There are many opportunities and benefits that mid-size and growing organisations enjoy where large corporations can’t compete. The primary benefit is the agility to respond to change, bringing a product to market faster and pivot to achieve short and long term goals.
To respond to shareholder needs, corporations are increasingly leveraging automation to minimise cost and maximise profit. The socioeconomic cost of automation is human. Due to simple economies of scale, the employees that remain may experience an increased sense of insecurity and those made redundant are part of a growing wave of digital refugees.
If you’re a growing business and you can’t afford automation, create your competitive edge through highly engaged and productive employees instead.
In many growing organisations, implementing large scale digital solutions to automate processes or create analytics doesn’t make economic sense. The argument for automation is improved productivity and efficiency, but if the cost and scale of automation is not viable, then it’s up to the organisation’s employees to create these gains. So how do mid-size and growing business seize the opportunity to create an environment where people are at their most productive and efficient and attract highly skilled digital refugees?
Through their employee experience and building a culture of wellbeing.
When employees don’t feel supported to manage or take responsibility for their own wellbeing, it can have a detrimental impact on the organisation.
To highlight the costs to employers, research has found 71% of employees in Australia and NZ are disengaged from their jobs and up to 15% display active disengagement, which is essentially destructive behaviour within the workplace.
If employees don’t experience a sense of wellbeing then it will directly impact their productivity at work. As an example, financial stress falls into two categories, those that live under financial strain and those that feel they do. The impact of both realities is the same. Research has shown that an employer loses 7 hours of productivity per week, and up to 40% increase in sick leave when an employee experiences financial stress.
When it comes to our physical health, it’s a sad statistic that 33% of employees in Australia have a preventable chronic disease that could have been avoided or mitigated by improved lifestyle choices. As there is a growing awareness of mental health, so too is the awareness of work stress, toxic work environments and the employer’s responsibility to create a healthy work environment. These statistics have a direct impact on the bottom line in the form of lost productivity, turnover and potentially workers’ compensation claims.
Organisation’s aren’t however in business to just limit risk, they want growth and a thriving business. This happens when an organisation can attract, retain and motivate employees to work together to their highest potential.
Before motivating their employees, organisations first need to attract the right talent and then invest and support them through their career journey. Employees will leave a job when they don’t believe their current employer can provide development opportunities or if their wellbeing is being compromised.
If growing organisations create the environment for employees to articulate their needs relating to career or personal life, and framework to support employees to meet those needs, then turnover can be vastly reduced or potentially forward planned.
Creating a working environment where employees feel heard, valued and part of something significant is an opportunity where growing organisations can create workplaces that maximise the potential of their employees, at any age, and become an employer of choice to attract individuals transitioning due to automation.
When an employee feels truly valued, they become the brand ambassadors that robots could only dream of.
Creating a working environment where employees feel heard, valued and part of something significant is an opportunity where growing organisations can create workplaces that maximise the potential of their employees, at any age, and become an employer of choice to attract individuals transitioning due to automation. When an employee feels truly valued, they become the brand ambassadors that robots could only dream of.