Employee satisfaction, strategic awareness, and innovation

More employees quit their jobs and the dramatic impact of a new yogurt company! These two stories over the past few days reminded me of the value of the Quality Management and specifically the National Housing Quality Award (NHQA) criteria, specifically the need to focus on Employee Satisfaction (even during economic downturns) and the constant need to be aware of new organizations and products entering your marketplace.

It also is an excellent reminder of how what seems like a product or market that will never change (what could be new in this sector) can be shaken by a new perspective ie an innovative approach!

These stories are great lessons for those that think, we are leading our market, we have nothing to worry about, what could anyone do in this industry and this product that’s new, and why bother spending time and effort on our employee satisfaction, they are lucky to have jobs in this market!

Those using NHQA would be constantly being made aware off the need to focus on employees, strategy and innovation and very aware of change.

Here are the details:

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the number of people who quit their jobs in April jumped 7.2 percent to 2.25 million.
http://news.yahoo.com/more-americans-quit-jobs-sign-confidence-161601529.html

and

Hamdi Ulukaya borrowed $1 million to buy an 85-year-old factory in upstate New York, came up with a new recipe for an ancient product and took on Fortune 500 giants in a consumer category that most experts figured was locked up.
Five years after selling the first case of his Greek-style yogurt, Chobani, in October 2007, Ulukaya reached $1 billion in annual revenue. This kind of growth is unheard of, particularly for a startup, in the packaged-goods business—and rare in the tech world.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-yogurt-company-growing-as-fast-as-google-and-facebook-212410183.html