When employees know what makes an organization tick—and how they personally tie into those key areas—they’re in a better position to contribute to an organization’s success.
Many employees have great ideas, but those ideas may not be right for their organization. Misguided talent and ideas can be costly to an organization resulting in lost productivity, wasted resources and a failure to meet the vision, mission, goals and direction of the organization.
Five key knowledge areas for employees to understand are:
- The business model and how the organization makes money.
- Processes and product offerings.
- Supply chain elements, application of products, markets and economic cycles.
- Revenues, expenses, profits, customers and growth.
- Accounting, finance, marketing/sales, strategy and the analysis and interpretation of financials.
This does not mean employees need an in-depth knowledge of finance, marketing, accounting or highly confidential information. Rather, a high-level understanding of the metrics the organization uses to determine success and understanding what failure looks like is important.
Once an organization recognizes the benefits of knowledge-driven employees, all members of the organization should turn their focus to the key drivers that affect the organization both internally and externally.
Key Drivers
Employees must understand their organization’s brand. They should understand how their organization is viewed financially, whether it is considered a good employer, how it has treated employees during the economic downturn and if the brand is helping to attract and retain new talent.
Some of the other key drivers include credit becoming available, ability to forecast results, maintaining morale and productivity, cost of health care, IT management, supply-chain risk, and protection of intellectual property.
Conclusion
Organizations that wish to succeed—not just survive—will be focused on striking the right balance between internal, knowledge-driven talent and how that talent will manage key drivers of the organization translating to success and a profitable bottom line.
