- Learn how to involve employees in strategic planning for the financial success of your business.
- Discover how to adjust your strategic plan so that it educates and motivates employees to do their part and work together.
No matter what an employer’s purpose, be it a for-profit company or government agency, financial solvency and strength must be a major objective. An organization capable of not just meeting the budget but beating it stands a much greater chance of accomplishing strategic objectives, ensuring stability and growth. But to achieve financial success, you need the whole company--all employees-- involved.
To this end, employees play a critical role. When staff members understand how they can contribute to your organization’s financial success, everyone should be able to better work together as a team — improving efficiency and productivity. But where do you start? Read on for Fiducial’s guide to motivating employees to achieve financial success for your company.
Start with strategic planning
Every employer’s financial stability is at least partly attributable to a sensible strategic plan for the year. Generally, such a plan should include efforts to uncover and eliminate operational shortcomings that are inhibiting profitability (if that’s your objective) or budgetary success.
One typical example is employees interacting with customers poorly, giving a bad impression or providing inaccurate information. Word of mouth travels quickly these days. Another common issue is pricing or fee structures that turn off customers or bring in inadequate revenue. Supply chain disruptions are also a common challenge — particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Ask employees whether and where they see such problems. Then assign a negative dollar value to each financial foible that keeps your organization from reaching its full potential. Once you start putting a value on financial inhibitors, you can add them to your income statement. This will give you a clearer picture of how they affect net profit.
Make needed adjustments to educate and motivate employees
After you’ve identified one or more inhibitors to your organization’s financial success, adjust your strategic plan accordingly to educate and motivate your employees.
To do so, adjust or redefine the plan. Then, work with managers and other key employees to devise specific revenue-building or cost-cutting initiatives. Calculate how much each initiative could add to the bottom line or otherwise improve your financial status. To arrive at these values, you’ll need to estimate the potential income of each initiative — but only after you’ve projected the costs as well.
Assign someone to champion each initiative. When financial improvement strategies become everyone’s job, they tend to become no one’s job. Employees need to know their respective roles, but they also must know to whom to turn for leadership.
Above all, communicate clearly and build consensus. Explain each initiative to employees and outline the steps you’ll need to achieve them. Again, it’s critical that every employee understands how his or her job contributes to the organization’s success. However, perhaps even more important is that workers believe in the initiatives themselves.
For help with payroll, accounting, tax call Fiducial at 1-866-FIDUCIAL or make an appointment at one of our office locations to discuss your situation.
Ready to book an appointment now? Click here. Know someone who might need our services? We love referrals!
For more small business COVID-19 resources, visit Fiducial’s Coronavirus Update Center to find information on SBA loans, tax updates, the Paycheck Protection Program, paid sick and family leave, and more.