KEY POINTS:
As recession-hit businesses scrutinise their productivity and bottom line, visiting leadership and staff retention expert Avril Henry has a simple advice: "If you take care of the people, the profits will follow".
Up to 60 per cent of employees are not "engaged" with their workplace leadership and culture, Henry says. They just come to work, do their job and take their pay.
Happy, committed employees provide better customer service, generating increased customer loyalty and referral business - and revenue rises, says Henry.
However in the current economic environment, "it's all doom, gloom, downsizing and redundancies - the same strategy leaders took in the past three downturns - and all it does is demotivate people even more".
Business leaders need to understand what motivates people, and if they are unmotivated, find out why.
A leadership style of inclusion and collaboration, rather than command and control, is the key to engaging employees. Unfortunately, Henry says too many business leaders say they value employees, but then they "slash and burn
headcount, and little things that matter like birthday cakes and morning teas, yet the executives still take their bonuses."
When Haruka Nishimatsu, the chief executive of Japan Airlines, was forced to cut salaries for everyone else, he also cut his own, and Henry says this exemplifies leading by example.
A global management survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers found 60 per cent of managers think they are good at their job but 60 per cent of their employees didn't agree.
Henry says organisations go wrong by imposing values on employees that they don't believe in.
Instead, managers should ask employees what makes the organisation a good place in which to work and what needs improvement.
Henry suggests asking employees what is the one thing they would do differently if they were the chief executive for one day.
THE 5 'Cs'
* Consistency
* Courage
* Collaboration
* Coach others
* Communicate openly and honestly.
