Firms must focus on staff for growth: Report

Companies seeking to improve their performance should focus more attention on their employees by giving them tools, resources and autonomy, a new study suggested.

The research of Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Microsoft, gives a link between enabling people and business performance. Enable your employees and it can improve the performance of the organisation, said the study.

The study clearly shows a positive correlation between employees' degree of enablement and its self-reported financial performance, said Nigel Holloway, Director of research at the Economist Intelligence Unit in North America.

This positive correlation exists across dozens of variables including profitability, revenue growth, tangible assets and strategic success, he added.

The study conducted an online survey of 1,351 senior executives worldwide, to determine how these factors affected employees' level of enablement, their ability to do jobs well and any relationship could be identified between enablement and corporate performance.

The study found a positive correlation between business success and use of various tools, including technology, to enable employees to optimise decision-making and act dynamically.

People are organisations' greatest asset and some of the most worthwhile investments a company can make are the technology tools and performance incentives that enable their people to exercise better work, it said.

EIU, a part of The Economist Group, is a research and advisory company providing country, industry and management analysis worldwide.