Good to Great: How to Scale With an Outsourced CFO

One of the largest challenges faced by fast growing businesses is how to keep the momentum of growth whilst ensuring that the business attracts and retains great people and ensures they do not burn out. Motivating and managing people is a complex process, especially when each person’s unique needs and personality are so different.

People management is more than just about keeping your people “happy”, it’s about “engaging” people.

The way we describe managing people can be identified by many names, however each model or framework must have the underlying objective of "how can we motivate our people to achieve the business goals" . The skills shortage that Australia is experiencing makes this goal even more difficult to achieve.

People are “engaged” when they can positively answer the following:

1. Do I know what the business is about and where it is heading?
2. What part do I and others play in that journey?
3. Can I see a future for me?
4. Am I clear of what is expected of me today and in the near future?
5. Can I compare the benefits I receive by how much I achieve?
6. Do I have access to resources to help my performance?
7. Do I feel part of my work community and is it enjoyable?
8. Am I rewarded and recognised for my achievements?

How you go about actually achieving all this could be the subject of another article or many! But it’s fair to say that clear communication and guidance to staff, information around company progress, clear direction along with a consistent approach to managing their performance will allow people to be engaged during the hard times and celebrating during the great times.

It’s interesting to note that all those employee perks you read about such as bonus schemes, Christmas parties, events, training days etc. are merely tools to motivate and inspire staff. By themselves, without context, they are not enough. If the “perks” are not based on a strong foundation of engaging people and aligning their individual agendas with the business goals, then they can be a waste of everyone’s time and your money.

But why “engage” people? What is in it for the business owner/manager? There are intuitively obvious benefits to your business if everybody that works there loves it and wouldn’t want to work anywhere else. Your business will hum with productivity, it will attract more great people and you have a more than fair chance of achieving your business goals.

But for those that value conclusions based only on solid research you need to look no further than the cost of employee turnover. If your staff are not engaged, they can feel disillusioned and inevitably they will leave the company. Other people often follow. Great people are hard to find and expensive to replace. The real cost of staff turnover is very high, (estimated by Mercer to be between 50% to 150% of annual salary).

A very deep U.S. study by Gallup reported that 26% of the U.S working population is engaged (loyal and productive), 55% are not engaged (just putting in time), and 19% are actively disengaged (unhappy and spreading their discontent). It is our experience that ultimately people don’t want to be managed or motivated they want to be engaged and inspired.