What's the bottom line?

People emotionally engaged in their work and supportive of their company want to go the Extra Mile. Research carried out by the Corporate Leadership Council in the US, shows that if you can achieve a 10% rise in employee engagement across an organisation, effort - in terms of operational productivity, customer service, selling - is likely to go up by 6% which will deliver at least a 2% boost to the bottom line. For a large organisation that equates to millions of pounds.

Meanwhile Gallup Management Group research in 2008 showed that improving employee engagement is important because engaged employees have:

- 51% lower turnover
- 27% less absenteeism
- 18% more productivity
- 12% higher profitability

One international retail company undertook an Extra Mile training programme in a problematic store over a 20-week period and successfully embraced a culture of engagement and best practice. Having not reached target for 30 weeks the turnaround meant target was hit for 21 out of the next 22 weeks. Amazingly the store achieved over £1 million showroom sales per month against an average target of £734k per month. That's over 25% growth!