C.A. Short Company: Why the Investment in Enterprise Engagement?
C.A. Short Company, a leading recognition firm based in Shelby, NC, recently sponsored a 15-minute program on Worldwide Business, hosted by successful entrepreneur and business personality, Kathy Ireland. The focus was on the concept of engagement and C.A. Short Company’s role in this emerging field. The program aired on Fox News Business and Bloomberg, both in the U.S. and worldwide.
The program features interviews with C.A. Short Company executives and management, as well as with Bruce Bolger, Managing Director of the Enterprise Engagement Alliance, on the overall subject and economics of engagement. Click here to view the program.
We were curious to know why C.A. Short Company made this investment in educating the business world about Enterprise Engagement. “Our goal in supporting this program was to inform executives and managers about the impact an engaged culture has on an organization’s productivity and bottom line, and to provide an overview of how to create a culture of engagement,” explains Jeff Ross, President of C.A. Short Company.
He notes that Worldwide Business with Kathy Ireland® features content and interviews to help business owners grow their companies and gain a competitive edge, and identified engagement as a timely topic for its viewers. “We believe this show on Fox Business and Bloomberg is a great tool to help introduce, inform and educate corporations about the huge opportunity and impact of engagement and how it can be used to create a competitive advantage for those corporations,” Ross says.
In addition to providing a chance to educate management about engagement, both on-air and in videos it will share based on the program, Ross says the interview process “involved asking many questions and really refining our message – it helped us succinctly tell our story in a way that resonates with businesses across the world. We experienced firsthand how excited and interested people are to hear about engagement and what it can do for their businesses. Enterprise Engagement and its impact on businesses is real – financially, culturally, morally. We also experienced that people are open to learning about engagement and what it can do for their employees and their bottom lines.
According to Ross, this investment represents his company’s shift toward focusing on providing clients with a complete engagement solution, both by educating its current base of thousands of customers and by reaching out to new ones. Ross, who has a financial background, believes that engagement is really a matter of bottom-line common sense, but that the tipping point has not yet quite arrived: ‘In general, we think the concept of engagement is accepted by business at the macro level, but the true concept of engagement and the economics of engagement have been slower for businesses to understand. I believe the level of interest changes immensely when you provide the research and the studies that show how powerful engagement can be. The acceptance will occur at a much faster pace as the field expands and businesses become more educated to the fact that engagement isn’t just about having fun and being happy; it’s a driver of business initiatives and increasing profitability.
Ross said he has begun to see a shift in the way recognition planners are thinking. “Certainly with the increased use of technology, the increase of mobile workforces, virtual workforces and the shift in the demographics in our nation’s workforce, traditional recognition programs need to adapt and be much more innovative and interactive than they’ve been in the past. Recognition will always be a vital component of a successful engagement culture.
Ross was asked what he believes gives C.A. Short Company a competitive edge; “I believe C.A. Short Company’s competitive edge lies in our ability to be flexible and adaptive to each of our client’s needs. Whether it be through technology, using our innovative People Are Everything employee engagement platform, or through our customizable solutions that have been developed through many years of experience combined with our thought leadership and innovative solutions. We’re able to collaborate with our clients to make sure that our solutions drive results to their bottom lines.
