Eight out of ten employees in Middle East companies are not loyal to their company or brand, according to training specialist Peter Andreou of PeopleAchieve, who pointed to staff retention as one of the principal challenges for companies in Arabia.
Speaking in front of an audience of industry leaders in Dubai, Andreou said: “Losing a senior executive costs a company two years, yet many companies have yet to link the strength of their brand – both internal and external – with their power to retain staff.
“Focusing on the brand through targeted training programmes can reverse the ratio of 80 per cent who are not loyal versus 20 per cent who are engaged by the brand they work for. In terms of minimising the cost of losing executives alone, this can have a huge impact on a company’s bottom line.”
PeopleAchieve specialises in training programmes that push the brand values throughout the corporate structure; Andreou explained that the strength of a company’s reputation “is only as good as its weakest employee and its weakest product”.
He said: “There is a direct correlation between the strength of a brand and its success in the marketplace. Think of a Rolex watch, a Mercedes car or a Hermes bag: a loyal customer will not look elsewhere and will pay almost any price because of the way it makes them feel.”
Coherent branding from product through to employees allows companies to charge a premium for their product, said Andreou, as long as the brand promise is kept.
“A great brand truly is worth its weight in gold. On the shop floor, this can equate to increasing your price by 20 per cent; in the back room, it increases staff and customer loyalty. But a great brand isn’t just about a corporate identity, a logo, or an ad campaign – it is the whole process, and how you deliver the brand through your people.”
The Cyprus-based PeopleAchieve has been operating in the Middle East for a number of years and has just opened a new office in Dubai.
PeopleAchieve has trained more than 25,000 people in over 250 training programmes across 15 countries. The programmes run across all areas of the marketing and strategic spectrum, from coaching top level management, creating brand values and delivering brand behaviours, to making organisations more emotionally intelligent, which all benefit the bottom line.
