I’ve alluded to this idea a number of times in these weekly postings: There is something fundamentally more important than products or sales. I’m talking, of course, about people, especially the people who work for you.
Some large companies today believe that overhiring is the best road to success. It is thought that high turnover and low company morale are never fatal. Your business can remain profitable despite such problems, so the best strategy is to hire more people than you really need in order to ensure that the work is done. You may ask yourself, “If this is what other successful companies do, why shouldn’t my company be run that way too?”
I don’t subscribe to this business model. I preach a different message: “People before profits.” I could advance many reasons for embracing this idea, but the most important reason of all is the fact that it’s the right thing to do.
Let’s say for argument’s sake, however, that the moral obligation is unimportant. Here are a few practical reasons why you should put people first:
- When the people on your staff sense that you appreciate them, they respond by working harder. They are happy and become more productive and more reliable employees. They also develop feelings of loyalty, making it less likely that they will leave when offered opportunities that are more lucrative. Or they may let you know that they have been approached by another company, giving you an opportunity to make a counteroffer to retain them.
- Appreciated workers tend to jell into a team. They wind up feeling as if their individual efforts contribute to the success of the greater whole. The team’s success is their success, and they feel fulfilled, which is one of life’s great motivators.
- Replacing and retraining staff is expensive both in direct and indirect costs. It leads to missed opportunities, and it forces managers (or you as the business owner) to spend time training your employees rather than managing them.
- Customers like dealing with happy people—that is, people who feel appreciated—and happy workers tend to treat customers better and empathize with them.
- Customers like dealing with familiar faces, and such staffs are often on a first-name basis with the “regulars.” It should come as no surprise that such relationships result in a special customer-employee bond that does not exist if the there is a constant turnover in the business’s staff. With the same friendly Mount Rushmore faces on hand day after day, however, you’re now leaving the realm of business relationships and entering the realm of personal relationships.
Still not convinced?
One of the training courses I’ve taken in my career showed how expensive it can be to combat the impact of a negative review or to win back a customer or customers who had a bad experience. This effort is known as service recovery. Happy customers will often share their positive experiences with others, especially if asked to do so. I explored a similar idea several weeks ago when speaking of the pollination effect of word-of-mouth referrals. On the other hand, unhappy customers quite often share stories of their negative experiences, and they offer their critiques in a booming voice when speaking to anyone who will listen. Take a look at Google and Yelp reviews if you don’t believe me. Notice the ALL CAPS vilifications. If you own a business, it is likely that many or most of your negative interactions (but very few of your positive ones) have wound up online. Having a core, committed, and well-trained staff that provides a friendly, high level of service is critical to the long-term success of your small-to-midsized business. Customers may not recognize your national brand, but they are generally aware of the fact that they’re interacting with people, and it is your front-line people who are most responsible for the indelible impression that your customers take away with them.
Think your company is too big to embrace this philosophy? Take a look at some of the tech behemoths like Google and Facebook or the wholesale clubs like BJ’s and Costco. They all have high standards for both customer service and employee compensation and perks. Those companies have been around for a very long time and continue to grow. They have low turnover (especially the wholesale clubs, which is an incredible accomplishment in retail environments), and I would guess that if you shop in either one of them, you are a pretty loyal customer with few or no complaints (other than the fact that they sometimes run out of things you want to buy). As a regular Costco shopper myself, I always feel important when an employee at checkout says, “Good morning” or “Have a nice day,” and then thanks me for my business. Happy workers on these companies’ teams give off happy vibes.
Always remember that your employees are people, not just cogs in the machinery of your business. I have a long-time team member in one of my stores with whom I worked last Saturday, June 19. On Sunday, June 20, I received a distressing call: She had had a massive stroke. The prognosis was grim; she is not expected to recover and return to work even if she should survive. Despite the pandemic and many other adversities that she’s faced in her life, she brought a positive attitude to work every single day. She was working in this store long before I came on board (she’s been there for 18 years altogether). When I first became a partner in this store, I worked with her every Saturday for a full year. It was a good experience, and I got to hear first-hand what was working the way it was supposed to. She also weighed in on the store’s day-to-day problems. She provided keen insights into opportunities, and she offered her own first-hand perspective as well as regular reports on the perceptions of the store’s other team members. She set a great example for everyone in the store, including me. Her presence and energy are already missed. In short, over time, I came to appreciate her humanity, not just her important contributions as a valued employee. I am not a very spiritual person, but my thoughts are with her, and I have been in touch with her children to see what can be done to help them. As I wrote at the beginning of today’s posting: “People before profits.”