Benefits and Compensation

Managers Think It Is, But It’s Not (All About the Money)

Botwin, who is CEO of SPC (Strategy People Culture) Consulting, offered his engagement tips at BLR’s Advanced Employment Issues Symposium held recently in Las Vegas, Nevada.

What Managers Think Employees Want

In one study by the Labor Relations Institute of NY, managers selected, in order,  the following as what employees most value:

  1. Good wages
  2. Job security
  3. Promotion and growth
  4. Good working conditions
  5. Interesting work
  6. Personal loyalty to workers
  7. Tactful discipline
  8. Appreciation for work done
  9. Sympathetic help with personal problems
  10. Feeling “in” on things

But when employees were asked to rank the same characteristics, the list came out like this:

  1. Appreciation for work done
  2. Feeling “in” on things
  3. Sympathetic help with personal problems
  4. Job security
  5. Good wages
  6. Interesting work
  7. Personal loyalty to workers
  8. Promotion and growth
  9. Good working conditions
  10. Tactful discipline

Note that the top three on the employees’ list are the bottom three on the managers’ list. What this means, says Botwin, is that unless we recognize what employees value, we are managing to a disconnect.

Why Do We Care?

First of all, turnover is expensive. Estimates vary, but 75% to 200% of annual salary is a common estimate. If you have 1,000 employees and you take $70,000 as an average salary, every 1% of turnover costs you from $525,000 to $1,400,000, says Botwin.

Beyond the direct replacement costs of turnover, says Botwin, consider the following costs:

  • Lower productivity (according to one study, “actively disengaged” employees cost U.S. businesses $300 billion in productivity)
  • Increased error rates
  • Lower client satisfaction
  • Higher turnover
  • Higher legal expenses
  • Less creativity to improve processes

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Engagement Impact on Recruiting

Botwin offers the following impacts of engagement on recruiting new employees:

High Engagement

Low Engagement

Lower recruiting fees

Increased recruiting fees

Less strain on internal resources to recruit

high strain on internal resources to recruit

Recruiters have more time to find top talent

Recruiters simply try to fill job requisitions

Increase in employee referrals of quality candidates

Less help from staff to find talent

Engagement Impact on Productivity

High Engagement

Low Engagement

Employees care more about quality of work

Employees do their job with less care

Employees are more focused on their work

Employees are more focused on complaining

Employees dot their i’s and cross their t’s

Employees do the minimum to avoid getting in trouble

Employees identify issues and work towards fixes

Employees see issues and ignore/complain about them

Employees display more creativity and ownership for quality

Employee don’t care

Engagement Impact on Client Service

High Engagement

Low Engagement

Customer sees cohesive team/vendor

Customer sees vendor as unenthusiastic, disinterested

Positivity about a product or service is contagious

Customer feel unappreciated

Perception is that the customer is buying something better

Customers wonder why they are buying from you

Customer enjoys the experience

Customer can’t wait to leave

Relationships built with clients

Clients are transactionary


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Engagement Impact on Sales

High Engagement

Low Engagement

Increased repeat business

Clients likely to try competition

Increased cross-selling

Limited cross-selling

Clients more likely to work with you to solve problems

Clients just return product

Clients happy to hear from you

Can’t get client on the phone

Better reputation on the street

Bad news travels fast

In tomorrow’s Advisor, Botwin’s signs of disengagement, plus an introduction to the all-comp-in-one website, Compensation.BLR.com.

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2 thoughts on “Managers Think It Is, But It’s Not (All About the Money)”

  1. i disagree with the poll, its always been about the money, the only reason people come to work is to get money to buy the things they need for their families, if this is not true than just stop paying them and see what happens. All those other things mentioned are fluff, but money pays the rent and enable me to buy food and take the pain from my belly. next time you run an ad for employment say ” very low wages but we show Appreciation” and see how many people reply. finally one main reason our economy is is such bad shape is because of poor wages, if you only have a select few being able to purchase items, than your not going to have growth.

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