What if you did more of what you do best every day?

Imagine starting your workday energized, confident, and excited about what’s ahead. Unfortunately, that isn’t the reality for many people. Too often, employees spend their days focusing on weaknesses, trying to fix gaps, or working in roles that don’t fully utilize what they naturally do best.

I’m passionate about helping people and organizations discover and leverage their strengths, because research shows that when people can use their strengths every day, everyone wins.

The ROI of Using Strengths

Strengths are the combination of your natural talents, developed skills, and knowledge that allow you to consistently perform at a high level. For decades, Gallup has examined how strengths-based development affects both the employee experience and organizational performance.

Employee engagement continues to be a challenge. Gallup found that only about 31% of U.S. employees are engaged, and about one in four employees strongly agrees that they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day.

In contrast, Gallup found that employees who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged and three times more likely to report an excellent quality of life. They are 8% more productive and 15% less likely to leave. At the team and business-unit level, strengths-based development has also been tied to measurable gains, including 12.5% higher productivity, 8.9% greater profitability, higher sales and profit growth, stronger customer engagement, and lower turnover.

If you think about this ripple effect, it’s easy to see why strengths-based cultures perform so well. Employees who enjoy coming to work create a more positive work environment. Positive employees collaborate more effectively. Creative employees solve problems faster. And employees who genuinely enjoy what they do create better experiences for customers.

The takeaway is clear. When engagement is low, organizations often experience reduced productivity, increased turnover, lower customer satisfaction, and more workplace stress. But when people understand and regularly do what they do best, they are more likely to be engaged, productive, and committed to their work.

How to Focus on Strengths in the Workplace

Although creating a strengths-based workplace may sound intimidating, making small changes can help you get there.

A great place to begin is by creating a shared language. A CliftonStrengths® workshop, for example, can introduce the concept, help employees better understand themselves and one another, and give teams a practical way to talk about strengths in everyday conversations. From there, leaders can reinforce the language by naming strengths when they see them and encouraging employees to do the same.

Organizations can also look for ways to align roles and responsibilities with employees’ natural talents whenever possible. Managers can broaden performance conversations by asking what energizes team members, where they feel most effective, and how their strengths could be used more intentionally. Teams can build on this by appreciating the different contributions each person brings and partnering with colleagues whose strengths complement their own.

Individuals play an important role, too. Start by noticing which tasks give you energy and which ones drain you. Pay attention to the activities where time seems to fly by, and ask trusted colleagues what they see as your greatest contributions. These patterns can offer helpful clues about your strengths and how to use them more often.

When people discover what they do best and are encouraged to use those talents intentionally, work becomes more meaningful, teams become stronger, and organizations become more successful. And who doesn’t want more of that?