What does it take to truly build something? Plans? Yes, plans are important. Materials and People? People are the most important factor when building anything. Before you can start to look at plans and gather materials, your people must be motivated to do the job. Today the downturn in the economy is deeply impacting the morale of employees, potentially crippling workforce performance when companies need it the most.

SuccessFactors Research recently surveyed 227 companies in the UK and Ireland and found that 60% of the respondents listed staff morale as the number one effect of the crashing economy, followed closely by goal alignment and achievement, which was selected by 31% of the respondents. What does this mean for business? I am sure you have noticed the title of this blog, Carrying Rocks or Building a Castle. People who are not aligned with their organization are merely carrying rocks, doing work without building the castle. Companies simply cannot afford to let their people do unproductive work, whether in a good or bad economy. Workers with low morale who are not engaged may never pick up the rock at all.

The cost of an unmotivated workforce is quite substantial. SuccessFactors Research has always maintained that a company’s ability to execute is based on three factors: motivation, talent, and organizational ability (tools, etc.) In fact, we consider these three factors to be multiplicative, so low motivation, or low engagement, directly and negatively impacts the other two factors across the company. Companies can tackle both challenges highlighted in our survey, low morale and goal alignment, with an effective goal management strategy.

Having a direct line of sight between one’s individual contribution and the company’s goals is one major driver of engagement. Goal management can help provide that line of sight, linking and cascading goals so that the worker always has a context for his or her actions.

When optimizing the workforce, potentially laying off staff, and adjusting to the changing business environment, you can’t afford to let low morale effect your organisation’s ability to execute. Ensure that goals are clearly set and managed effectively, and build strong teams committed to building the castle.

At SuccessFactors, it is easy to take virtual teams for granted. We began with a global vision, and from the start worked across geographies in virtual teams. Simply put, we got things done – the actual mechanisms, e-mail, PRDs, webcasts, were not nearly as important as the attitudes of the team members. Not long ago SuccessFactors Research, along with Jim Ware and Charles Grantham from the Future of Work, took a look at how the workforce is changing. One clear result – more people will be working remotely. The days of knocking on the office door, or ducking into a coworker’s cube to ask a question are coming to an end. 

The question arises, as companies expand opportunities to work remotely, how can they ensure that their virtual teams stand up and deliver? How can companies recreate the seamless virtual teams that I have taken for granted at my time with SuccessFactors? The folks over at OnPoint Consulting have done some research on virtual teams and found that successful teams have members that:

• Show Initiative
• Are willing to assume Leadership/Responsibility
• Share Processes
• Have a clear understanding of their contribution to the company
• Provide timely feedback
• Are willing to  expend extra effort
• Work together well
• Help each other

Not long ago SuccessFactors Research and thought leader Amy Lyman hosted the webinar The Business Benefits of Being a Great Place to Work. People who love their jobs work harder and do better. It follows then that creating a “great place to work” should be a top priority for all businesses. Of course, this is easier said than done, or is it? If managers focus on transparency, honesty, diversity and fairness they are on their way to creating a great place to work. Every business is different, so making the leap from a good place to work to a great place to work will involve different factors for each workplace. Ms. Lyman discusses these factors and how they help businesses excel in the webinar she did with us.

Every year the Great Place to Work Institute’s 100 Best Companies to Work for survey is published in Fortune magazine. In fact, SuccessFactors has twice been ranked highly in the small business category. How do we do it? Well, we are very transparent about what drives our success, and have a blog dedicated to employees telling their success stories here at SuccessFactors – the HappyFactors blog.

The response to our joint webinar with Ms. Lyman was electric, and she received many follow up questions from our guests after the conclusion of the webinar. She was kind enough to answer these questions in detail, which are now available for download – SuccessFactors Research Webinar Extra: Amy Lyman . She tackles some tough questions like, how do you start to build trust when employees have lost their trust in upper management, and can you recommend some processes to uncover what’s working in a company in terms of building a strong culture?

Ms. Lyman will be joining us again August 19^th for a webinar focusing on Europe and EMEA. Just as the challenges are different for every business, they are different in various geographies as well. Check our events page for the registration link, which should be available shortly.

It’s an old adage that you have to try and fail before you succeed, in fact entrepreneurs practically live by this code. But what about established organizations? A lot of businesses don’t feel this way, even though they should. The sooner an employee fails, the sooner the individual can move onto to the next task, and the sooner the company can act.

People can learn from failure – there is an upside to chances taken, but if a person knows they will fail, the sooner they do it the better. Take the case of a sales rep constantly dragging on with an opportunity that never will materialize – better to get to fail and move on, to free up time for other accounts.

When it comes to managing employees not only does it take some investment to get people fully productive as we’ve researched with Dr. Hallowell at PDI, but there is also a significant cost to keeping disengaged employees. Necessary separation is important to manage.

“I feel so good–I’m almost happy” – Al Bundy. It’s not just about the bottom line, people should work where they can be engaged in their jobs. One company, Zappos, really gets it. After the first week of work, they offer their new hires 1000 dollars to quit. They figure, if a person takes the money, he or she isn’t really engaged and didn’t belong there in the first place. This is what understanding human capital is all about, finding ways to maximize those factors, like engagement, that really impact performance over the course of an individual’s career.

Today, new hires have an average tenure of about 3.5 years, which is not a lot of time to get them up to the plate and hitting home runs. Don’t worry if your rookies make some mistakes – each mistake can provide valuable insight into setting the right course for your new hire, and accelerate successes . Opportunity is born from failure. Entrepreneurs get it. Zappos gets it. So could you.