What makes the difference between high-performing and low-performing organisations (laggards) is not the start-up capital but the quality of the human capital and what these organisations do differently from each other. Cornerstone’s 2022 Thriving in the Global Skills Shortage report identified the differences between organisations classified as ‘High Performers’, ‘Average’, and ‘Laggards’ on the basis of how they were rated across 16 key talent and business categories including employee development, diversity and inclusion, customer satisfaction, revenue and profitability. The results found out that “high performers” are significantly more likely to: report a low employee-to-employer skills confidence gap on skills development ability; receive high marks from employers and employees alike on their emergencies response; have good customer satisfaction rating; and invest heavily in their people and their skills as a strategy to grow, innovate, and perform in an era of uncertainty.
Business researchers have always been interested in what makes some organisations like Alphabet – the parent company of Google – Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Zenith Bank, FirstRand Bank, MTN, Airtel etc, great and what makes some organisations ‘ungreat’. In uncovering the traits of high performing organisations, the Cornerstone’s 2022 Thriving in the Global Skills Shortage report covered responses from 240 employers as well as 600 employees in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, in addition to others from North America (NAMER) and Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA). Respondents whose scores placed them in “High Performing Organisations” showed overwhelmingly different responses to their “Average” and “Laggard” counterparts. High Performing organisations were perceived as doing exceptionally well in key people areas compared to the Laggards.
Employees and employers’ ratings in the key people areas are: employee training and development – (97% for high performers as against 76% for Laggards), profitability – (98% for high performers as against 77% for Laggards), business/franchise expansion – (98% for high performers as against 71% for Laggards), adaptation and organisational agility (95% for high performers as against 46% for Laggards), and regulatory/environmental compliance (100% for high performers as against 67% for Laggards). Ten of the core areas which make organisations to be great are:
- Employment development: Employment development is about organisation’s expansion, staff pension, life and accident insurance etc. Employees and employers of high performing organisations are keenly interested in the employment development scheme of their organisations.
- Leadership development: Leadership development is the process in organisations which helps expand the capacity of individuals to perform in leadership roles within the organisations. Leadership roles are those that facilitate execution of an organisation’s strategy through building alignment, winning mindshare and growing the capabilities of other employees. Leadership development focuses on developing organisation’s leaders internally instead of sourcing leaders from outside the organisation.
- Internal mobility: Internal mobility is the movement of employees (both vertically and horizontally) to new career and development opportunities within the same company. Organisations which have flexible and multi-skilled workers who can work in different departments and levels perform higher than organisations whose workers are rigid and can only perform a task.
- Employee engagement: Employee engagement describes the level of enthusiasm and dedication a worker feels toward their job. Employee engagement can be critical to a company’s success, given its links to job satisfaction and employee morale. Engaged employees are more likely to be productive and high performing.
- Diversity and inclusion: Diversity and inclusion are two interconnected concepts – but they are far from interchangeable. Diversity focuses on representation or the make-up of an entity. Inclusion is about how well the contributions, presence, and perspectives of different groups of people are valued and integrated into an environment. Inclusion is the acceptance of different classes of workers in an organisation.
- Quality of hire: Quality of hire means finding people who are not just qualified for the position but also align with the company’s values, culture, and long-term goals. In addition to technical proficiency, quality of hire will also bring employee’s commitment, passion, and drive that can significantly impact team dynamics.
- Retention rate of staff: Staff retention rate measures the percentage of employees who remain employed over a specific period of time. It is the rate of workers’ turnover. This indicates the success of the organisation’s human resources department’s practices and the work culture and environment.
- Employers’ response to emergencies: Employers’ response to emergencies is the preparedness of employers to respond to emergencies like COVID-19, fire outbreak in the organisation, machinery breakdown, economic crisis, etc.
- Preparedness for future challenges: Organisations which have buffer or retained earnings and good gearing (gearing is the ratio of equity to debt in the capital structure of organisation), and have plans for future expansion or contraction perform higher than organisations which are not prepared for the future challenges.
- Employees’ motivation: Employee motivation is defined as the level of zeal, energy, commitment, persistence, and creativity that employees bring to their jobs. It goes without saying that higher worker’s motivation leads to better employee engagement and organisation’s productivity.
High performing organisations resource for growth by focusing on employment development, leadership development, employees’ ability to move both vertically and horizontally in the organisation, and class, sex and cultural diversity and inclusion which is how different people are valued and included in the scheme of things in the organisation. Other factors are quality of those hired for organisation’s activities, employees’ turnover which measures how regular employees leave the organisation for other organisations, how employers respond to emergencies or unforeseen contingencies and acts of God, how employees prepare for future challenges and employees’ motivation. Organisations which motivate their workers well and make sure they are in the topmost five percent of highest paying organisations in their sectors have committed workers who contribute to organisations’ high performance.
- business a.m. commits to publishing a diversity of views, opinions and comments. It, therefore, welcomes your reaction to this and any of our articles via email: comment@businessamlive.com
