Employees Are a Company’s Most Valuable Asset
The following post first appeared in 2013.
Talk about a valuable asset — Recently I closed one of the biggest contracts of my career. The last key piece that sold it was “our employees”. During one of the sales meetings the prospects’ CFO said something profound – “after all, it is not so much about choosing company A over company B as much as it is being comfortable with the people from company A”. The CFO liked the team that presented the solution but he wanted to be assured that the team that would execute it was just as good. So I sent him the name and bio of every person who would be assigned to the project. We then followed that up with an in-person presentation of all the team members. The next day we got the contract.
It seems so obvious yet we always seem to forget it. Our most valued asset is our employees. So, why are companies always looking to cut on Health and Retirement costs — the very items that motivate their employees? Why does it seem that investments in HR are hard to come by? HR, after all, is responsible for recruiting and cultivating our employees. It should be the most important piece of the organization. I read many articles about how “HR is becoming a strategic piece of the organization”; in what universe would it not be?
