Happy employees make for a healthy balance sheet – that was the resounding message from Bridget McIntrye MBE DL at the Best Employers Eastern Region 2023 launch conference on Tuesday, March 28.
Ms McIntyre, founder of training company Alitus and chair of Notcutts, was the keynote speaker at the event held at Newmarket Racecourse and attended by businesses from across the region.
“Everybody has a decision to make about how much discretionary effort they will put into working for a company,” said Ms McIntyre.
“Some people may get away with giving about 65% of their real effort,” she added. “That means companies with really engaged employees could have three employees doing the work that would require four employees elsewhere.
“Accountants don’t like putting that in spreadsheets, but it really shows the criticality of engagement.
“If we get this right, not only do we get a much better customer experience and much happier employees, but the organisation does so much better financially too.”
East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) and Holkham also spoke about the value of the Best Employers programme at the launch conference.
EAAA has introduced several initiatives to improve employee engagement since first taking part in Best Employers in 2015 – including the creation of an ‘extended leadership team’ to give more accountability to managers at all levels.
“There’s been growing pains with that along the way, but it has been a success,” said CEO Matthew Jones. “It has also been a good breeding ground for the executive leaders of future.”
“We love being able to benchmark ourselves in the region,” added Sarah Atkins, director of people and culture. “This year will be our third time doing Best Employers, and it’s going to be really interesting for us to see that progression.”
Darren Williams, director at Holkham, said the results of the Best Employers survey are “the perfect way of telling you what your people are thinking and feeling”.
“When you’re able to reflect back and say here’s this new policy or tool we’ve introduced, and it came directly from the survey, I think that’s really powerful,” added Alex Triplow, head of HR at Holkham.
The Best Employers Eastern Region programme was founded in 2012 by recruitment specialists Pure and psychometrics experts eras and is supported by LOCALiQ and full-service law firm Birketts.
For more information, and to register for the 2023 programme, please visit www.best-employers.co.uk
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