As we start 2024, we emerge with greater energy and focus, once again looking towards a changing business landscape, filled with opportunity.
How business leaders support their teams to have fulfilling, meaningful, and purposeful careers must be at the top of the agenda. This is not only for the health, wellbeing, and happiness of those they employ, but also the health, wellbeing, productivity, innovation, and overall success of the business in the coming year. Of course, as we know, no business can succeed without satisfied employees who know that their careers are prioritised by their employers.
Reflecting on this, I was reminded of Patrick Lencioni. Specifically, his point about healthy vs. smart organisations and how both must work in tandem if the benefits are to be felt across the entire company. Nevertheless, despite this, one is more commonly overlooked than the other at the detriment of many organisations.
Smart business
Firstly, the business needs to be smart. This involves being great at technology, strategy, marketing, and finance. It needs to have logical, easy to measure key performance indicators (KPIs) in place that organisations can focus in on to understand their direction of travel.
Smart businesses can also use these KPIs to understand how these core smart areas impact their employees. Whether it’s salary benchmarking against competitors or hours worked compared to productive output, leaders can use data to paint a good picture of how their teams are performing.
Running a smart business is a common goal for many leaders, especially when so much of the working world relies heavily on tech-first solutions and information.
However, a smart business doesn’t give any leader a full understanding of the most important element of any business – employee satisfaction. This is because data can only tell you so much. What it can’t give you is the emotional story. How does working for your organisation make people feel?
Healthy business
This is where we introduce healthy organisations; a less obvious element that, in my opinion, is often overlooked and undervalued as a critical business element.
An unhealthy organisation is one that thinks only of profit margins; engaging in tunnel vision that shuts off the importance of nurturing a team. It doesn’t support its employees or enable them to grow in a way that works for them, ultimately stunting their career progression.
And while it may feel like keeping their eyes on the financial prize is what will create success, leaders of unhealthy organisations forget that for every £1 they make, they lose so much more as their teams disengage and ultimately leave.
So, striving for a healthy organisation brings clear benefits. That means building a culture with minimal politics, clarity in job role and responsibilities, high morale and engagement, high productivity, and low staff turnover.
Knowing yourself
Of course, a big part of being in a job that gives you satisfaction is understanding what you want from your career.
At Jersey Business, we have looked closely as individuals at our behaviours, exploring how these work for us and how we can build a team that understands each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This ensures transparency, understanding, and trust.
In your career, knowing yourself is key. Then, knowing others becomes incredibly powerful and often unlocks the power of collaboration. Both offer increased benefits for you and your career.
Organisational health is a critical factor for success, and we all form a part of that. Knowing yourself and others will support your career and if all parties focus, there’s no limit to what is possible in 2024 and beyond.
This article originally appeared in the Business Brief February 2024 edition.