Click here to order the August 2015 issue in which this article appeared.
People are everything in direct selling. Their enthusiasm for sharing products and business opportunities fuels company growth, builds brands and creates lasting legacies. The importance of people in this business simply can’t be overstated.
How valuable, then, is investing in people’s personal development? Writer Courtney Roush takes a deep look at that question in this issue’s cover story, “How to Tap the Power of Personal Growth,” which begins on page 18. Top executives at Initials Inc., All’asta, It Works! and Traci Lynn Jewelry all weigh in on the transformative nature of personal development and explain how the concept has become central to their companies, and their own lives. Each one makes a tremendous commitment to providing personal development resources to their independent salesforces, and reaps the rewards. As ACN President and Co-Founder Greg Provenzano so beautifully put it in his Top Desk column on page 82, “The wrong kind of people can’t stand the right environment for too long. Your outer world will always catch up with your inner world.”
Of course, having a great relationship with your field is only one piece of the people puzzle. Fostering deep engagement among company employees is equally important; when a workplace is awesome, workers tend to deliver awesome performances. In recognition of that fact, we invite you to join us in a new project: Best Places to Work in Direct Selling. Direct Selling News has partnered with Quantum Workplace, an HR technology company that has been collecting Best Places to Work data for more than a decade and currently supports 40 programs across the U.S. Together, we will celebrate the important role direct selling companies play as employers in the marketplace and identify the best of the best when it comes to creating engaging work environments.
Here’s how it works:
Starting Aug. 17 and running through Oct. 23, human resource directors or other top executives within a company can complete the nomination for participation. The contest is open to direct selling companies with at least 50 employees based in North America. Simply head to directsellingnews.com/bestplacestowork and provide some basic information.
Once the nomination period closes, Quantum Workplace will ask the employees of these companies to complete an online survey designed to measure workplace engagement. The survey was developed by a panel of thought leaders in the field of employee experience and is validated annually against more than 1.5 million responses across 5,000 companies to continuously recognize trends in the evolution of engagement. It is available in English and Spanish.
Once the survey period is complete, Quantum Workplace will compile and evaluate the responses, assigning each company a composite score. Top achievers will be recognized in a special Direct Selling News publication.
There is no cost to participate. In addition, all companies that take part in the survey will receive a free, one-page overview report of their results and a more detailed report will be available for purchase. Companies also may work with Quantum Workplace to design additional, custom employee survey work.
With your participation, the Best Places to Work in Direct Selling program will celebrate the important role companies play as employers in the marketplace and highlight those companies that are setting the bar for establishing and nurturing work experiences and environments that bring out the very best in people. This will allow us to spotlight the direct selling channel as a positive job-creating engine, share best practices with the wider direct selling community, and provide valuable feedback and data that can assist you in measuring levels of employee satisfaction and engagement.
In addition to Best Places to Work in Direct Selling, I encourage you to take a look at another upcoming opportunity: the European Direct Selling Conference and Seldia Astra Awards Dinner, scheduled for Oct. 6 and 7 in Brussels. Our friends at Seldia report that several VIPs of the industry already have registered to the event, including Doug DeVos, Chairman of WFDSA and President of Amway. The conference will feature a panel discussion with Seldia Chairman Magnus Brännström (Oriflame), Samir Behl (Amway), Patrick Sostmann (LR Health & Beauty Systems) and Kathleen Mitchell (Stella & Dot) as well as several interactive workshops on various topics. How digital technologies affect direct selling businesses’ growth will be at the heart of the debates. More information can be found on the conference website at www.directsellingconference.eu or by sending an email to seldia@seldia.eu.
All the best,
Lauren Lawley Head
Publisher and Editor in Chief
