Previously, we’ve talked about the Lean Canvas Modelbuilding block questionsvalue propositionspivots and empathy. The one thing that’s key to success as we build and grow our businesses? Employees. It turns out we won’t be successful until we’ve convinced our teams to come along for the ride.

51% of employees are looking for a job at any one time and 91% left their employer the last time they switched jobs according to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace Report. And, only 21% of employees strongly agree their performance is managed in a way they find motivating and only 33% are engaged in their jobs.

Why mention all this engagement data? It turns out that annually, actively disengaged employees cost up to $605B in lost productivity. Indeed, the annual cost of active disengagement is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Makes one sit up and take notice.

We believe that the hallmark of disengagement is a company without a firm business strategy. A strategic plan is the glue that holds the elements of a company together. This is true regardless if these elements are customer facing or not. Therefore, demonstrating why employees are tied to successful outcomes is key to the glue being the hardcore stuff at the hardware store versus run of the mill white glue.

Your teams need to know the brand essence, who the customers are, what their pains are and how the product/service uniquely provides a solution to those pains. The knowledge is a roadmap for people to do their best work regardless of function (e.g., sales, marketing, finance, operations, manufacturing). Furthermore, your teams’ opinions should be solicited and heard.

A solid strategic roadmap gives your teams reason to believe. And, it makes them feel that they have skin in the game and incentive to do their best. Consequently, when they do their best, business metrics improve. The Gallup data show that successful engagement programs help companies with higher productivity, higher sales, lower absenteeism and higher profitability.

How have you engaged your employees in pursuit of your business strategy? We would love to talk to you further about how critical they are to your success. Call 312.208.7329 or email for a free 30 minute phone consultation.

This post was reposted with permission from Sixense Strategy. Originally posted May 1, 2017 on Sixense Strategy’s Blog.