The term operational efficiency has become something of a buzzword in corporate circles of late. And while it’s been inherently an integral part of business management theory and practice forever, it is true that we need a dialogue on how to define it in the present era. The post-COVID business world is not the same as as the one before. In the age of hybrid and remote work, along with the burgeoning gig economy, there is a need to refine our approach to operational efficiency with an eye toward building business resilience. This applies particularly during crises, not unlike the one that the current United States real estate market is facing. So with that in mind let’s look at some key elements of employee engagement activities, team collaboration and integrity and finally, business performance, and resilience.

5 Steps to Better Operational Efficiency for Businesses via Employee Engagement During Crisis

1 Creating Robust Network Churn

Key Takeaways:

• Network churn refers to communications between workers outside of their departments mostly via live virtual chat or company-wide communication channels.

• It is a sign of a high-growth organization since this offers opportunity for growth and innovation as well as mentoring.

• A recent study held during COVID-19 showcased high business activity thanks to high network churn led by changemakers.

Business efficiency and operational excellence are based on organizational communication. The key factor here is the intercommunication of individual employees beyond their own silos. In other words, you’re high performers must go out and seek communication types with high performers from other departments if your business wants to develop efficiency and resilience.

One 2021 study on the impact of COVID-19 on the conferencing standards of international manufacturing concerns in China shed some revealing light on why this matters. It showcased that intercommunication fostered by the uptake of employee engagement software like virtual coffee chat apps creates a high degree of network churn and produces substantial performance potential for businesses. They distinguish between establishing network ties, dissolving network ties and revitalizing network ties.

After taking a sample set of approximately 200 workers, all high performers in their individual departments or silos, the study concluded that high-performing employees actively sought engagement with individuals from other departments, particularly with the answers of remote working at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in China.

As a result of this trend, the company was able to enjoy a high degree of interworking and in fact, so an increase in its conference and therefore collaboration numbers during the height of the pandemic. This leads us to conclude that network churn driven by high-performing individual employees often visit The Cave labeled change makers future leaders and innovators enabled businesses to develop organizational resilience even in the face of a globally impacting socioeconomic crisis.

2 Creating Holistic Sustainability

Key Takeaways:

• Business sustainability is directly tied to ecological sustainability and employee satisfaction.

• ESG operations often lead to high growth performance from employee happiness through their association with the business.

• A sustainable ESG policy helps businesses also create market goodwill and brand value.

Ever since the COVID pandemic, companies have been focusing on developing business resilience and part of that dialogue has consisted of measuring the environmental impact they have. Broadly speaking this is ESG and it has a lot of significance even outside the legal framework within which it is now slowly becoming mandatory.

A recent study published in the Journal of economic letters detailed how ethical practices impact employee satisfaction and business performance. Their broad conclusion was that ethical practices enable workers and managers to trust their executives more directly. They also get an increase in their business performance value. On the other hand, companies that do not have a high standard for ethical practices seem to showcase more employee disengagement and variable business performance.

The reason why sustainability, as a holistic model works for businesses, is that it covers the entire ambit of human activity under their ages. In the simplest of terms, this is the cultivation of brand goodwill both internally with employees as well as externally with clients or customers and government bodies at large. So, when a crisis comes calling, companies can bank on their generated goodwill to see them secure against the changing times.

Naturally, this also impacts their output during regular business times and earns them a favorable reputation in the market. This creates better hiring opportunities, higher employee retention higher performance margins, and overall better organizational health.

3 Developing Resilient Brand Portfolios

Key Takeaways:

• Brand portfolios become resilient with sustained and strategic investments that add value to the business profile.

• Resilient brand portfolios enable businesses to grow even during difficult times and also offer high optionality.

• Adjacency adoption is one of the most effective ways to develop resilient brand portfolios.

Brand portfolio development is arguably the most important element in the growth cycle of any enterprise. Whether we’re talking about an investment management firm or an IT manufacturer developing AI chips, developing adjacency exploring their possibilities, and tapping into their potential is what gives businesses influence and bonafide market resilience.

As this Deloitte portfolio strategy brochure mentions, markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected. That is a quote by the legendary George Soros and it showcases the precise kind of calculated risk and maneuvering that is at the bedrock of all business practices.

Broadly speaking, resident portfolio strategies hinge upon several factors. These are scenario-based resilience, inherent optionality balancing feasibility and risks. A perfect example of strategic brilliance and operational efficiency comes from the recent surge in Nvidia’s prices and prospects. In a mere matter of months, NVIDIA has overtaken both Microsoft and Apple to become the most highly-valued company in the world.

Now, given that in VR NVIDIA is riding at the Crest of the AI revolution wave, their acquisition strategies and investments in crucial domains like biopharma cannot be overlooked. As a classic example of prudent business decision-making, foresight and strategic portfolio development, NVIDIA is positioning itself as the world’s foremost in AI-driven business domains.

 

4 Developing People Science for Team Collaboration

Key Takeaways:

• Business resilience is hinged to a great degree on developing robust talent pools.

• Using people sciences helps businesses realize their goals for talent development.

• Organizational Network Analytics help businesses develop robust communication networks.

Beyond the ability to create resilient and sustainable portfolio processes and practices, what makes a company great or its people. In this regard, the recent growth of people sciences or strategic workforce management has been a transformative element in the Saudi executive’s toolkit.

As an easy example, the Swedish furniture giant IKEA fixed its out-of-control worker satisfaction and productivity problem by reducing hours increasing wages, and offering growth incentives.  trade unions and employee rights advocacy groups have been lobbying for such benefits for a long time. However, recent growth in workforce management technologies, in particular, employee engagement apps like lead.bot has revealed that operational efficiency is a direct result of workforce communication quality optimization.

Because it is simply more prudent to develop in-house challenges and learn to recruit or higher third-party assets to handle process management needs, employee engagement is now the number one priority for mid-line managers across all industries of the global economy. We can see this trend most actively in the way companies are going about recruiting Gen Z workers. Even industrial manufacturing concerns that constitute the bedrock of human civilization have begun to change how they manage recruitment development and retention practices.

This is because Gen Z has specific expectations from their employers things like flexibility growth opportunities on social courage of a development enabling variety just a few of the several that consultancies like McKinsey and Deloitte have continually mentioned as of crucial importance. So the bottom line in this regard is that better employee policies lead to higher retention performance and overall reputation.

 

5 Culture as a Fortifying Business Asset

Key Takeaways:

• Business culture helps create sustainable value and develops more integral processes.

• With employee engagement people become super connectors and changemakers in their business organization.

• Business culture development can fortify businesses against economic windfalls and other damaging events.

Company culture has always been part of the dialogue when it comes to employee engagement and operational efficiency. But in many cases company culture can take a background position in the face of more pressing requirements like DEI or Managing Gen Z hiring and onboarding. However, the significance of company culture and its impact on business sustainability cannot be overstated.

The best place to start building a business culture is through the leaders and managers. Friendly company policies flexible work environments smart miniature programs high employment engagement activities ETC. these are some of the hallmarks OK good company culture but these are not the only ones. He will also have peer learning strong network ties between department’s and not just for managers and regular intra-department communication.

You can discover the integrity of your inter-company business communication of actions by organizational network analytics. Along with that you can use other technologies or tactics within people sciences as profile matching for mentorship support, identifying changemakers and super connectors within your organization. These can help your organizations achieve a higher degree of proficiency in resilience and enable business performance at every level.

 

Do Your Business Process Require an Employee Engagement-based Operational Efficiency Increase?

LEAD.bot is a team engagement platform available on Slack and Teams. It is an all-in-one team development software with features like virtual coffee chats, buddy programs, birthday celebrations & work anniversary celebrations, new hire onboarding programs, and Pulse Surveys.

LEAD.bot also offers cutting-edge Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) for big enterprises and institutions. Executive to mid-level managers use ONA to gain highly actionable insights and build strong workplace connections. Using this app enables developing innovative employee engagement ideas to connect employees and foster better organizational health, employee retention, and overall performance with this simple app!

LEAD.bot is a product of LEAD.app and we also LEAD.bot’s sister app Sunrize which showcases workplace attendance by graphs right on Slack! Book a demo now!