It’s arrived – the start of Quarter 2!

Like many other business owners, you have probably just completed your next cycle of 90 day planning. That’s awesome, we have too!

How many of those plans are directed specifically toward your people?

After all, any 90 day plans that are going to be put into action are going to be carried out by your people presumably… so how can you best ensure that they are as motivated, engaged and happy to do the work as you are?

It’s certainly worth more than a passing thought, so we thought we would share three top tips your business can use to build your people strategy into your business strategy.

Top Tips for Building your People Strategy into your Business Strategy

1. Share your business strategy with your team

If your business strategy is shrouded in secrecy and your teams are completely in the dark about where you are heading, you need to start telling your story.

Let me share something with you.

I spent some years working in a start up. We all knew that the ultimate goal of the owner was to sell the business and take his young family traveling around the world for a few years.

As employees, we didn’t know what that meant for us long-term.

Would we keep our jobs if the business was sold?

Who could we end up working for?

We were working hard so that one person could to all intents and purposes, go on holiday.

And yet, every single one of us was determined to make that business work.

Every senior member of the leadership team took a hit if money was tight to make payroll.

We all knew the score, and we were all 100% committed to making it work.

You may not be planning to sell up, buy a yacht and sip Campari in Monaco, but you need to engage your people with your WHY.

On a basic, running of the business level, that means sharing your strategy and getting everyone on line with what needs to happen, and what their role is in that.

Don’t be scared to share your story.

Don’t be scared to share your why.

2. Build your objectives into your team’s objectives.

If you don’t have goals set for your people, we need to talk…seriously, get in touch!…

Anyway, I don’t mean an annual “cast a glance over what happened last year and what will they be doing next year”.

Build monthly, quarterly, annual targets into your people’s plans that are all geared toward you hitting your business goals.

What I am talking about is part of Performance Measurement and that’s a meaty topic, but for the purposes here, at the very least make sure that if your people are being tracked for anything, make sure that it is a sensible metric that is encouraging working toward a business goal.

For example, if you need to achieve £20,000 of sales income each month, you could set a team goal that encourages everyone to do their part, to meet this metric.

Your sales team may have to open 4 new accounts each month.
Your project managers may need to hit 95% or above customer satisfaction.
Your apprentice may need to call 5 clients to get feedback and a referral.

You get the picture.

When it comes to business metrics, income in is usually a pretty important one. And it can be tempting to give that target to the people who go out there and “win” that money.

To make this a true team target, everyone needs to do their part, not just the sales people.

Everyone that impacts the product, the quality, the service, all play a role in how good your customers feel about your product/service, so don’t be tempted to give the big metrics to sales.

Every single person needs to understand how important they are.

3. Find out how your people are doing.

One of the biggest gaps we see in businesses, is that business owners forget to ask.

Having the kind of level of responsibility that you have as a business owner, I think it is easy to slide into a continuous cycle of problem solving. That you have to be the person coming up with the answers, the way forward… and a lot of that drives a lot of assumptions.

Assumptions are nonsense.

I heard a statistic a while ago that assumptions were incorrect something like 98% of the time.

I have no idea if that is true or how you can possibly work that one out, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Stop assuming, and ask people.

Ask them how they are.

Ask them how they find work.

Ask them how they get along with their manager, the suppliers you use, the printer… using polls or engagement surveys will let you know if everyone is OK. Or it will alert you to an area of your business that needs a little attention.

Trust me, there’s always something… even if it’s something really simple like a new radio out the back, that can have a huge impact on how someone feels about their working day.

Need a Helping Hand?

If you want a little extra help on how to start looking at your people strategy, why not join us on one of our monthly webinars?

We take a different people strategy area each month and invite business owners to do a quick assessment on where they are at in their business and then we have amazing discussions where you can learn from other business owners, share ideas, offer suggestions and hear what has – or hasn’t! – worked for other people!

Check out our events page to see what’s coming up!

Something Big is Coming!

If you want to build your people strategy at your own pace, with some guidance and pointers, we have just the thing.

We are itching to launch Human Everything Everywhere – your one stop place to learn about 9 keys areas of people strategy in your business to help you to lay some super strong people-focused foundations in your business.

It’s not available yet, but if you want to be the very first through the door to get your hands on this amazing online learning tool, register your interest and you’ll get first dibs!

Q2 needs people too – transform your business by making your people your focus this quarter.