Does Your Staff Have Your Back?
Tara Weiss, from Forbes.com
In a time when employers complain about high staff turnover, here is the story of extreme devotion to the boss: Tamera Luzzatto, Sen. Hillary Clinton's chief of staff for more than seven years, recently learned she had a brain tumor and needed surgery. Luzzatto scheduled the operation for Wednesday, the day after the last presidential primary, so her absence would be less disruptive than if she did it during campaign season.
Talk about employee loyalty.
A call and e-mail for comment went unanswered by the senator's office. Politico.com reports that Luzzatto's surgery was successful.
Luzzatto's story shows Clinton knows how to inspire dedication among her staffers. Employers should take a cue from her playbook--in coming years, staff loyalty will be more important than ever. While job growth is currently slow, it will likely expand in coming years as baby boomers retire. Their retirement will create significant gaps in the workforce because they are more numerous than younger generations. If an employee isn't happy, switching companies won't be hard.
The first step for employers is making employees feel like their individual role is directly connected to the company's goals. Employees want to feel like they have a sense of purpose.
At the household products manufacturer Procter & Gamble, customer researchers live with consumers for several days to see exactly how their daily life works. They return to P&G with videos and a chronological map of what the consumers did throughout the day. The purpose: to show P&G employees what consumers need to make their lives easier and how their existing products are already doing that.
"It's bringing the customer experience into the organization," says Mark Royal, a senior consultant at Hay Group Insight, a global management consultancy firm.
Not every company can send employees to live with clients. Another way to achieve that goal is to create a personal impact map that illustrates how employees' roles directly influence the organization's bottom line.
Royal illustrates this with the greeter role at a retail store. Customer service is an important part of sales growth and contributing factors include customer wait time, employee accessibility and customer acknowledgment. If the customer can't find anyone to answer a question, chances are he'll leave the store without making a purchase.
But if a salesperson greets the customer when he gets within about five feet of him, the likelihood that he'll purchase something increases. "Mapping out that relationship shows employees that greeting customers isn't just something a manager randomly makes them do," says Royal. "Instead, it's something important to do and it connects with the broader goals of the organization."
From there, bosses should show their staff they care about them as individuals. Take into account their personalities and interests and use those things to figure out how to properly manage them. "Bosses shouldn't engage in the one-size-fits-all type of management," says Karyl Innis, founder and owner of the Innis Co., a career management firm based in Dallas .
When Allison Durant went into labor with her first child, she refused to put aside the project she was working on. Durant, a corporate recruiter with Intercontinental Hotels Group in Atlanta, found an ideal candidate for a corporate communications position and didn't want to lose her to a competitor; she knew the candidate was interviewing with other companies.
So when her husband tried to take her to the hospital, she begged him to bring her briefcase along. He was skeptical but ultimately brought it. After the baby arrived on a Saturday morning, Durant convinced her husband to hand-deliver the details of the offer letter to a colleague to finish up the deal.
Some people might wonder why Durant was so concerned with work during the birth of her first child. Her reply: She wants to do right by the company that has been so good to her. "Work-life balance is taken seriously here," says Durant, who has been with Intercontinental Hotel Groups for more than 10 years. "Management treats employees like people instead of numbers."
Another factor: Foster communication from the highest levels of the organization to all employees, says Alexandra Levit, author of Success for Hire: Simple Strategies to Find and Keep Outstanding Employees, which will be out in August. That's exactly what John Bliss, CEO of Bliss PR in Manhattan, does. Even though his company is privately held, the firm's financials are open to all employees. He discusses the finances publicly at an annual company meeting--the only thing not public are employees' salaries.
"It gives the staff members a better idea of how they have helped the company," says Bliss. "If the financials of the company are not a mystery, they'll have more trust."
He also uses a merit-based reward system instead of basing salary and bonuses on longevity with the firm. "Giving them a stake in the game breeds loyalty," he says. Additionally, employees who don't perform well are fired. "If you don't [fire them], the people who do perform will develop a sense of resentment."
The same goes for clients. If a client mistreats an employee, Bliss doesn't hesitate to give him the boot, which he has done twice.
The final element is offering employees training and opportunities for growth. Some firms offer rotations that enable people to try different departments and positions for several months. And when jobs open, current employees should be given the first opportunity to apply for them.
After implementing all of this, don't expect anyone to rearrange his emergency surgery, but you'll likely get better work out of your staff
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