5 benefits of investing in your people
By: Joel Vuadens-Chan
Tags: Human Resources, Team Building, Leadership, Leadership Development, People Management

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2019, the President of Costa Rica, shared that his country has “managed to protect its environment while also investing in its people”.

When I think about the challenges that we all face, countries and companies alike, I am not sure the environmental issues, as important as they are, make it to our top 3 list.

What keep you up at night? Let me guess:

Top issues keeping you up at night

Your competition

Finding the right talents

Innovation

Motivation of your staff (and maybe your own as well!)

Politics (office or public — the one that doesn’t add value but hinders collaboration)

Those are all “people issues”. So, how does investing in people help me when my budgets are already tight?

CEO and CEO on investing in people

This reminds me of the story about a CEO and a CFO:

The CFO told the CEO “What if we invest in people and they go?”,

the CEO asked back “What if we don’t invest in people and they stay?”

5 Benefits in investing in people

What are the benefits of investing in people?

1. Increased engagement

Engagement of people is improved. Research has shown that 85% are disengaged and just comply with the minimum they are expected to do. Stinginess generates stinginess!

2. Attitude of intrapreneurs

People can turn into ntrapreneurs. More than 60% of them would like to create their own company, but often don’t do it because of the risk involved. Your company can give them the opportunity to develop their own entrepreneurship project within the company.

3. More productivity due to fewer conflicts

This one sounds obvious but is often overlooked: fewer conflicts reduce the waste of time. Here I am not talking about healthy discussions generating critical thinking or comparing perspectives to bring innovation. I am talking about withholding information, retaliation, personal attacks, mobbing. Therefore what is needed is to learn how to collaborate and communicate efficiently.

4. Higher sales closing rates

A better understanding of the client leads to higher closing rates. How does this happen?

By training your sales team not only on the product they are selling but also in interpersonal/soft skills, they will be able can develop long term relationships with the client, build more loyalty, and close each deals more through a better understanding of the client’s real needs.

5. Attracting talents

Even if you invest in people and they leave your company/organisation, this will send a clear message to the market: your company cares for people, train and develop them and it is a good place to work. This will offset the perceived loss of people leaving by attracting people already trained and looking for a place to bring their skills and competence.

Conclusion

Hence, when investing in people, your organisation will be able to experience more productivity by reducing conflict, generating more engagement, creating more imitative and innovation as well as attracting top talents.

Additional resources

Managing team FAQ

How to come to an agreement in a team?

The cheapest and most powerful way to motivate your team

Team Impact Executive Report and Debrief

Executive Free Instant Coaching Discovery — 20 min

Leadership Game

Sell Like A Doctor

Leadership