1. They hate it.
2. They think it's fine.
3. They love it.
We all know we're in trouble if our employees hate working for us. It's easy for even the most boneheaded boss to grasp what that will mean:
* They'll do just enough to keep from getting fired. Can you afford that?
* They'll treat your customers and each other poorly, which will kill your brand by a thousand cuts.
* You'll have a really hard time attracting the kind of talent upon which to build your firm.
* The few people of talent you do attract will leave - the more desirable the employee, the faster that will happen.
Here's what most employers don't get, though (I believe because so few of them have themselves ever worked for a beloved company): there's no middle ground here. If your company is merely "Okay" or "Not that bad - for work," it's a lot the same as when it is hated. You'll experience the same exact problems as the leaders of a hated company, only the drain on your success will appear in slow motion by comparison.
There's no middle ground in the hearts of your employees. They either love you or they hate you. And apathy is close enough to hate that there's no reason to split hairs over the difference.
If they don't love working for you, they hate working for you.
Maybe - I'm not certain, but maybe - this wasn't always the case. Maybe once upon a time all work sucked, all employers were at least a little lousy, and people took their lumps, put in their time, and stuck around.
But it's 2010. And today, there are already enough wonderful employers out there that anyone of quality need not put up with anything less.
There's a lot of buzz right now about what a phenomenal culture Zappos has, and there should be - they've earned it, they are indeed just as great a company to work for as the hype would have you believe. Or so I've been told by so many Zapponians that I have to believe it.
But let's not stop with that one example.
Read "Let My People Go Surfing," and learn how fantastic a cause - yes, not just an employer, but a cause - Patagonia is.
Go to a Disney park and talk to anyone there about how they love their company. It's practically a cult! Oh, and don't stop there. Find a former Disney employee or twenty, and ask them what it was like working for that company.
Or try CD Baby. Or Southwest Airlines. Or Nordstrom. Or Four Seasons. Or Wegmans. Or Cisco.
Is your company beloved of your employees? Seriously: on a scale of 1-10, ten being the best ever, where would they put you?
I've got news for you. If you aren't earning pretty consistent tens from your people... you're screwed. Especially as the economy continues to emerge from the Great Recession. Doubt that at your peril.
*****
This is part four of a five-part series introducing the way business is being won in the Twenty-First Century. Your comments are invited and cherished.
Ted,
ReplyDeleteThere's a little, special patch of ground in all this called "Purgatory" that seems to be missing.
The characteristics are:
1. Is a large enough company to be on a list of "Best XXX Firms To Work For". People WANT to work for you.
2. Thinks of itself as being one way, but has sets of practices that are another
3. Doesn't really have a current, compelling vision for what it wants to be when it grows up and uses corporate market-babble to try and obscure that
4. Uses metrics such as Net Promoter Score (internal and external), but never thinking beyond the raw change in score. What does it mean? How should it shape your actions?
5. Doesn't ensure that there are meaningful business metrics that propagate down to their teams at all levels.
6. There's a widely held and respected view of "being able to perform at a consistent level". In other words, minimum performance is just that. It's what's normal.
Mind you, I have a candidate organization in mind for my analysis here, but these attributes are generic enough that they can be easily recognized in many other organizations.
In this kind of situation, people lack the passion, inspiration and support needed to really excel at their jobs. They're happy to trade their time for money and that's good enough. And they'll learn to hit whatever bar is judged to be "high enough".
This kind of company is one that is living on borrowed time, regardless of how much people love it's products or services right now. Why? Because it's slowly rotting away from the inside.
The sad part of all of it, is that it doesn't have to be that way. The shift towards a new future can be relatively quick, very results focused and prudently (expense wise, if nothing else).
All it takes is the courage to get started.
Hi Ted, great post, as @zappos pointed out in his book, customer service has to be a corporate culture driven strategy, it has to be the cornestone of the whole company's strategy, it has to be the blood that gives life to the corporation. At large companies you have silo-mentality, P&L groups that resist to change, resist to understand that we are here to serve. Great corporate core competencies statements do not cut it, it has to be a TOP-DOWN strategy every single day, not every quarter or yearly lofty goals, but importantly it has to start with me, every single one of the employees.
ReplyDeleteHi Ted,
ReplyDeleteGreat post on the importance of having happy, engaged employees if we want a great company.
Unfortunately, most companies are in the 2nd group and seem to think that saying that they are "customer-centric" is enough to make it happen...
We all know that actions speak louder than words (for everyone else...) Many CEOs would do well to read your blog and take it to heart.
Cheers
Eric
@ericjacques
Ted,
ReplyDeleteGreat point about employees. This issue also applies to a company's vendors and customers. In some industries - manufacturing especially - organizations can be stuck in the position of having to sole-source or dual-source materials or products. The tendency in these instances is to not be overly concerned about having customers or vendors love them. In fact, many times companies hate the vendors they must deal with and given the first opportunity will leave should another company become a viable source.
I referenced you post in my recent blog (Quality Doesn't Matter) because employees can be even less of a concern to some organizations than even customers or vendors.
Business owners and CEOs would be wise to take heed.
Megan
@MeganEBurns
Wise point on the results created from apathy and their similarity to hate. Puts the importance of engagement into perspective.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post.
Mary
@MFCollier
Thanks Ted for asking me to comment. I agree apathy is worse than anything else in an organization. Negativity is an energy and can be transformed. Many entrepreneurs use this type of energy to start their own companies. Apathy is a form of ignorance and can lead to indifference. If we want a successful business we must love our customers,our vendors and our workers. When I use the term love in this context I mean that we care what is happening to the other guy. What is it like to be in his/her shoes?
ReplyDeleteI am starting a new business and I can promise you that I will value my employees,vendors and customers as much as I value myself. Without them it will be kind of hard to make a go of a new business in this competitive environment
Hello Ted,
ReplyDeleteGREAT INFORMATION for all business leaders. I am convinced your company is only as good or great as your employees.
Happy employees = Happy Customers = Loyality
from both.
It takes very little time and effort to let your employees know how much they are appreciated. They need to feel they are important and play key role in companies success.
It is amazing how much we can learn from our employees when we value them enough to ask questions, get their feedback, listen to their ideas. Respect and Communication are Key.
Please Note: It's been my experience, usually this results in OVERWHELMING COMPANY GROWTH.
Move forward with caution. Growing Company too quickly can have devastating consequences.
As a trainer I have observed CEO's who perfectly fit the character from the story The Emperor's New Clothes.
ReplyDeleteThis disproportionate self belief may have been acceptable previously, but in this age of austerity it’s time to smell the coffee and listen to their employees.
I hope your comments are taken on board
and companies open communication channels in order to move forward in these challenging and changing times
Hi Ted,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the invite to comment. I totally agree with the wisdom in this insightful article. Apathy is the purgatory of modern-day business. It's that state of employee disengagement that comes after hate has come and gone. I would venture to even go so far as to say, it's the point at which there is no return back to a better time/attitude.
Unfortunately, many employers are so keenly unaware of their employees state-of-mind that the employees just slip through the cracks and become unattached. This further trickles down to the customer who will also suffer from contact with an apathetic employee and ultimately this will hit the company's bottom line in a negative manner.
The good news is that there are organizations out there that do "get it" and have such a wonderful work culture that it gives me encouragement in knowing there is hope.
To Eric's point, a company that claims to be customer-centric is missing the point. Good business starts with the most important relationship, with the employee.
@CyndyTrivella
I whole hardily agree, so why is it that the majority of large company's still elect to run their companies by the numbers as opposed to performance and incentive. It is perfectly evident through working business models that a happy employee is a productive one, (generally speaking). In a small company scenario you learn to recognize it really quick or you sink like the titanic. Of course the present economic climate as also introduced an additional scenario which as long been suspected but only now being recognized for its large scale impact, and that is that of upper management and CEO greed. The culture of get rich quick has corrupted every aspect of the corporate business world and has destroyed the trust of the common people, a great opportunity for the entrepreneurial spirit.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a great topic to bring up. I think it would be interesting to take it down another level and look at the engagement of different workgroups within the organization. You can have employees that work for the same company, share the same health benefits, opportunities for growth and learning and perhaps even have similar roles but have a completely different view of the company. I think this comes down the individual workgroups leader and their ability to position company changes, policy, impacts to pay and bonuses, etc. It also comes down to the leader's ability to implement certain company programs like flex time, or teleworking. Not all leaders are created equal and your immediate leader can have a big impact on how you feel about the company you work for.
ReplyDeleteThe more engaged an employee is at the workgroup level the more they may tolerate or even understand changes to the overall business.
that is a good article, with really true statements! keep your interesting writing. Lelia
ReplyDeleteTed - great post! And totally relevant. "Management" truly needs to be reinvented for the 21st century.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I proposed a "hardline" hack to make employee engagement an organisation-wide responsibility and make leaders / managers accountable for it. Let me know your thoughts.
http://www.managementexchange.com/hack/share-costs-share-responsibility
Wonderful message about treating your employees the way you want them to treat your potential guests or your customers. Successful companies need "team" players, and Tom has made some fantastic points about evaluating your current employee relationships and making you think twice will this employee help me keep my clients or loose them. We all need to look to ourselves as business owners and take cues from some of the top notch company's Tom
ReplyDeletementioned. How are you doing with your employee morale?
For employees to be engaged, they have to see that they are valued by the decision-makers. For a lot of bigger companies, employees relate to the c-suite through company policies and levels of bureaucracy. The ways policies and bureaucracies are used in an organization can either support or eat away at motivation. To humanize the organization, the c-suite must make it a point to live the organizational mission and interact with employees at all levels. When this happens, you see a much different level of engagement and usually it's good for the bottom line.
ReplyDeleteHello Ted,
ReplyDeleteI have what I consider a rare opportunity: I'm setting up my company and hope to do it right from the start. Yes, Zappos is an example of what should be done and, yes, it might be more difficult to do the kind of achievements with a small team but still this is something not negotiable for me. My soon-to-be company will be customer AND employees centered.
If it's not done from the start, it's something that might be difficult to implement successfully later on...
Hi Ted.
ReplyDeleteThanks for inviting me to comment on your post. A lot of people seem to forget that employees are internal customers. They need as much attention and consideration just as much as our external customers. Without our internal customers, there is no company to speak of...they are the heart and soul of any business, each one has a role to play (big or small) to invest in the success of a company --- hands down.
It's the company's job to keep all customers --- internal and external --- happy and not apathetic...the company can't do it alone, however...employees and employers need to maintain constant communication with each other to quickly air out and address concerns before they turn into grievances and complaints.
Karen, The Resume Chick (on Google or Twitter if you need me)
I agree with your post, Ted. For some reason I have really been on a "simple in concept, hard in execution" kick lately, and I view this topic the same way. I think the keys to get the love consistently (because it's obviously not a one-snapshot measure) are:
ReplyDelete1) Have a clear vision.
2) Communicate that clear vision clearly and frequently.
3) Have an identity as a company (aka culture), hire and fire to it, and don't sub-optimize it.
Yep, pretty simple. Yep, pretty hard to do.
Great post, Ted. Too bad the people who most need to see it (leaders of those companies whose employees are secretly plotting their escape), are not likely to do so. Or, if they do see it, are likely to convince themselves that this doesn't apply to *their* company.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, with unemployment as high as it is, a lot of companies seem to be of a mind that it's an "employers' market". I suppose they're correct in that there are a lot of people competing for fewer jobs. However, the company that treats its employees like indentured servants during a employers' market? That's the company that starts bleeding employees when the economy turns around. Of course, by then, the really talented employees will have left already, because top-notch people can find new jobs even in the worst of times.
I'm optimistic that this next generation of businesses will avoid the "employer as lord, employees as serfs" mentality. I'm not too optimistic that the current crop of businesses will get there.
Yes, it's just as with children, you need to take notice of them, listen and at least pretend to understand.
ReplyDelete;)
This is SO true!
ReplyDeleteThe basic concepts of managing employees is so simple, yet owners/managers some how find ways to complicate the process. Do the right thing because it's the right thing do, accept responsibility, and put the real work in it takes to develop a strong team. Never cut corners. If you can look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and tell yourself you're not part of the problem, you'll have a fighting chance to build a good team. If you think all employees are lazy, they will become lazy. If you continue treat them like they're stupid, they'll act stupid. Find out what their needs are and turn "just fine" employees into workers that like it just a little more. In the process weed out the ones that hate it and move on to new candidates. Above all have accountability for you own actions and stop assuming everyone else has poor work ethics. It might just be their attitude towards poor leadership.
ReplyDeleteSo much love for this post!
ReplyDelete