Where do you find the ROI for listening to your employees?

With growing topline revenue.

Companies who listen to and engage their employees for ideas and suggestions, recognize them for their work, hear/see what their strengths are and their dreams...are companies who grow. Those that don't, don't. Ask GM.

Sure, I could wordsmith the above into a more eloquent presentation. I could gather up a bunch of gallup polls with data about engaged employees. But that's like gathering up data about the sun that proves it's bright.

And, everyone who's worked within a company who listens to their employees nods their heads and says ...yeah, you're right. And those that haven't, nod their heads and say yeah you're right.

Where else will you find the ROI for listening to your employees?

With lower GS&A expenses.

In lower employee recruiting costs. Engaged, recognized, employees recruit those they want to engage and recognize.

In lower employee turnover costs. Employees rarely leave the rare company that listen to them.

In higher customer satisfaction scores? Yes.  (Who here thinks an unhappy employee = happy customers?)

In lower marketing costs. Happy customers refer their friends and colleagues. Employees know how to market your products. They hear, see and fix what works and what doesn't.

Within your COGS.

Employees know how best to manufacture and deliver your goods. They have vested interests in doing so. Yes, their jobs. But also their day, their recognition, their peer respect, their satisfaction or lack...are all tied with how well they can produce your product.

With higher, positive bottomline results

This may be the one case trickle-down economics is good for everyone AND generates increases in assets (cash) and decreases in liabilities (debts). These bottomline results will show in your net income statement, your balance sheet and your cash-flow statement.

My personal favorite is the cash-flow statement. Why? Cash is king. You produce positive inflows of cash you make a lot of people kings. That makes you the King with a capital K.

Where else will you find the ROI from listening to employees?

In profiles of companies like BestBuy, who did, and Circuit City, who did not. Which one continues, much less grows? BestBuy. It's doing both in a recession. Listening to Employees is a BestBuy.

Here's a few excerpts that made me smile.

When [BestBuy] started listening in earnest, employee turnover stood at 81 percent a year. Three years on, it had dropped to 60 percent. Last year, it was down to 49 percent.

"Our success boils down to the interaction between one customer and one employee," Jennifer said. "Is that employee happy and productive and informed and excited? We need to know that employee's state of mind better than anyone else in the company." - Jennifer Rock, Director of Intranet and Dialogue.

Whose Jennifer Rock...? Jennifer was a mid-level marketing employee who listened. She heard the results of stores with higher levels of employee engagement showed lower levels of employee turnover, higher growth rates and higher sales per employee.

Jennifer is a leader. She created this position. She and her team developed a clear mission: to use every low or no cost means possible to help Best Buy become extraordinary at communicating with employees (not just at them)...

As I wrote this post, I thought...we've been given two stores, with two different approaches to listening to their employees. And one store survived. That's a ratio with a result that's consistent enough for me.