MPowerment Matters

A Different Definition of Customer

January 2007

A Different Definition of Customer
Last month's newsletter dealt with taking a hard look at our organizations and considering how well we do at making it easy for our customers to do business with us. In this issue we are going to stretch the definition of "customer" a bit further by viewing our employees in that role and seeing what "customer service" looks like when applied to them.

Business leaders and owners are responsible for creating the vision, mission and culture of their organizations. Tied into this are values and behaviors. If a company's culture supports the right values, it will encourage behaviors that show how important employees are. The employees are then the customers of the company through its values. In a world where free choice exists, at least to some extent, individuals will choose to work for companies that value their employees and exhibit behaviors in support of that value. So, how do such companies make it easy for their employees to be a part of the company? Or not? Let's look at two hypothetical examples.

Melissa interviews with ABC Software Company. The Chief Operating Officer tells her that the company is like one big family, everyone looking out for everyone else. The company values its employees, as they are the prime asset. Honesty and integrity and respect are the main company values. Melissa takes the job as VP of Human Resources and looks forward to a fulfilling career helping build a company through bringing in, developing and retaining excellent employees. She keeps recommending training and development for a variety of employees, only to be turned down by the CFO, who says that the company will not "waste" money on employees, viewing such programs as an expense rather than an investment. She works with the VP of Sales to figure out a way to get salespeople their commission checks more quickly, only to be rebuffed by the COO, saying that this would hurt cash flow and that was more important than the salespeople. Meanwhile, she ends up spending a lot of time reviewing exit interviews of employees who keep quitting. She starts to wonder what kind of company she works for.

Meanwhile, Joanne, one of those that left ABC, ends up at XYZ. She figures anything has to be better than her old job. This one doesn't pay as much, but she'll hang on to it until something better comes along. Amazingly, the company values are almost exactly the same as those of ABC, so she is not impressed. But, on her interview, she meets her entire team, including all of the officers. Her immediate supervisor sits down and explains what her career path can be, what her development plan could look like, and who her mentor would be. He also tells her he wants to meet with her weekly to see how she is doing and to make certain that she has all of the tools she needs to do her job. Joanne begins to think that maybe a little less money wasn't such a big deal.

Within six months, Melissa was tweaking her resume and putting it all over the internet. Joanne was so psyched up about her job that she was recommending the company to all of her friends. Why the difference? One company backed up its values with consistent behaviors, the other did not.

In his book The Enthusiastic Employee, David Sirota states that there are three primary sets of goals at work: equity, achievement and camaraderie. Sirota asserts that these three goals characterize what the overwhelming majority of workers want; no other goals are nearly as important; and these goals have not changed over time and they cut across cultures.

Equity refers to being treated justly in relation to the basic conditions of employment. They include:
Physiological, such as a safe work environment, comfortable working conditions and a reasonable workload.


Economic, such as having a reasonable degree of job security, fair compensation and satisfactory fringe benefits.


Psychological, such as being treated with respect, having family and personal needs being considered, having credible and consistent management and being able to get a fair hearing of complaints.
Achievement refers to taking pride in one's accomplishments by doing things that matter and doing them well; receiving recognition for one's accomplishments; and taking pride in the accomplishments of the organization. The sense of achievement has six primary sources:

The challenge of the work itself.

The acquiring of new skills.

The ability to perform

The perceived importance of the job

Recognition received for performance

Working for a company of which the employee can be proud.
Camaraderie refers to having warm, interesting and cooperative relations with others in the workplace.

Sirota goes on to reflect on what he calls The People Performance Model. The key points come down to the following:

People and their morale matter tremendously for business success, including customer satisfaction.


Employee morale is a function of the way an organization is led and the way that leadership is translated into daily management practices.


Success breeds success. The better the individual and the organization perform, the greater is employee morale, which, in turn, improves and sustains performance.


The management practices that matter most boost an employee's sense of equity, achievement and camaraderie.
Based on the above, it is fairly easy to draw the conclusion that companies that can look at their employees as customers and offer them a high level of customer service will find them motivated to give the external customers of the business a high level of service. Taking care of employees is good business!!

Much of this is reinforced in Leigh Branham's book, The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave. He states that employees disengage and begin to think about leaving when one or more of four fundamental needs are not being met. He says these needs are:

The need for trust. The company and management needs to deliver on its promises and to be open and honest in communication to treat you fairly and to compensate you fairly.


The need to have hope. The employee needs to believe that she can grow, develop her skills and have the opportunity for advancement.


The need to feel a sense of worth. Hard work leads to recognition and reward.


The need to feel competent. You are matched to a job that aligns with your talents.
Lastly, we have it right from the mouth of employees. The Gallup Study of Employee Attitudes for Improving the Workplace looked at what is important to employees and what motivates them. Here is what was found:

They need to know what is expected of them

They need the opportunity to do what they do best

They want the materials and equipment needed to do their job well

They want to receive regular praise or recognition for doing good work

They want supervisors and managers to show an interest in them as people.

They want their development to be encouraged

They want dialogue with managers and supervisors about their progress

They want to have input that is both welcomed and utilized

They want to feel that what their company stands for (mission and purpose) makes them feel that what they do is important.

They want to have a close friend at work
We know what motivates employees. We know that motivated employees do better work and provide better customer service. And we understand that a higher level of customer service leads to better financial results. Yet there are still so many companies that refuse to take the simple steps of treating their employees as if they were cherished customers of the business. When taking the cost of replacing unhappy employees that leave into account, it is less costly to treat employees well than not-and the return is greater. It would be exemplary to care about the employees and change because of that reason. But even those companies that cannot generate feeling for their employees should understand the effect on the bottom line.

Broadening your definition of "customers" to include your employees and acting accordingly makes good business sense. Management Mpowerment can help you effect the cultural changes that may be required to make this happen.