You have hired amazing talent for one of your support services organizations. Now that you’ve wooed that person into your team, it’s time to prove to them that they made the right choice in selecting you. That starts with valuing them for the unique talents they bring to your team. Often though, they receive the message that they are less valuable than their counterparts in the operations or sales departments.

I hear this concern from employees who work tirelessly to support organizations in Finance, HR, IT, Legal and other support departments. The problem is, the better the employees are at delivering on these services, the more invisible they become. Problems are thwarted before they are ever truly visible; efficient processes and best practices are implemented without corporate visibility. These employees, and their services, can quickly become under-appreciated and under-valued.

In many cases, the message is built into the company language and propagated unconsciously. It’s not uncommon for companies to label their departments as either cost or profit centres. While this stems from finance planning and budgeting, it becomes demoralizing when people are referred to in the same way. How disengaging for professionals who are treated as a liability instead of an asset. Anyone with a strong knowledge of business knows that, when done well, these services will save you money both immediately and down the road by avoiding time-consuming and inefficient work, re-work and potential expensive legal trouble. A penny saved is a penny earned when it comes to the bottom-line in your organization.

Another way organizations send the message that support service employees aren’t as valuable is by routinely restricting their budgets in ways that they don’t in other departments.  Often support services have things such as travel, professional memberships and training expenses restricted. This is justified by that fact that every budget item in these departments is a cost and not revenue generating.  In one company I had experience with, a member of a support team was not allowed to take a half day course, in town, that cost $50. This education was directly relevant to the work he was doing and expected to advise on daily. Meanwhile, an operations team held an out of town party for their employees, contractors, spouses, children and pets. I know some of you are laughing but it’s a true story. They actually funded accommodations for employee’s pets in one area but not their own team’s development in another. As tightly as you try to keep a lid on these things happening, they still become known. Of course, deep resentment follows and the culture takes another hit.

As it becomes common to place less value on support employees, attention must be paid on reversing that message.  If you hire an employee, it is because the company needed their services.  You hired the best talent you could find for that role to save your company money in multiple ways.  Following a few key principles will help to keep your key support team engaged and helping your business to thrive:

• Communicate your appreciation to employees for the value they bring
• Be aware of language used to refer to people and departments
• Provide employees equitable opportunities in the company for development
• Compensate fairly across the company 
• Allocate budget increases and decreases across all departments equitably. 
• Don’t justify sub-par treatment of one group in your organization – for any reason.

If you would like any help with your workplace culture please see our services https://activatehr.ca/our-services/ or email us at info@activatehr.ca

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