Episode: 657

Episode Title: Happier People, Higher Returns

Putting employees first can be costly, but you know what costs more in the long run? Not doing so. Let’s talk about it, next on The Perna Syndicate.

Ep 657 show:

Hello and welcome to The Perna Syndicate! I recently connected with leadership expert and author Carol Schultz to talk about what she calls “talent-centric organizations,” or TCOs. Such organizations put the employee experience at the heart of everything they do—even at the cost of immediate profit.

From the outside, a TCO’s heavy emphasis on empowering its workforce might seem, well, pretty expensive to sustain long term. But there’s a resulting return on investment that is, in Schultz’s word, “huge.” One example is a study by IBM that found TCOs generate 32% more revenue than traditional organizations over a five-year period. 

Of course, not being talent-centered is costly, too. Schultz compares non-TCOs with meat grinders, watching employees churn in and out. Replacing workers is expensive, and growth is difficult when you’re always tracking backward to fill the same positions. Schultz also points out that TCOs, being more agile, can bring products to market twice as fast. 

Happier employees mean higher returns, and nowhere is this clearer than at an organization centered on its talent. Though the upfront cost of satisfying employees might seem high for TCOs, it’s actually the more sustainable model over the long term.

The question is not, can your organization afford to be talent-centric—but rather, can it afford not to?

Tomorrow: TCOs aren’t immune to the Great Resignation, but it hasn’t crippled their operations. Next time on The Perna Syndicate, we’ll talk about why. See you then!