When Happy was voted the best company for customer service in the UK, I asked the judges why we won it. David Jackson, chair of the judges, replied that we clearly knew exactly what our customers wanted. "But", he continued "that is not unusual. Most companies understand what their customers want. But most companies then put in place rules and procedures which prevent their staff from delivering what the customers want. You don't."
Learn from Netflix
I was reminded of this when I was sent this great slide show from Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix. (Netflix is the leading US DVD rental service, the equivalent of Lovefilm in the UK - and a company that has won awards for some of the best customer service in the USA.). There are a lot of slides (123) but they are packed with interesting ideas:
http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664?src=embed
Many companies assume you need more rule as you grow. Reed rejects this idea, saying that since Netflix went public in 2002 and continued to grow, they have substantially increased employee freedom.
Netflix Expenses Policy: 5 Words
For instance Netflix has no vacation policy, instead judging people on the work they do rather than the time they are in the office. Their policy on expenses, entertainment, gifts and travel is just 5 words long: "Act in Netflix's Best Interests". This is backed by guidance such as "Travel as you would if it were your own money". Instead of lots of rules they trust their people and rely on their common sense. As one Netflix employee puts it:
"There is also no clothing policy at Netflix, but no one has come to work naked lately" Patty McCord, 2004
What happens when trust doesn't work and your people do something dumb? Reed suggests you don't blame them but ask what part of the context you failed to set for them.
"Flexibility is more important than efficiency in the long-term."
That is an interesting view from Reed. It reminds me of my current dealings with my bank, NatWest. I would forgive their inefficiency (making 5 penalty charges for a payment I never made) but not their refusal to fix it, despite me being a telephone banking customer, unless I write a letter explaining my case.
For Reed the approach is based on ensuring you have only the most talented people and paying the top market rate. "One outstanding employee gets more done and costs less than two adequate employees." Look at the rules in your company. Do you really need them? What would happen if you replaced them with guidance and gave your people ore freedom to do a great job for your customers?
Yearn for the Vast and Endless Sea
To finish, I love this quote (again from Reed's slides):
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea"
Antoine De saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Thursday, 30 July 2009
Truly Great Customer Service: Learning From Bernie
We have got the builders in at home, Bernie and his gang. And they are rather amazing, they keep finding extra things to do. They changed the lock that used to stick, have fixed the window that has had a crack in it for years and sorted the leak from the shower. All for no extra charge. It is, of course, an inspired approach. None of that costs them much but it really delights us. I may have no idea whether their brickwork is better than the next guys but I was already all set to recommend them.
So what unexpected extras can you provide, just to delight your customers?
But it didn't stop with the little things. This week he's had one of his men spend 4 days re-pointing the back of the house. Again, no extra charge. This morning he discovered dry rot in the floorboards and he says he'll sort that too. Now this is getting ridiculous. But Bernie explained: "I hate charging extra so I build in some contingency in the original quote."
Would that approach work for you? Make the quote a bit higher and find some serious extras to include once you get started, that really meet the needs of the customer.
The result: Bernie hasn't had to search for work for years and won't need to even in the current climate. Everybody recommends him. Me included: if you want his details, just get in touch (henry@happy.co.uk). Though he only works in North London, and doesn't actually stray far beyond the streets of Stoke Newington and Crouch End.
So what unexpected extras can you provide, just to delight your customers?
But it didn't stop with the little things. This week he's had one of his men spend 4 days re-pointing the back of the house. Again, no extra charge. This morning he discovered dry rot in the floorboards and he says he'll sort that too. Now this is getting ridiculous. But Bernie explained: "I hate charging extra so I build in some contingency in the original quote."
Would that approach work for you? Make the quote a bit higher and find some serious extras to include once you get started, that really meet the needs of the customer.
The result: Bernie hasn't had to search for work for years and won't need to even in the current climate. Everybody recommends him. Me included: if you want his details, just get in touch (henry@happy.co.uk). Though he only works in North London, and doesn't actually stray far beyond the streets of Stoke Newington and Crouch End.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Management Lesson from Tiger Woods
The July 6 2009 edition of Fortune has Tiger Woods, among others, talking about the "best advice I ever got".
'When I was young, maybe 6 or 7 years old, I'd play on the Navy golf course with my pop. My dad would say, "Okay, where do you want to hit the ball?" I'd pick a spot and say I want to hit it there. He'd shrug and say, "Fine, then figure out how to do it." He didn't position my arm, adjust my feet, or change my thinking. He just said go ahead and hit the darn ball. '
I think there is something profound here about how to help a talented individual develop. Let's translate it into management speak:
When you sit down with one of your people to plan their development, get them to set their own objective. Then ask them to figure out how to achieve it. Don't tell them how to do it, let them work out their own way. With your support.
That's it.
'When I was young, maybe 6 or 7 years old, I'd play on the Navy golf course with my pop. My dad would say, "Okay, where do you want to hit the ball?" I'd pick a spot and say I want to hit it there. He'd shrug and say, "Fine, then figure out how to do it." He didn't position my arm, adjust my feet, or change my thinking. He just said go ahead and hit the darn ball. '
I think there is something profound here about how to help a talented individual develop. Let's translate it into management speak:
When you sit down with one of your people to plan their development, get them to set their own objective. Then ask them to figure out how to achieve it. Don't tell them how to do it, let them work out their own way. With your support.
That's it.
Saturday, 20 June 2009
In Defence of Hackney
I'm a proud dad this morning. The Times this morning published my 15 year old daughter's letter defending our fair borough from a savage attack by Giles Coren:
Hi Giles
I'm 14 years old, female and living in Stoke Newington, HACKNEY. When you finally decide to venture out into the world where multiculturalism is the norm and bicycles are seen more often than cars, let me know. You're assumptions on the hoodies and canals (or sewers as you prefer to all them) are what make me never ever want to move to Highgate/Islington/Hampstead
Miriam Stewart
The original article is here. That was the edited version. This is her full letter:
Hi there Giles,I'm 14 years old, female and living in Stoke Newington, HACKNEY. I am also embarrassingly upper middle class. I got the gist from the article that you are too, except unlike me, you've never ventured out from under your rock in hampstead heath or highgate. It's people like you that give middle classers like me who live in Hackney a bad name.
My family have lived on our road for, coming up to 20 years, and we have never once locked our car. And never once has it been stolen. Yes i admit it is a bit of a rubbish family minivan but none the less, my point remains the same it has never been stolen. I imagine you probably don't drive a minivan, I also imagine that you have a receding hair line and drive a BMW because your midlife crisis makes you too self conscious to be seen in anything but that.
I'm even imagining you wearing glasses, which by the way, you really should go and see an optician about because you seem to be having some real trouble opening your eyes. When you finally decide to venture out into the world where multi culture is a norm and bicycles are seen more often cars, let me know, because until then you're opinion is absolutely worthless to me.
You're assumptions on the hoodies and canals (or sewers as you prefer to all them) are what make me never ever want to move to Highgate/Islington/Hampstead, because like you clearly cant stand Hackney, i don't think i could stand you.
Miriam Stewart
P.S commenting on your sat nav problem, they are, as you clearly know, useless. the only reason you have one is because you are either too lazy, incompetent or up yourself to be seen reading an A-Z.
To Giles' credit, he did send a very nice reply and encouraged Miriam to stay angry when she writes!
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Staff Surveys, Recruitment and Retention
Written for The People Bulletin:
Nandos, the popular restaurant chain, some years ago carried out research into what were the key factors that explained why sales at some of their restaurants grew faster than at others. After detailed analysis they found one factor stood out above all others in explaining the difference. This was how happy the staff were, as measured in the annual staff survey. In response they changed their bonus system, so that 50% of each manager’s bonus became based solely on those staff survey results.
So do you know what your staff think of working for you?
It gave a powerful message to managers that the root of success laid in happy and motivated staff and also of the importance of bothering to find out how they felt. In these challenging times it is more important than ever to create great working environments, where people feel valued. When we work with organisations to improve their workplace, our first step is generally a staff survey, plus interviews with employees, to find out how people feel at that particular moment in time. In particular, the results can show what needs to change to keep people, and thus improve retention.
It’s not just about pay
Managers are often in denial about staff dis-satisfaction and assume that people leave for jobs with better pay or prospects. Indeed research published in the Harvard Management Update[i] found 88% of managers believe this. But research among the people who leave jobs indicates the opposite is true[ii]. The Saratoga Institute[iii] followed up 19,500 people who had left jobs in 18 different organisations and found that only 12% left for better pay or prospects.
The other 88% left due to factors related to the job, the manager, the culture or the work environment. If we assume this may be true of your organisation too, and many of those are people you want to keep, then you need to be working out what in your organisational culture is driving people away.
There is really only one way to find that out, and that is to ask your employees. What do they like about working for your organisation? What don’t they like and could cause them to leave?
Our own back yard
At Happy we have been carrying out staff surveys and upward appraisals for over a decade and I am pleased to say that they are now very positive. But it hasn’t always been that way. One of the first appraisals I received was truly shocking. I hadn’t seen it coming. I thought I was doing a great job of representing the company, networking and bringing in business. My staff agreed. But they also told me that, back at the office, I wasn’t listening well, wasn’t appreciating the work people did and wasn’t engaging enough – and that this was important to them.
My response was to put myself on monthly appraisal. I was determined to change and I figured it was no good waiting six months or a year for feedback. As I responded to the feedback, steadily my ratings improved. It was a crucial period for me and I believe the growth we’ve had since then wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t done those surveys and I hadn’t made those changes to my behaviour.
We are very proud of the fact that Happy was this year rated the best company in the UK for staff health and well-being, and has been rated in the top 20 workplaces in the UK for the last four years by the Great Place to Work Institute.[iv]
I know that upward appraisals are controversial in some organisations. But my view is to not have them is unfair. How can you be sure how you are doing as a manager if you don’t get clear feedback from those you manage? How can you improve and develop without that?
Staff surveys, whether they are about the company as a whole or appraisals of individual or collective management, are essential if you truly want to create a great place to work through more than guesswork. And, providing you phrase it to get the positive as well as the negative, you may even be pleasantly surprised by some of the results.
Free staff survey
You can create your own staff survey using easy-to-use software like www.surveymonkey.com (just $200 a year for as many online surveys as you want to create) or use the free staff survey at the Happy People web site: register at http://www.happy-people.co.uk/resources/resources/free-staff-survey/, get your staff to complete it and receive a full report, including benchmarking information.
[i] ‘The keys to retaining your best managers in a tight job market’, Marie Gendron, Harvard Management Update June 1998. Obtainable directly from Harvard Business Publishing
[ii] The 7 hidden reasons employees leave by Leigh Branham in association with the Saratoga Institute, published by the American Management Association, 2005
[iii] A human capital measurement service part of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Details can be viewed at http://www.pwc.com/extweb/service.nsf/docid/de40ffb0d40981d385256f17005397cd
[iv] www.greatplacetowork.co.uk
Nandos, the popular restaurant chain, some years ago carried out research into what were the key factors that explained why sales at some of their restaurants grew faster than at others. After detailed analysis they found one factor stood out above all others in explaining the difference. This was how happy the staff were, as measured in the annual staff survey. In response they changed their bonus system, so that 50% of each manager’s bonus became based solely on those staff survey results.
So do you know what your staff think of working for you?
It gave a powerful message to managers that the root of success laid in happy and motivated staff and also of the importance of bothering to find out how they felt. In these challenging times it is more important than ever to create great working environments, where people feel valued. When we work with organisations to improve their workplace, our first step is generally a staff survey, plus interviews with employees, to find out how people feel at that particular moment in time. In particular, the results can show what needs to change to keep people, and thus improve retention.
It’s not just about pay
Managers are often in denial about staff dis-satisfaction and assume that people leave for jobs with better pay or prospects. Indeed research published in the Harvard Management Update[i] found 88% of managers believe this. But research among the people who leave jobs indicates the opposite is true[ii]. The Saratoga Institute[iii] followed up 19,500 people who had left jobs in 18 different organisations and found that only 12% left for better pay or prospects.
The other 88% left due to factors related to the job, the manager, the culture or the work environment. If we assume this may be true of your organisation too, and many of those are people you want to keep, then you need to be working out what in your organisational culture is driving people away.
There is really only one way to find that out, and that is to ask your employees. What do they like about working for your organisation? What don’t they like and could cause them to leave?
Our own back yard
At Happy we have been carrying out staff surveys and upward appraisals for over a decade and I am pleased to say that they are now very positive. But it hasn’t always been that way. One of the first appraisals I received was truly shocking. I hadn’t seen it coming. I thought I was doing a great job of representing the company, networking and bringing in business. My staff agreed. But they also told me that, back at the office, I wasn’t listening well, wasn’t appreciating the work people did and wasn’t engaging enough – and that this was important to them.
My response was to put myself on monthly appraisal. I was determined to change and I figured it was no good waiting six months or a year for feedback. As I responded to the feedback, steadily my ratings improved. It was a crucial period for me and I believe the growth we’ve had since then wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t done those surveys and I hadn’t made those changes to my behaviour.
We are very proud of the fact that Happy was this year rated the best company in the UK for staff health and well-being, and has been rated in the top 20 workplaces in the UK for the last four years by the Great Place to Work Institute.[iv]
I know that upward appraisals are controversial in some organisations. But my view is to not have them is unfair. How can you be sure how you are doing as a manager if you don’t get clear feedback from those you manage? How can you improve and develop without that?
Staff surveys, whether they are about the company as a whole or appraisals of individual or collective management, are essential if you truly want to create a great place to work through more than guesswork. And, providing you phrase it to get the positive as well as the negative, you may even be pleasantly surprised by some of the results.
Free staff survey
You can create your own staff survey using easy-to-use software like www.surveymonkey.com (just $200 a year for as many online surveys as you want to create) or use the free staff survey at the Happy People web site: register at http://www.happy-people.co.uk/resources/resources/free-staff-survey/, get your staff to complete it and receive a full report, including benchmarking information.
[i] ‘The keys to retaining your best managers in a tight job market’, Marie Gendron, Harvard Management Update June 1998. Obtainable directly from Harvard Business Publishing
[ii] The 7 hidden reasons employees leave by Leigh Branham in association with the Saratoga Institute, published by the American Management Association, 2005
[iii] A human capital measurement service part of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Details can be viewed at http://www.pwc.com/extweb/service.nsf/docid/de40ffb0d40981d385256f17005397cd
[iv] www.greatplacetowork.co.uk
Friday, 29 May 2009
Trust Even for MPs?
At a speech this week on giving people trust and freedom (key components of creating a great workplace) I was asked how that fitted with the MPs expenses scandal? We were just down the road from parliament at Millbank and the questioner wanted to know if this is what happened when you trusted people.
My answer was that trust needs to be combined with transparency. It is unlikely that they would have made such extravagant claims if they had known the details would be published. Or will in the future, now that they know the details will be available to all.
Indeed that is a possible solution for all companies. Instead of complex expenses rules you could have one that simply stated: “Claim what is reasonable, but be aware the details will be available for anybody in the company to see, on the intranet.”
The common complaint of MPs has been that their salaries have not been allowed to rise and so they have had to rely on the expenses allowance as effective income. A quick check of the facts shows this to be total nonsense. In 1983 the MPs’ salary was £14,500. If it had kept pace with inflation, it would now stand at £32,180. If it had increased in line with average earnings the salary would now be £51,952. In fact they are now paid £64,766 a year. So they earn over three times median earnings (revealed by the TUC this week as £19,600) and have had rises over the last 25 years well in excess of most people.
My answer was that trust needs to be combined with transparency. It is unlikely that they would have made such extravagant claims if they had known the details would be published. Or will in the future, now that they know the details will be available to all.
Indeed that is a possible solution for all companies. Instead of complex expenses rules you could have one that simply stated: “Claim what is reasonable, but be aware the details will be available for anybody in the company to see, on the intranet.”
The common complaint of MPs has been that their salaries have not been allowed to rise and so they have had to rely on the expenses allowance as effective income. A quick check of the facts shows this to be total nonsense. In 1983 the MPs’ salary was £14,500. If it had kept pace with inflation, it would now stand at £32,180. If it had increased in line with average earnings the salary would now be £51,952. In fact they are now paid £64,766 a year. So they earn over three times median earnings (revealed by the TUC this week as £19,600) and have had rises over the last 25 years well in excess of most people.
Fancy a Jog from Birmingham to London?
I met up with my sister at the weekend after she ran from Birmingham. Now I wouldn’t mind cycling from Britain’s second city to London. But running along the canal, through the night, is a whole different achievement. 148 miles in total, taking just under 40 hours – and you get disqualified if you take a break of 40 minutes or more.
As the web site (http://www.gucr.co.uk/), this is Britain's longest, toughest, non-stop running race. I met Lindsey in Southall (there was a 4 mile diversion from the canal), 135 miles in and found her a little bit down. But we remembered the classic Lance Armstrong line (“Pain is temporary, quitting is forever”) and she was soon back on track.
A remarkable achievement. I wonder what she will do next?
As the web site (http://www.gucr.co.uk/), this is Britain's longest, toughest, non-stop running race. I met Lindsey in Southall (there was a 4 mile diversion from the canal), 135 miles in and found her a little bit down. But we remembered the classic Lance Armstrong line (“Pain is temporary, quitting is forever”) and she was soon back on track.
A remarkable achievement. I wonder what she will do next?
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