You know it's the right thing to do. You've heard the statistics, read the white papers and even had the conversation. Heck, your company mission statement may even have the words in it... “Our employees come first” or “Our employees are our most important asset.”
But the real question is what are you really doing about it? As you've read on this blog over the past couple of years you know I believe that employees are one of the foundational elements of your business. And for service companies probably the foundational element. They are your brand. Whether you are product-driven or service-driven your employees create the value you deliver.
Who do you love...
And taking care of them is one of the smartest investments you can make. To help you find your way through all the information available and find an actionable plan that will help you I am participating in a “virtual” book tour. Bloggers around “interweb” are reviewing, commenting and providing input to promote and highlight the book, “Taking Care of the People who Matter Most – A guide to Employee-Customer Care.” by Sybil F. Stershic.
While not a huge book (less than 150 pages) it does pack a lot of information and guidance into those pages. While many books on employee engagement, satisfaction and motivation may find one theme and beat it to death until the book weighs a certain amount Ms. Stershic takes a different approach.
The book quickly makes its case for the value of employee engagement through a quick tour of the research and studies that show that employees 
drive business success (see sidebar.) Once the groundwork is laid – the rest of the book focuses on the steps you need to take in order to implement a strategy that will connect and engage your employees. While not new to the business world, this book advocates that companies create an “internal marketing strategy” applying many of the same tactics most companies (including yours I'm sure) use to connect and engage with their consumers.
Each chapter ends with a quick exercise... which help you plan and manage your internal marketing strategy. You know that any theory is only as good as the implementation and this book goes the extra mile to provide the actionable steps needed to change your organization. The last 40 pages give you a nice check sheet to follow in order to ensure you've covered your bases.
A couple of the quotes from the book that resonated with me particularly (given the focus of this site)...
“Applying marketing internally allows an organization to focus on those representing its true competitive advantage. ....- competitors cannot duplicate the relationship an organization's employees have with its customers.”
“... two separate but integrated components of internal marketing: attitude management and communications management. Attitude management involves motivating employees to buy into the organization's customer-oriented values, while communications management involves providing and managing the information that employees need to perform effectively.”
I agree in principle with these quotes and would only offer that when a company truly believes in the mission and value of the organization you don't need to get employees to “buy-in” as much as you need to continually communicate the value and position of the company. I cannot get someone to “buy-in” to something that doesn't resonate personally with them. It's a nit but I will pick it just the same because I think many companies try to use incentives and rewards in a duplicitous way when the company really doesn't have a position or value system.
Selfishly, I liked the fact that Ms. Stershic often brings in rewards and recognition as a way to drive behavior – who could argue with that. I could point out that a few of the suggestions are the more “generic” types of programs you see everywhere, but then again – they are offered as a way to get your mind working not to provide a specific recommendation for your internal strategy. As with an external marketing strategy your actual tactical implementation plan is driven by your specific products, position and consumer. Same with your internal strategy.
“Taking Care of the People who Matter Most” doesn't try to plow any new ground as much as provide a great summary of what is already there – and give you a way to put it to work. A difficult task but one done very well.
Think Personally not Legally
I would like to close this post with a quote in the book from Bob Wood at Wood Dining Services – a company highlighted in the book...
“To me an employee is a legal term; it's not how we should look at our people. They have kids, they have ambitions, they have goals...we want this to be the best job they ever had. Plus we want them to advance and evolve to get better jobs over time... So to me, it always starts with our people.”
I never considered the fact that the one word we use to reference those we rely on for delivering the value of the organization are referred to in “legal” terminology. This is a blinding flash of the obvious. If we use legal terminology to refer to our value creators – does that impact the way in which we manage and engage with them? Just thinking out loud.
Virtual Tour Info
Don't forget to check out the other comments/interviews/reviews... tomorrow is Phil Gerbyshak who will be posting an interview on the blog Slacker Manager.
Previous comments were:
- June 1st, Kevin Burns posted a review at Burns Blogs Attitude
- June 3rd, Lisa Rosendahl posted a review at HR Thoughts
- June 4th, Chris Bailey posted a review on his blog Bailey Work/Play: The Alchemy of Soulful Work
- June 5th, Toby Bloomberg at Diva Marketing posting an interview with Sybil
- June 6th, Becky Carroll at Customers Rock! posted a review and interview with Sybil
Other links to keep in mind:
- The publishers blog: WME Books
- The book page on the WME online store - Bonus!!! On the WME online store you can get a 20% discount by entering this code: 107VBT (FYI- the code only works on the WME site)
- Sybil's blog: Quality Service Marketing
