There’s a thread that runs through much of what we espouse at FiveFour.
It’s the idea of connection, of building relationships over time. It’s authenticity and focus on each other as human beings.
That’s what drives our obsession with customer experience.
Successful business leaders understand that the customer relationship begins with their employees. That is, that same commitment to experience applies to the human beings who work for the company.
Research by the global advisory firm Gartner reveals just how important employee experience is to overall success. Increasingly, employees are motivated by how they feel about the company they work for, not a checklist of benefits such as ping-pong in the break room or 4:30 Friday afternoon beer carts.
Gartner surveyed more than 5,000 employees and more than 150 human resource leaders. The results speak to the trend that workers are looking for more than a list of cool things to do at work. According to an article on the study in the Harvard Business Review:
- Fortune 500 companies spend nearly $2,500 per employee annually on perks and benefits.
- Just 31 percent of workers say that their company offers something unique.
- Only 23 percent of HR leaders expect most employees to stay with the firm after the pandemic ends.
- About 47 percent of employees reported that their stress was higher than anything they’d previously experienced in their careers.
- And just 37 percent agreed that their organization understood what they needed in their personal lives and for their families.
“Companies have been engaged in an arms race to offer the best perks,” Carolina Valencia, a vice president in Gartner’s HR practice and one of the study’s authors, said in the HBR article. “But once basic needs are met, people are more powerfully motivated by feelings than by material features. Employees today want to be treated as people, not just workers.”
What does that mean for you?
At FiveFour, we say: You can’t have a remarkable customer experience without a great employee experience.
That can be hard for some business leaders to get their heads around. In the traditional way of thinking, a job is a transaction, an agreement that I will pay you to do this job or task. In return you will perform to the best of your ability. Over time, you will receive more benefits – vacation time, raises, retirement program – as a reward for a job well done.
Whether it’s the pandemic, social and political unrest, or just changing attitudes about goals and aspirations, employees want something more. Astute managers and owners see “The Great Resignation” not as a labor crisis, but as a demand for long-term relationships.
As is often the case, we find guidance from our friends and partners Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, co-authors of “The Experience Economy.”
In a recent article for “Duke Corporate Education,” Joe and Jim suggest that companies switch their mindset about employment from transactional to transformational.
In short, companies would do well to think about how they can help employees succeed in their careers, not just in white collar jobs, but in service-based industries such as fast-casual restaurants.
People will move on. That’s the reality.
But what if, rather than bemoaning the state of the work force, we look for ways to empower our teams to succeed in their current job and the next.
Treat employment as transformation.
“Creating value in the marketplace begins with creating value in the workplace,” Joe and Jim wrote. “By supplying positive work experiences, ones that are known to transform employees, organizations can create demand for people to come aboard.
“The enterprises that offer truly helpful work for transforming employees will be those which draw in the best talent and leverage that talent to attract yet more talent. ‘Help provided’ will be the sign of such times.”
Both articles are worth your time. In fact, I’d suggest they are required reading if you truly want to stage remarkable experiences that create customer loyalty that leads to exponential lifetime value.
Then give me a call, drop me an email or book a time when we can go deeper about how you can start transforming your team.
Talk soon.