I had an interesting discussion with one of the attendees at the Compensation and Benefits Conference here in Mexico City on Wednesday on the “need” for the types of products and services I provide to my clients.  The question was framed as “aren’t employees in the United States just happy to have a job when they see all of their friends getting fired?  And if so, why should companies be worried about retention?”  She continued…”And why would any company consider hiring you to conduct supervisor training?”

Good questions. And ones that I answer a lot these days.

And my answer to the first one?

5 percent - 1.2 percent - .5 percent.

Not that tough, huh?

Some of you can recognize the numbers… it’s the famous SEARS Study:  a 5 percent increase in employee satisfaction created a 1.2 percent increase in customer satisfaction which led to a .5 percent increase in revenue.  For a retailer, .5% increase in revenue is nothing to sneeze about.

I explained to Maria that it has to do with ensuring that companies keep every customer they have during times of crises (the theme of the conference).  When employees are happy, they work harder.  Customers notice.  And then they not only continue buying what they already buy, they take a closer look at the entire product line.  And they tell their colleagues.

Happy employees make for loyal customers who buy more stuff.  Even in a time of crises.

“But what about supervisors?”

Training supervisors serves a dual purpose.  First, supervisors are less engaged than the individual contributors that report to them.  Only 1/3 of them are Fully Engaged to their organization (from my last national benchmark study). When two thirds of all supervisors are either trapped in their job or halfway out the door, how can a company expect the worker-bees to take their job seriously.  Supervisors are a company’s ENGAGEMENT AGENTS… they can make or break almost every initiative put forth by the organization.

Worse yet, employees quit a boss, not a company.

Maria gave me a lot of great information about her company and her struggles as their senior human resource executive.  In a weird way, it’s nice that she has many of the same problems as h.r. professionals around the world.  It’s not such a big world.