Getting scammed is the worst whether in your personal or professional life. You waste both time and money when you’re a scamming victim, neither of which you have an abundance of. Not to mention you may feel like an idiot for letting it happen to you and your clients. We’ve heard tons of scams from cancer screening scams to gift card scams. However, we were not privy to the below: the biggest business bookkeeping scam that could cost you big.
The Employee Engagement Scam
This is the biggest business scam as reported on by Forbes Magazine. The term “employee engagement” is essentially a fake business term that cropped up approximately 20 years ago when consulting and software firms saw a new data point they could scam managers into measuring. Managers enjoy measuring data to ensure they meet their outcomes. So do business owners. This is great for items such as projected revenue, sales, costs, etc. It isn’t so great for something as vague and intangible as “employee engagement.”
How the Employee Engagement Scam Works
Your business may use annual performance reviews to measure your worker’s performance. Maybe you find them useful. Maybe you do it because everyone else does. A former Fortune 500 HR leader admits that “annual performance reviews do nothing to help your organization succeed” and can even have drawbacks. These types of reviews can take up hours of each worker’s time, not to mention all the funds that go into dispersing, collecting, and analyzing them. In addition, there is no reliable data that measuring all this micro-data leads to improved performance.
Other drawbacks include:
- Anonymous surveys can create conflicting answers.
- Non-anonymous surveys create pressure for employees to answer “correctly.”
- Performance review forms are often impersonal and dehumanize workers.
- Busy employees will not give the forms their due.
- Making major decisions based on performance reviews can lead to devastating results.
What to do Instead of Employee Engagement
Don’t stray from your business’s main goal: creating innovative, quality products and providing expert, professional services. You most definitely want to hear your worker’s thoughts on those items. You can do so by having a company-wide meeting, department meetings, or even individual meetings. The latter is a great way to get to know each employee, as well as what they recommend improving and ditching. Criteria you should definitely address include:
- Are your workers aware of your current business goals, new products, services, and changes?
- Are your workers aligned with your overall goals?
- Do they share this knowledge with other workers who are in need of help?
Also, don’t be surprised if they want to do away with their annual reviews and other employee engagement actions.
Help With Business Bookkeeping Scams in Houston
If you or your business need help with business scams or bookkeeping tasks, feel free to contact us.