service

Give me a break

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It’s that time of year again when we’re all starting, or thinking about starting, our Christmas break. The jumpers have been worn, the sherry drunk and the Christmas misdemeanours almost, ALMOST forgotten. It’s time for a break. A well earned rest.

And yet, whilst we all yearn for a break, I’m not so sure we give each other the same respect.

Meetings scheduled for the first couple of days back, reports sent on the last day before the holidays, actions completed and requirements passed on.

Because we need to get this off our list, off our backs and settle down for a Christmas break.

The thing is, have you thought about the person that you’re sending that email on to? The one that receives that report the day they are due to go on holiday, or has an important meeting land in the diary for their first day back?  Is this about getting things off your list, or do things really need to happen?

Are you making sure that those around you have a decent break too?

And it isn’t just about our work. What about those people working in the shops, for the courier firms, keeping our transport system going, our lights on and our internet working? Answering our calls and dealing with our queries, helping us to…..well switch off.

As you go away for your well deserved break, ask yourselves what you could do to give other people a break. At work, at home, when you’re out shopping, or dealing with that last minute issue. How do you want them to feel over the holidays, how do you want them to wake up on Christmas day?

Respect isn’t a once a year phenomenon, but once a year we can focus on how we can do more.

Enjoy your break and let other people around you enjoy it too. They may be working, but it doesn’t mean you have to make their lives harder. They may be off, but it doesn’t mean you need to make sure they’re thinking about the return.

Take a break and give others a break too.

It’s what we all deserve.

I’ll be back in the New Year with more ramblings and general grumpiness. Until then.

Peace out.

The HR sausage factory

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Every company has a back and forth debate.  The sort of debate that, if you spend long enough in that company, you get to see various solutions attempted at either end of the scale, normally unsuccessfully, before swinging to the other end of the scale. Back and forth. I spent many years working in retail, our back and forth debate, was about customer service.

At one end of the argument was that customers just wanted to get in, get what they wanted and get out (an argument I had some sympathy with given the state of a lot of the stores). At the other end was the view that customers wanted to be given a bit more individual attention, advice and support. We went back and forth, back and forth. The reality was that they probably wanted the latter, but the financial model of the retailer wouldn’t properly allow for it, so they got the former and, well, you only have to read the news to see how that worked out…..

Moving from one end of the alphabet to the other, we arrive at Zappos. There isn’t much to write that hasn’t been written about the American retailer. One thing that amazes people on first reading about the company is their approach to the customer.  The customer is put at the heart of the organisation, even if it means finding a product for them in a competitor’s store.

Now let’s make one gigantic segue into the world of HR. The mainstream agenda over the last decade has been about standardisation, about systematization, about centralisation.  How can we get slick processes that are efficient and allow us to reduce the amount of resource we need to deploy? The answer is simple, you treat employees in the same way that my old company treated customers. You process them.

The thing is about processing rather than serving is that initially it looks like great value for money. It costs less, it moves quicker, it isn’t resource hungry.  So you feed the disease. Slicker and slicker you get, faster and faster, more streamlined, you start to measure, so that you can get even better. And then suddenly you realise…..you can’t remember why you’re doing this anymore.

In the same way the retailer forgets the customer, you’ve forgotten the employee. This is all about them fitting into your process, not you understanding their needs. In fact, their needs are an inconvenience that gets in the way of your process. Because they aren’t really a “need” in the first place are they?  They don’t REALLY need it, they’re just being difficult.

Humans want to feel like they are being treated as individuals, that they are being listened to and that their needs are being taken into account. Treating people as people isn’t an inconvenience; it is should be the foundation of every half decent company.

Engagement, motivation, retention? So why is it than In HR we talk a good talk, then put on the overalls and get back to the sausage factory?

Light touch HR

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I was interviewing  for HR business partners not so long ago, when I realised that throughout the interviews I’d used the phrase “light touch” on numerous occasions.  I wasn’t making a point of returning to this phrase nor using it in the same context each time, but I kept on coming back to the same sentiment.

What is light touch HR? Let me use a metaphor.

Anyone who has ever been to a really good restaurant and experienced really good service will understand.  The waiters are present, they anticipate your needs, they provide you with the things that you want but they also delight you. However, they do it without ever being over bearing or conspicuous. There are no steadfast “rules” but there is an attention to individual need.   Everything is controlled, organised, well thought through and impeccably delivered.

At the other end of the scale, you have fast food. And actually the offer here is no bad thing either, delivering basics in a quick, efficient and timely manner.  What you see is what you get.  There are HR departments working on these lines across the country and they are hugely successful within their businesses in providing the level of service and support that people need.

Somewhere in the middle, you have a glut of offerings that range in their quality,

  • Those that try to be in the top-tier but over-engineer their service delivery and become intrusive, inflexible and unwelcoming
  • Those that promise exquisite treasures but cannot provide the basic infrastructure to support it
  • Those are both mediocre in terms of service and product

I don’t know of many, if any, HR teams that are delivering a level of “light touch” perfection on a regular basis, I’m sure they exist.  But it is achievable, as long as we get the right focus, the right skill sets and the right approach to our customers then we can make sure that we delight each and every one.