Employee Satisfaction Drives Performance

One thing you can say about the NFL is that the role of the player (aka “the employee”) is heightened due to the compensation level. The importance of the players (aka “the product”) also enables them to have a voice. And their union knows how to use it.

The latest example is the recent NFLPA (union) survey where the players (employees) have the opportunity to anonymously rate various elements of the business.

The categories are:

• Head Coach (let’s think of them as day-to-day managers / management)
• Ownership (literally “ownership” or for large companies, “senior management”)
• Food
• Travel
• Weight Room
• Treatment of Family
• Locker Room
• Training Room
• Nutritionist / Dietician
• Training Staff
• Strength Coach

So, essentially it is senior management, direct manager, support, infrastructure, and benefits.

There probably should be some other areas, but the key is that the employees are rating the company.

If you’ve read any of the articles on the issue, some of the teams have taken action on the feedback they receive. They care about their players (products / employees.)

Surprisingly, there does not seem to be a correlation to performance as Super Bowl participants Kansas City and Philadelphia are rated #26 and #22 respectively. Further, in looking at the top 10 teams, only San Francisco has been a perennial winner the last few years.

Perhaps it ties to a team’s profitability? Or maybe it comes down to an owner’s expectations of themselves and the type of business that they want to run … and where they are willing to make investments.

So, why am I thinking about the NFL, let alone its players and what they think about their employers and place of employment.

Because some of this comes down to choice. According to some sports analysts, these ratings can influence where some free agents choose to sign!

Think about that for your business. It relates to recruitment and retention. And in a business environment, it can also relate to customer service which leads to customer satisfaction which leads to customer retention and the opportunity to earn the right to do more business which leads to increased account profitability which, when aggregated across many customers, leads to improved company productivity and performance (sales and profitability.)

The Employee Satisfaction / Performance Cycle

It’s a cycle.

I have a client who believes that

• Create the right culture as associates
• Serve the customer
• Who will reward the company

I’m making this simplistic but

• They invested much time into development of values to build their culture … and they measure it annually.
• Then, they measure their customers’ satisfaction.
  • Channel Marketing Group helps them measure this with our unique customer satisfaction process that calculates a Customer Satisfaction Index for the company and by branch.
• And then they have their financial metrics.

Managers are measured, and compensated, on each of the above.

So, going back to the NFL …

Do you measure employee satisfaction? Few companies do. Why? Because management “knows” that its employees / associates are satisfied? Or perhaps it is unwilling to ask because it really doesn’t want the answer? And being honest, most senior management believes people are happy and does some MBWA (management by walking around), but … how many do you really talk to?

Most employees are satisfied. Why? Because they show up, perform, get paid, and do want to do their best. Could things be better … always. Do we want to ask?

Back to the NFL. The union provided an anonymous way to rate management, and management probably accepted the concept as part of the union contract.

Where is this going?

I know, you were wondering what I was writing / thinking about during this “stream of consciousness” …

Years ago, when I was in the performance marketing / incentive industry, I also lead a department on Internal Motivation and Marketing. We helped companies with vision, mission, values, employee satisfaction, internal marketing.

Which got me thinking.

Channel Marketing Group offers:

• For Manufacturers
  • A Rep 360 to solicit feedback
  • Distributor research
• For Reps
  • Distributor Satisfaction Survey
  • Inside Sales / Customer Service Satisfaction Survey (which also creates an Inside Sales / Customer Service Satisfaction Index)
• For Distributors
  • Customer Satisfaction Survey (which creates a Customer Satisfaction Index)

Why note develop an Employee Satisfaction Survey (which will generate an Employee Satisfaction Index) since we’ve done this for a number of clients and I designed these years ago.

So we now offer this as a service to distributors.

And if you are interested in any of these, reach out to me.

But the real reason for my thoughts goes back to what the NFLPA is doing. If you don’t ask, you cannot improve.

• If you don’t ask your customers how you are doing, how can you improve?
• If you don’t ask your employees / associates (your players), how are you going to improve the work environment?

The question is, do you want to improve?