There are many key factors to a well-performing business and high profitability, what you may not know is your team is one of those key factors. A highly engaged team can help to keep customers loyal and profitability up, which is one reason it’s important to keep a focus on your employee experience as well as your customers. Training, opportunity for growth, and regular feedback (both positive or negative) are key investments in your team, that when executed effectively build trust, create respect, and grow your bottom line.

The Cost of Employees

Hiring people doesn’t come cheap. Your team is an investment your organization makes that’s often one of the most expensive recurring costs to a business. On average, property managers earn a salary of $45,000 but after including equipment, benefits, and training or onboarding the real cost of one employee ends up being somewhere between 18%-26% more than their base salary. When multiplied by the total number of employees the cost adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for one company. The good news is, when you really invest in your team, they offer a significant return on investment.

Engagement & Return on Investment

Research conducted by Gallup found that “highly engaged” teams are up to 21% more profitable, yet employee engagement rose to only about 34% in the US, leaving a large majority of the American workforce’s performance at less than optimal. There is, however, room to improve your team’s engagement and your organization’s profitability by investing in your team’s collaboration, access to information, and internal communication you can effectively elevate engagement to boost your organization’s profitability.

Keeping Your Team Engaged

Teams that are the most engaged have 41% less employee absenteeism and 59% less turnover than others who don’t, which means less time spent on hiring and training, and more time on internal growth. When employees preform well cohesively as a team and independently, with a true belief in what they’re doing they will execute with precision and accuracy, delivering stellar customer that drives productivity. With thorough training and robust tools employees make less errors, increase productivity, and improve customer retention all while cutting costs, and growing the profit margin for your team.

3 key notions: communication, collaboration, culture.

Communication:

When a team has access to clear, open, and accessible lines of communication with coworkers and management, they can find answers to questions with ease and serve customers faster. For employees, good communication provides the opportunity to be inquisitive or seek clarification, facilitating high quality performance. Offices can create an environment that encourages communication with open door policies and online instant messaging.

Collaboration:

The degree and effectiveness of collaboration is a clear marker of a cohesive team or community within the workplace. Collaboration indicates the ability to work together on shared projects or goals, it’s often amplified by technology. As the popularity of telecommunicating continues to grow, collaboration software for property managers can help deliver great results even when staff isn’t operating out of a central location they can collaborate from a central hub. This keeps employees interconnected and engaged as part of a team.

Culture:

Maintaining an environment that appreciates and values every member of a team is crucial to job satisfaction and employee retention. A workplace that supports employee growth and fosters positive change that positions the team as a priority is a great way to make everyone feel welcome and at home. A study recently found that 96% of employees think that empathy from management is key to employee retention. While 92% of CEO’s believe their organization exudes empathy, only 50% employees agree. Explicit empathy including sick days, flexible work options, and other employee centric policies can help to align company culture from the top down.