29 Nov StressFactor: Rocket fuel for your business
4 Reasons why StressFactor™ is Rocket Fuel for your Business
APeopleBusiness created StressFactor™ to enable businesses to achieve long-term success. We like to think of StressFactor™ as ROCKET FUEL for business. Using our proprietary technology, StressFactor™ benefits companies and organisations in numerous ways, and in this article we will explain 4 reasons why it is a must-have business tool.
Introduction:
StressFactor™ brings significant Return On Investment (ROI). We know from our clients experience that the time & money they spend implementing StressFactor™ is more than rewarded by increases in both profitability and productivity.
From the outside it might seem that StressFactor™ is simply a human resources tool that deals with ‘touchy feely’ intangibles associated with employees’ feelings. And whilst StressFactor™ does cover workforce psychological wellbeing, its true impact for business is far broader and more profound.
StressFactor™ enables organisations to dive deep, not just into their employee mindset, but it also pinpoints and tackles underlying workplace and culture issues that other tools are hard pressed to identify. This invaluable information saves businesses both time & money in the long-term, increases employee efficiency and ultimately business profitability. These are bold claims to make, yet they are justified by the results we see time and time again with our clients.
StressFactor™ is a unique and nuanced product that defies easy categorisation. Why? because we designed it to fill a void in the current business software landscape, and to help other businesses. It is based on our own decades-long and extensive business experience. In short, it is the only software solution of its kind.
So how does StressFactor™ actually benefit businesses?
Here are the top 4 reasons why StressFactor™ is a ‘must have’ business tool every organisation should be using:
1: Increases Senior Management Efficiency
There is a saying that ‘time is money’, and nowhere is this more accurate than in the highly pressured environment of senior company leadership. As most CEO’s and C-suite executives will tell you, there is never enough time to do all the things that have to be done to keep the business on-track, profitable, and satisfy all stakeholders.
Therefore CEO’s welcome any initiatives that will make their lives easier and more efficient. When StressFactor™ is used within an organisation its benefits are soon realised by senior executives as they notice a significant drop in the number of urgent, unforeseen workplace issues they have to deal with. These unforeseen issues are both disruptive and stressful for executives who would rather just be getting on with their actual job than having to drop everything and firefight problems that should have never reached them in the first place.
StressFactor™ provides CEO’s, board members and C-suite executives with a visual heat-map dashboard that allows them to quickly and easily identify workforce issues. They don’t have to waste time digging into lengthy reports trying to comprehend the issues at stake. With StressFactor™ they can identify workforce related issues before they flare-up and become major issues they have to deal with.
2: Reduces Costs Associated with Risk
It is all too easy for employers to put the workforce on the back burner while they focus on other more immediate and pressing priorities. Unfortunately, many company bosses think that as long as their employees are doing their job then all is well, but this is a short-sighted viewpoint.
The simple fact is that when underlying workplace issues go unnoticed by senior management, they will eventually surface and risk becoming issues that can escalate out of control. These include:
- Key person ‘brain drain’ due to unforeseen resignations
- Replacement costs
- Employees stressed out at reaching targets with limited resources
- Errors and omissions due to staff shortages
- Loss of productivity
- Potential delays to new product launches
- Clients upset with missed delivery dates
- Non performance on key client contracts
- Litigation costs due to employee claims, for example, not adhering to compliance for ISO Health & Safety at Work
- Industrial action outages (strikes)
- Damage to company reputation
- Loss of shareholder confidence in management.
Isn’t it better that issues are identified in advance before they become a serious problem and a drain on time & resources?
By investing in your employees and addressing any issues they have head-on, you will have a happy, enthused workforce that is more dynamic, focussed and productive. Which leads us to point number three…
3: Increasing Workforce Wellbeing Increases Income
Unfortunately in many corporations there is still the notion that a high pressure environment and some stress is good for maximising employee productivity. But any stress can be counterproductive. Stress induces the body to produce Cortisol, a stress hormone, and this can lead to many health problems and actually reduces efficiency. Cortisol is not the same as the Adrenaline pump you get from the pressure of competing in a race, even though to the uninitiated they might appear to induce similar emotions.
Employees under any amount of stress are never happy employees.
Akio Mori, the founder of Japanese mega corporation Sony is on record as saying that one reason for the success of his company is happy employees:
`` We want to keep the company healthy and its employees happy, and we want to keep them on the job and productive.`` Made in Japan (1986)
He also stated that:
`` I believe it is a big mistake to think that money is the only way to compensate a person for his work. People need money, but they also want to be happy in their work and proud of it. ``
This viewpoint is shared by all good managers and CEOs. They know that happy employees are more creative, and tend to work not just harder but smarter too. This directly translates into greater company profitability due to increases in productivity across all areas, from increased innovation leading to better products & services, to increased sales, customer satisfaction and loyalty.
CASE STUDY:
We recently implemented StressFactor™ across the call centres of an internationally recognised organisation. Over the course of several weeks we undertook anonymous surveys of the employees who operated the phones, and the feedback we received built up a comprehensive picture of the issues they faced.
These were issues that were inapparent to mid level management and HR. However, once they were identified, HR had quantifiable data they could work on, and confidently bring to the attention of senior management, along with recommendations on how to overcome them.
This resulted in a significant increase in sales team performance; their subsequent exceptional customer service translated into increases in new and repeat business.
4: Maintain Company Reputation
Perhaps the biggest single factor that affects the growth of any business is company reputation. Without a great reputation your business will be negatively impacted and you risk losing momentum & advancement leading to your business stalling.
According to the Harvard Business Review:
” Executives know the importance of their companies’ reputations. Firms with strong positive reputations attract better people. They are perceived as providing more value, which often allows them to charge a premium. Their customers are more loyal and buy broader ranges of products and services.
Because the market believes that such companies will deliver sustained earnings and future growth, they have higher price earnings multiples and market values, and lower costs of capital. Moreover, in an economy where 70% to 80% of market value comes from hard-to-assess intangible assets
such as brand equity, intellectual capital, and goodwill, organisations are especially vulnerable to anything that damages their reputations. “
Company reputation is a hard thing to gain and even harder to keep. All it takes is one unfavourable headline generated by a disgruntled employee and your hard won reputation is sunk. This is something that affects even the biggest companies, as FaceBook recently found out to its cost.
To undo the damage can be extremely costly and takes a lot of time and energy to fix. FaceBook’s timely rebranding to becoming Meta, diffused the reputational crisis they faced in the media due to a whistleblower. And although they would argue that the two issues were not linked they sure were helpful, and doubtless extremely expensive.
So isn’t it better to prevent this before it happens?
When companies implement StressFactor™ they are much better placed to see underlying workforce issues. They can immediately detect those seemingly unimportant little niggles and annoyances that employees harbour and are hesitant to bring to the attention of management. Such initial problems, if left unchecked, risk expanding into a full-blown crisis (see above). Fortunately, when using our StressFactor™ product, these issues are brought to the surface and then diffused.
In the long-term, employees are happier and more engaged when they know management listens to them and acknowledges that they are an integral part of the business. They become more committed to the greater goal of making the business a success.
Conclusion
Ultimately, StressFactor™ is a unique business tool that rewards its investment with significant ROI. We know from experience working with our numerous highly satisfied clients, that the time & money they spend implementing StressFactor™ is rewarded by increases in profit and productivity, which is the goal of all successful businesses.
To discuss how StressFactor™ can benefit your business please contact us