Why Money Spent on Employees is the Best Money You Can Spend

As a business owner, it can be difficult sometimes to know exactly how to allocate your resources.

Cutting costs, trimming deficits, or expanding into new areas of growth requires finesse and judgment that doesn’t always come easily.

Tough decisions must be made, routinely, about what sacrifices to make and where to take risks.

In the midst of these admittedly precarious decision making processes, it’s easy to overlook the most important factor in the success of your business: the employees. Many business self-destruct, or at least fail to reach their full potential, because they have not given enough attention to the workers that keep the whole operation moving forward. You can cut the budget of a certain department in times of hardship—people may be upset whose job it is to work with that budget. But cutting the budget on benefits to your employees, both within the workplace and outside of it, can have a direct impact on the success of our business.

There is a lot of evidence to support the claim that investing in your employees will have a high ROI. Here are three areas in which those investments would be wisely placed.

Health

There has been a great deal of debate surrounding the issue of employer-based health insurance in recent weeks, as the U.S. government enters into a new phase of health care coverage in which more companies will be required to provide insurance for their employees. From a fiscal perspective, it is of course natural to be wary of government-imposed spending mandates. But aside from the general ideologies about nationwide access to healthcare, there are some undeniable advantages to providing for the health of your own employees.

Indeed, as the previous link describes, studies have shown that preventative health care services and workplace health facilities (gyms, medical services) increase both the health of workers—which is fairly obvious—and also the morale of your team as a whole. A business is contingent on the self-motivation of the individuals. If your employees believe that the business considers and values their best interest, they will work harder, longer, and will help create a positive image for your company.

Training

Aside from health and physical wellness, there are some slightly more direct ways of increasing the productivity and effectiveness of workers. Investments in training can have huge payoffs down the road if you are able to find training programs that can teach new skills or help organize some aspect of your business’ functioning.

The interconnectedness of today’s world has resulted in heightened competition in a global market, making worker skills more important than ever. And these skills are no longer sufficient addressed through basic schooling—even MBA and related graduate programs can no longer keep up with the fast-paced advancements in technological knowledge and sales training required to stay afloat in the 21st century’s cutthroat marketplace.

Training employees is widely regarded as one of the best ways to keep your business ahead of the curve, not to the mention the fact that it also serves to boost morale and keep workers motivated behind the common cause of the company.

Company Culture

These days, as the startup and local business models continues to garner accolades and success stories, ingenuity in company culture is becoming a critical aspect of human resource management. California startup magnates Google and Facebook have set the bar high for company culture in the startup business field, and upstarts have done their best to follow suit. Increasingly, if you’re going to market yourself as a good company to work for, you’re going to have to back up that claim not just with benefits and 401k plan like the days of old, but with office bicycles and beanbag chairs. And what are the benefits of this money spent? Research supports the assumption that good company culture results in high company production and overall business growth.

Money can be difficult to spend, and harder still to determine where to spend in the context of a complex business strategy. Keep in the mind the power of people—your company is only as motivated, efficient, and ultimately successful as the people who work in it.