Contents
Growing your visitor attraction
The People Agenda
Your people are your business. Everything that happens in your business is as a result of actions by you or your team. Understanding all the aspects of the People Agenda, and driving forward to improve where improvements are needed, is at the basis of any Business Improvement/Development Plan
Without a clearly defined strategy, and clear Mission and Vision, your people will not be aware of what they are expected to achieve within your business.
- A Mission Statementdefines the company's business, its objectives and its approach to reach those objectives.
- A Vision Statementdescribes the desired future position of the company.
Elements of Mission and Vision Statements are often combined to provide a statement of the company's purposes, goals and values.
OBJECTIVES are clearly defined goals that you set your employees in order to achieve your Mission and Vision. They should be SMART – i.e.
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Time Bound
And should be built into an employee’s Appraisal, Review and Personal Development process.
Values are how the entire company operates and supports the culture of your business.
Do not underestimate the importance of setting out these within your business. If you have not already defined these, it is vital that as part of your Business Development and Growing your business that these are defined and implemented as part of your People Agenda.
Example of values in a local business – workshopped with the Team, agreed and implemented in 2020:
- We are Innovative
- We are Collaborative
- We are Genuine & Respectful
- We take Pride in what we do
- We are Expert at what we do
Where are we now? Facing the truth & fixing it
As mentioned above, the key to improving any business is to first ‘Seek to understand’. This applies to the People Agenda more than ever, for the reasons set out at the start of this section. Once again – as with the Customer, be prepared to accept criticism and act on feedback to make improvements.
Staff Enagagement
The key to a business’s success is its Employees, and a measure of Staff Engagement is the Staff Engagement survey. Undertaking this – and asking the right questions - can give a business insight into how it may improve its operation – from the Customer point of view, the Product Point of view, obviously the HR point of view, and understand what drives the Culture of the business.
Running your own staff engagement survey is not difficult – many companies can do this for you – at a cost - but with the right questions, some good information may be gleaned in house which you can start working on in a very short timeframe.
Suggested initial questions (these would be marked 1-5 and requesting additional feedback through open and specifc free comments boxes):
ABOUT YOU
- I enjoy working at ***
- I receive the right level of communication from my Line Manager
- I am clear about what I am expected to achieve and deliver as part of my job
- I have adequate training, materials, resources and tools to do what I do best everyday
- My line manager treats me with respect, is approachable, accessible and takes time to listen.
- I receive regular feedback on my performance.
- I am happy to go the ‘extra mile’ at work when required.
- I am satisfied with the level of recognition I receive for doing a good job.
- I am satisfied with the benefits I receive.
- ** supports our chosen charities well and is I enjoy being part of the charity programme.
About this year & COVID
- I believe the company has supported me and my wellbeing during Covid-19
- I believe the company has supported me to work from home
Bringing it all together
Once you establish what needs to be improved from a Staff Engagement point of view, then the rest of the activity on your PEOPLE agenda will flow.
Questions to ask about the following – Are you happy with the business’s performance on the following elements?
- Leadership Have we the right leadership? Do we do the right thing all the time?
- Right People Right Places Have we/are we? How can this be improved?
- Training A Training needs Analysis will establish your ‘Training Gap’ of what needs to be implemented and the training which is needed
- Monitoring Performance Do we? Do we hold people accountable? Or do we lack clarity of purpose?