What Employees Really Want!

A few months ago I was present at a talk given by the Centre Manager of a Shared Services Centre based in Krakow. The Centre employed 350 people at the time, and had plans to employ a further 150 or 200. During the talk, the Centre Manager was boasting about the Centre's reputation as a good employer, and shared with us the results of the Centre's last employee satisfaction survey.

As you could guess, a lot of people mentioned bonus schemes and salaries, but although the Centre pays average or higher for the industry, this seems to be an easy area to complain about.

Apart from the subjects relating directly to money, the most important factor in employment satisfaction was communication. This was ahead of facilities, working hours, atmosphere, even development opportunities.

The Manager explained that almost every employee mentioned that they wanted to have more information, sooner, from their managers. They weren't only referring to information immediately relevant to them, either! Communication is vital for so many different reasons, and not just for the ones mentioned in leadership meetings.

Of course, there is a certain size where an organisation must divide itself into departments, projects or teams, in order to survive with some kind of structure. However, in accordance with the rule of 'divide and conquer', one of the effects of this division is that the people in one department no longer really know what's going on in any of the other departments. Of course, it isn't necessary for the Accounts Payable Team to know what the Accounts Receiveable Team are doing, but it helps us feel more like we're part of the big picture if we are aware that there is a big picture!

There is a story of a TV production company who was experiencing reasonable success, and so decided to build their own offices instead of renting. When the architect asked them about designing a kitchen, the directors saw this as a great opportunity, and ordered that no kitchen was to be built. With no other opportunity but to eat lunch at their desks, they reasoned, productivity would rocket.

In fact, after the company moved into its purpose-built headquarters, productivity dropped by 50%! The reason was the exact same one -there was no canteen. People were no longer able to mingle between departments, chatting and gossiping while waiting for the kettle to boil, or the microwave to ping, or while eating their pizza. And so, the television production company -a company very much in a creative industry- had made it almost impossible for staff to be creative at work! No longer would people overhear a problem, and remark that their colleague had had a similar problem, but found a solution. Gone were the days when people would call out "does anybody know how to fix this?" and expect an answer, or at least sympathy!

Human beings are social animals, and despite people complaining about financial gains, deep down, all we want, any of us, is to be loved. Give your staff the opportunity to systematically chat, gossip, ask for advice, offer advice etc., and they will feel much more comfortable. And despite our pride of living in the 21st Century, we are still much more fond of using prehistoric methods -the office intranet is not an outlet for social communication! Make sure your staff is happy to chat. Just make sure they don't suddenly go quiet when the boss walks in!

Main points: communication weak. (Dress code, pay also)

Think for those who don't

This morning I was proofreading an article for a physics graduate student, who had written about a photovoltaic circuit. He had described something that happened in both situations, when S=0(switched off) and when S=1(switched off).

I have a background in languages and linguistics, and I have both feet firmly in the humanist camp, so it quite often happens when I read a scientific text that I ask the author to explain passages to me. I guessed that he had made a mistake when typing, and had wanted to write 'on' instead of 'off' at least once. But when?

When I asked my colleague if he was sure it was correct, he read the sentence and said it was correct. He is a physicist, though, and I thought that he may have just read the equations. In this case, I asked him to tell me if when S=0, the circuit is on or off. "Off", he answered. Next, I asked him if when S=1, the circuit is on or off. "On" was the reply. I crossed out the relevant "off", and wrote in "on", and asked him if it made sense now. He laughed when he realised he had read the piece three times and hadn't noticed.

Often, when we read or listen, we start to lose concentration, and our brains 'fill in' any information we don't pick up, by understanding what should be there. The other side of the coin is when we concentrate too much on the concept, and stop concentrating on what is being said or written. To see this is action, the next time you are in a restaurant, and the waiter asks in passing "Is everything alright?", answer in a pleasant tone of voice, "No, thank you, I'm not at all happy". Most probably, the waiter will smile, reply "That's fine", and walk off. Of course, this fact can be very useful at times.

The solution to this is quite easy, and is simply to ask the other person to repeat back what you have said, or to repeat what they have just said, in the form of a question. "So, if S=1, is the circuit off?" would be an example of checking to see that someone is listening to what they are saying. To check if the waiter was listening to you, the question might be "Is it fine that everything is not alright?"

The thing to remember, though, is this: If you're going to check that someone is paying attention, you had better be paying attention yourself!

What to Take Away from the Chinese Restaurant

Today, for the first time, in my blog, I want to recommend a business.
On Saturday, we decided to order our lunch from a Chinese restaurant. My wife, who was returning from the centre, would collect the food from the restaurant and bring it back. This is one of the benefits of this restaurant, we are able to phone in our order, and then it is ready when we collect it. But this is not why I want to recommend them.
This was to be our younger children's first experience of Chinese food, so we made sure we could order different -but not too exotic- choices for lunch. The restaurant's menu is varied, and everybody can find something they like. We ordered Sweet and Sour Pork, Beef Chop Suey and Crispy Chicken, with three portions of rice, and a portion of prawn crackers. This was more than enough for the five of us, as our restaurant is generous with the portions. But this is not why I want to recommend them.
My wife came back with the food, and as we unpacked the bags, we realised there were only two main courses there. We checked the bill, and saw that we had, indeed, paid for three. What happened next is why I want to recommend them.
My wife telephoned the restaurant and asked if she had left the third main course there. I heard her give our address, and then she said thank you and hung up. She said that the restaurant were sending the food right away.
Five minutes later, there was a knock on the door of out fourth-floor-without-a-lift flat. When I opened it, the manager of the restaurant was standing there, breathless, holding our missing Sweet and Sour Pork, together with a complimentary carton of juice and an apology.
This kind of service is becoming more common in Krakow, but it is far from normal.
Once, we ordered a pizza that should have taken 30 minutes, and took two hours to come. When I complained to the delivery person, he shrugged, and said "Traffic". I told him that the time was unacceptable, and asked him what he could do to compensate. Again, he shrugged his shoulders, and said "if you don't want it, don't pay for it, and I'll take it back". I asked him to wait while I phoned his manager. I called, and said I had placed an order two hours before, and they had delivered the pizza 90 minutes later than they had said they would. The manager said "yeah, traffic". I asked him if he expected me to pay the full price for the pizza, and he said "well, if you don't want it, tell the driver to bring it back."
We have not ordered from that pizzeria since this event. This is not such a problem, as there are many pizzerias in our area. Anyway, I think we'll be ordering Chinese more often.

Business like a Swan

The other day I received a letter from the electricity company regarding our energy supply and possible changes. I wanted to ask a question, and so I called the telephone number on the letter of the woman who was named as 'handling the case'. When she picked up the phone, I introduced myself and started to explain why I was calling, only for the woman to interrupt and ask me to wait "literally 30 seconds, because I'm standing at the printer". I waited, and when she had obviously collected her printout, walked from the printer to her workstation and sat down, she asked me to provide her with a reference number.
I will say that the service was very good. My questions were answered professionally and clearly, and the woman's tone was polite, friendly and helpful at all times (this is a rare occurence, but that is a topic for another blog entry!). What I didn't like was her revelation that she answered the phone while on the move.
Someone once provided me with an image of a business as a swan on a lake. Above the water line, everybody sees a graceful white bird moving effortlessly, gliding through the water. What nobody sees, however, under the water, are the black, webbed feet pushing, pulling and paddling about like crazy, working the whole time to move the swan like in a romantic story.
Everybody likes their suppliers to be professional, graceful, competence, in control, omniscient. We don't need to know they are run by humans, too. When I telephone a contact, I'd like to be told that she will call me back when she is available, not that she has gone to the toilet. If I ask for some details, I'd rather be told that you will refer the question to your manager than to be told you don't know where the information is.
One of my clients called her agent and asked about a report she had originally asked for two weeks earlier. The agent sadi that she had not been in the office recently, as she had fallen and hurt her knee, and so she had been lying down for two weeks before going in to have knee surgery, and was only back in the office now. Five minutes later, she revealed that her colleague in the office was handling her cases until she got back on her feet. While I like the idea of being natural when talking with business partners, I also feel one should present a professional, competent, businesslike persona at all times.
So remember the swan, and the image that we want to present to the public. Make sure that you only let people see below the water line if you don't mind them seeing how fast you are paddling.
On the other hand, the next time you are intimidated by someone's smooth, polished business image. Remember that their feet, too, are below the water.