Grand Rapids, Mich. – After years of research and in-depth interviews with hundreds of business managers, MikeByam has emerged with an invigorating insight for recession-haunted corporate America.
His message: “If leaders want to succeed today, now is the time to invest in something that can bring significant ROI for their businesses – their employees.”
During times of budget-cutting and downsizing, Byam says emphatically, “This is definitely not the time to slash programs aimed at recognizing employees for their accomplishments in the workplace!”
Explains Byam, the author of a paradigm-challenging new book on employee-management relations: “An economic recession like the one we’re now experiencing is actually a time when employee recognition programs should be improved and expanded. Cut back on this, and you can be sure the result will be damaging.”
“In survey after survey, the data confirms that effective employee-recognition programs aren’t a luxury which can be safely eliminated in order to save a few bucks during an economic downturn.
“On the contrary, at times like these, a business leader’s ability to engage and motivate employees can mean the difference between success and failure. Recognizing the value of employees is an essential part of success in any enterprise. Research shows that rather than being a drag on a company’s bottom line, such programs routinely earn a return on investment (ROI) of anywhere from 200 to 300 percent.”
Along with analyzing dozens of studies from the 245,000-member Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and other management groups, Byam interviewed North American business managers over a five-year period in an effort to measure the impact of effective employee recognition programs on employee retention, productivity and profits.
Byam’s findings, which are revealed in the just-published book The Wow! Workplace: How To Build an Employee Recognition Culture that Engages your People and Produces Big Results for your Organization (The Terryberry Company, $21.95), seem especially compelling when viewed against a backdrop that includes the recent Wall Street meltdown and the deepening economic recession that followed it.
In light of the downturn, Byam says it’s “more important than ever” for managers to understand that “retaining your best employees is absolutely essential for success in any organization . . . and replacing them usually means taking on huge recruiting and training expenses that can easily dwarf the cost of maintaining an effective employee recognition program.”
According to the 38-year-old Byam – the managing partner at one of America’s most established recognition firms, Terryberry, with more than 25,000 clients worldwide – the survey data he collected for the book proves that the ROI-payoff for employee recognition is usually substantial. “While doing the research, I looked closely at a nationwide study of more than 4,600 organizations,” he noted during a recent interview at Terryberry’s Grand Rapids headquarters. “This massive survey was conducted a couple of years ago by the authoritative WorldatWork HR polling organization.
“WorldatWork determined that the ROI among these thousands of organizations averages slightly higher than 300 percent. Considering the erratic performance of many investments today, this is a consistently attractive number for businesses. It’s encouraging to note that investing in our people brings such a positive return.
“Whenever I show a client this kind of data, I realize all over again that the decision to implement or expand an employee recognition program isn’t just a thoughtful thing to do – it’s good for business.”
Described as “a tool that offers practical, real-world methods for changing the workplace culture and using employee recognition to engage people, improve communication and retain quality employees,” The WOW! Workplace contains chapters on such vitally important managerial activities as “learning how to empathize” and “building a recognition environment that will enhance productivity and employee retention.”
Adds Byam, who’s spent the past ten years running Terryberry’s worldwide operations and who also enjoys competing in 26-mile marathons and Ironman triathlon events when he isn’t consulting with organizations on effective methods for employee appreciation and recognition: “We advise thousands of clients around the country on how important it is for managers to build respectful and productive relationships with their people.
In his book, The WOW! Workplace, Byam interviews the movers and shakers of the business world, including the successful grocery chain Wegmans and the iconic Google, and reveals what these industry leaders are doing to engage and recognize their people.
The WOW! Workplace, which was published in early November (to learn more, click on: www.RecognitionUniversity.com), also contains more than a dozen other narratives of workplace managers who discovered the “awesome power of recognition,” says Byam.
“In the book we compiled creative ideas that have come from interacting with thousands of great business leaders. The result is hundreds of practical, down-to-earth suggestions that managers can use to build a thriving culture of recognition . . . the kind of culture that will retain employees, while also boosting loyalty and productivity throughout any organization, large or small.
“Whether the nation is going through a recession – or enjoying boom-times from Wall Street to Main Street – there’s no doubt that building an effective recognition program is a win-win situation for everyone involved!”