go into a business the first question we ask the
Directors is what their vision is for the future. The second
question is whether their employees share that vision. All too
often they don't know, and it has not occurred to them that they
cannot expect staff to go that extra mile when they don't know the
destination they are heading for.
"Some years ago we developed a tool for Egg Bank which was
specifically designed to get their staff thinking about the
business. We set them projects to come up with small business
improvements and from that stemmed 30 improvement projects
developed over an eighteen month period, saving the company around
£12 million off its bottom line budget. Whilst such vast
savings could not apply to a small enterprise, the principles of
the exercise are still the same and both the staff and business can
benefit."
For more information about The Business Company, please visit
their website here: www.thebusinesscompany.biz