Worker
Empowerment Pays Off
Put
your whole company in Customer Service Mode
First
published on http://www.petercheales.co.za
Copyright © 2007 Peter
Cheales
Used
with permission of the author:
Author: Peter Cheales
Founder
Hellopeter.com www.hellopeter.com
19 November 2007
Discreetly
scouting around any company will quickly tell you the quality of
service you can expect and whether the business is destined for
success or the corporate graveyard. Pay particular attention to the
employees. Beat a hasty retreat if the people you meet are
indifferent, apathetic and lethargic. The people who work for
depressed companies — companies on the way out — show no emotion
and display little interest in the products or in you, the customer.
I often meet the people who head
these companies when I speak at conferences. They come up to me
after I’ve delivered my presentation and complain: “I want to
do what you suggest to revitalise my customer service, but my
employees are so de-motivated. They just seem to lack energy and
initiative.”
Think empowerment. Create and
implement a strategy that will pass more responsibility on to your
workforce.
When employees join your company,
they come with bountiful talents. In most cases newcomers are full
of enthusiasm. But much of their ardour and energy gets drained by
traditional-style managers who insist on placing them in rigid
little “function boxes” — the type so beloved by time and
motion study experts.
Unleash your employees’ potential
by removing the shackles that restrain their talents and energy.
Free of the chains of outmoded, bureaucratic management
techniques, they’ll be more committed, happier, more productive
and more responsive to your customers.
So let your workers do their thing
unfettered. You’ll find that they really do know best when it
comes to doing their jobs.
Here are eight steps to staff
empowerment that work:
- Keep
your workers busy. Give them all the responsibility they can
handle.
- Set
specific performance standards. Ensure that every employee
know what levels of customer service the company expects them
to deliver.
- Rethink
company policies. Scrap any that hinder the provision of
excellent customer service by members of your staff.
- Only
offer on-the-job advice when workers ask for it. Avoid
monitoring every move they make unless you want to disempower
them. Tell them clearly what you want done, give them a
reasonable deadline and let them get on with it.
- Make
allowances for mistakes. Don’t punish people for making
them. When you give your workers the tools to do the job and
leave them to do it, some will make errors along the way. If
you mouth off about them, you’ll discourage your employees
from taking even calculated risks by always sticking to a
play-it-safe routine. This will kill initiative stone dead. A
big part of empowerment is tempting people to test their
limits. Mistakes happen. When they do, pick up the pieces and
move on.
- Revamp
your company’s recruitment policy. Woo high-energy,
motivated self-starters. They are the only people suitable for
empowerment. You’ll only court disaster by letting the rest
of the herd run free.
- Offer
workers meaningful incentives. Why should anyone bust a gut
for you? Ensure that your employees know what’s in it for if
they go that extra mile. It doesn’t always have to be money.
Picking up the tab for all-expenses-paid holidays or
after-hours courses may be more appreciated.
- Acknowledge
exceptional customer service. Ensure that achievers hear the
applause by making public presentations at monthly staff
get-togethers.
On its own, empowerment can’t
solve problems. But it brings more brainpower to bear on
overcoming chinks in your business and customer service armour. It
also builds staff loyalty, enhances productivity and slashes the
cost of constantly inducting newcomers recruited as a result of
high staff turnover levels.
If you’re going to empower your
staff, go the whole way. If you don’t, you’ll only increase
employee cynicism and distrust. Make your workers “partners”
in the business. Give them all the facts, not just information
you’ve sanitised before passing it down through the ranks.
They’ll need to be kept fully in the picture if you’re going
prosper in the changing business environment.
Today’s customers no longer
select just a product or service. They want what they buy to be
configured for their specific use. And they want it done
yesterday. Customisation will increasingly be the name of the
game. To compete in this environment, your staff will have to
become more deeply involved in decision-making on a daily basis.
By empowering those on the factory floor, your firm will be able
to accelerate its response to rapidly changing business conditions
and customer demands.
Empowerment only works when there
is a free and open flow of information throughout the business.
Stifling the flow denies your workers the facts they need to be
fully effective.
Don’t always put your customers
first. Sure, they’re not just important to the health of your
bottom line, they’re vital. So are your employees. Without them
you wouldn’t have customers. And no customers equals no
business.
Peter Cheales (www.petercheales.co.za)
is
southern Africa's most sought-after conference speaker, and author
of twelve books, including I WAS YOUR CUSTOMER, one of the best
selling books in South Africa of all time. Peter is the founder of
Hellopeter.com, the
world’s largest Customer Service website, and has a weekly radio
show on Classic FM. For
bookings, he can be contacted at (011) 880 4520 or peter@hellopeter.com.
Short
summary
Empowering employees enables them to contribute with energy and
enthusiasm to costumer demands. Keywords
and relevant phrases
acknowledgement, attitude, change management, commitment,
communication, cost, customer demand, customer service,
decision-making, depression, emotion, empathy, employees,
empowerment, energy, enthusiasm, expectations, incentives,
initiative, interest, loyalty, management, motivation, performance
standards, policies, potential, productivity, recruitment,
responsibility, response, risk taking, service quality, strategy,
stress, talent management, transparency, trust, turnover,
workforce,
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