Case studies / References

Staff involvement

Sumitomo

"When Fort Dunlop was taken over by Sumitomo, the Japanese management asked for money-saving ideas from the workforce.  A junior employee saved the company £100,000 a year in electricity payments by suggesting that every other fluorescent light in the huge factory did not need to be used - an idea that he had had for years!"

J Adair, 1997. Decision Making and Problem Solving

Heinz

"H J Heinz, USA had a marketing problem... The company wanted to get sales promotional material to consumers more quickly.  Brainstorming produced 195 ideas.  After evaluation, eight were immediately used.  A member of Heinz, when talking about another brainstorming session, said "Brainstorming generated more and better ideas than our special committee produced in 10 meetings"."

J Adair, 1997. Decision Making and Problem Solving

"Commitment from employees is critical to overall business performance: research has shown that, even in similar jobs, your best employee can be 2.5 times more productive than you worst employee. These differences are not caused by physiological differences between employees, but are explained by motivational and behavioural drivers that are manifest in terms of organisation commitment and job involvement."

CMI, 2004. The Business Energy survey: assessing the energy levels of UK managers

Staff churn

A survey involving 4,000 individuals and 300 HR managers brought to light that 49% of staff leave their jobs because they experience a lack of opportunity for personal and career development.  Only 21% of employers appreciated this being the main reason.
Reed Consulting, Employee Attrition: Causes, Effects and Retention Strategies

While the average cost of recruiting a replacement manager/professional is thought to be £5000, the estimated total cost of labour turnover in 2003 for the same group was £7000.

CIPD, June 2004. Recruitment, retention and turnover: a survey of UK and England.