April 10, 2018
I’ve always believed that Brands are the most important asset of our businesses and that our people are our most important resource when it comes to building Brands. So I was shocked recently to read that in a global survey of companies, only 13% of employees were engaged and working in a positive way, 63% were not engaged and worse still 24% were actively disengaged (Gallop 2012: the State of the Global Workforce). This means that 87% are not interested or actively working against the objectives of the organisation. This is a frightening statistic given that building Brands is not just the responsibility of the marketing department but is the responsibility of every department, team, individual, partner and distributor of the business.
I can only hypothesise that this lack of engagement is strongly related to a leadership that does not value investment in people. Simply investing time to help our teams to know, understand and believe in how each and every one of them can help add value to their Brand/s, will have a positive impact on the results of the business.
Positive and active leadership of our people is one of the key success factors of organisations that builds strong Brands. A focused, motivated, skilled and inspired team, working across functions, speaking with one voice, can deliver competitive advantage and added value far beyond any investment in marketing communications or sales conditions.
When discussing where we will invest for future growth, investing in our people has got to be top of mind.
