So, let’s talk company culture for a minute. If you’re the director of a forward-thinking South African business in 2020, this is something you need to have top of mind pretty much constantly if you want your company to succeed in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
We realise that’s a strong statement, but it’s not something we’re making up on the fly – we’ve got a veritable bevy of stats to back it up.
Ready for a light deluge of eye-opening employee engagement statistics pertaining to company culture and how it affects your bottom-line goals in 2020 and beyond? Here you go!
**Inhales deeply like Ace Ventura before a particularly lengthy-yet-pivotal monologue**
Based on UK and US statistics provided by Gallup, it is estimated that employees who are actively disengaged at work could be costing the South African economy as much as R700 billion in lost revenue per year.
Based on a variety of local case studies, we know that only 9% of the South African workforce is actively engaged, and of the 91% who were disengaged, 45% were actively disengaged (i.e. very negative about their job environment and likely to spread the negativity to co-workers). In fact, half of the young employed South African professionals are job-hunting and looking to change employers within the next year.
On the flip-side of the culture coin, highly engaged teams show a 21% greater profitability and companies that invest in employee experience are four times more profitable than those who don’t.
In fact, for every 1% increase in employee engagement, you can expect to see an additional 0.6% growth in sales for your organisation, and companies with a strong work culture outperform their competitors by 147%.
Additionally, the Workplace Research Foundation reported that highly engaged employees were more likely to have above-average productivity, to the tune of 38%. That means that highly engaged employees are almost twice as likely to have above-average productivity.
In another study, 59% of engaged employees say that their job ‘brings out their most creative ideas’. Of the surveyed employees who were disengaged, only 3% said the same thing.
Workplaces with high levels of engagement saw fewer workplace accidents than those with lower engagement. Specifically, business units among the top 25% of engaged workplaces saw 70% fewer incidents than those in the bottom 25.
**exhales dramatically**
If that’s not enough motivation to take a long, hard look at the current state of your company culture, we don’t know what is.
However, just to give you some more incentive to boost morale around the office, here are a few known benefits of a healthy work culture that might inspire you some more:
Engaged employees live their best lives
When your company’s culture is in alignment with your business goals, employees are able to connect to your mission and are motivated to exceed their goals.
They become proactive about learning new skills and starting new projects and are more positive about their approach to work in general. Not to mention the fact that they are more creative in solving problems and committed to developing a long-term career at your organisation. These are all behaviours that are key to a company’s success.
Read more: Here’s how to tell if your company needs a culture change
Consumers actively seek to do business with companies that have good culture
If there is one key take-out that you remember from this article, let it be this – businesses with great company culture thrive because consumers pick up on that fact.
While there are those customers who will go out of their way to check up on the labour practices of an enterprise before they choose to do business with them, others are simply loyal to the companies that give them the best service.
These are normally the companies that have happy, fully engaged personnel who have all the tools and support they need to perform their jobs well, and feel valued enough in their positions to go above and beyond the call of duty to provide exceptional customer service. AKA, the business with epic corporate culture.
Read more: 7 Steps to driving a high-performance culture with people analytics
Happy cultures = exceptional talent retention
The ability to retain your A team is essential at a time when the talent war is alive and kicking in both the local and international marketplace.
Talented individuals are in demand pretty much everywhere, and if you want to keep your star players on the court, it’s going to take more than an adequate pay-check.
Employees are looking for things like recognition and reward, upskilling opportunities and work-life balance. They’re looking for a strong, healthy company culture.
TOP TIP: For some inspiration from South African companies that are doing it right, take a look at companies like Microsoft, Vodacom Group Limited, Accenture (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd and the rest of the winning businesses that have been named as Africa’s Top Employers for 2020 by the Top Employers Institute.
Pretty compelling stuff right?
If you want to take some tangible steps towards addressing the state of your company culture, we would like to invite you to take a look at our employee recognition and engagement platform. We’re offering FREE 30-day trials, all you have to do is click the button below to get started