Dear Human Resources: Employees Are Your Customer!

Traditionally human resources and executive management have treated employees as assets. And rightly so employees are extremely valuable if not the most valuable assets. But they shouldn’t be treated like a depreciating line item. One thing I realized this year is that employees are your customer. They should be treated as your customer. If you make a fundamental strategic shift to better listen, engage and assist your employees with their careers, concerns and interests your employee retention should increase not to mention overall work performance.

My experience is most companies are competing with other companies on benefits like healthcare, 401k, stock options, etc… but really need to take a customer experience focus toward employees. What is the on-boarding process like when new hires first join? Do they just show up and get handed a laptop and share a cube like some Southwest Airlines commercial? I hope not, but this is often the case.

There are mountains of information on how to keep employees happy and ironically most of it has nothing to do with money. It is a quality of life, quality of work life and basic ability to succeed at your job. And when I mention success I am not referring to climbing the corporate ladder. It is nice to be recognized for good work but fundamentally the average employee just wants to be able to complete their individual tasks related to their job. This often becomes difficult and frustrating when headcount, budgets and competing priorities are reduced and or frozen. While good for investors and stock prices not so good for moral if you can’t grant your employees the basics of what they need to be successful at their job. Google, Facebook and Linkedin got it right and continue to acquire, retain and innovate the top talent in the industry.

In today’s world if you are looking to compete you not only need to retain your customers but need to provide that same level of attention of customer experience detail to your employees. Providing the workspace, tools and amenities needed to be successful will pay off in dividends with better productivity and more important continuing innovation. Competitive benefits are required to lure talent to organizations but don’t forget the details around an employees workspace and how you can define their customer experience when they first arrive to the job.

I’ll be sharing more details about these topics at the Argyle Customer Care Executive Forum NYC tomorrow, Nov 5th. If you are interested in hearing more register via the link and I’ll see you there.