December is a great time to focuss on the aspects of your business that will make the greatest difference. Your people, your structures and your systems. For those of you who are busy over the Christmas season, it’s really important to make the time to ensure your people, structures and systems will carry you through what may be the busiest time of the year.How well have you set up for an increase in customer traffic whilst maintaining both customer and employee loyalty best practice?
You might have new staff. How well are you training them, coaching them, observing what they’re doing, and giving feedback?
Have you set your team up for success?
Do you have your Aces in the Right Places?
Is your team Fired up and Ready to Go?
Deciding what the culture of your company will look like is easy, right? Yet, ensuring the company culture is embraced, picked up, run with and demonstrated by every staff member, department and leader every day, every time, without fail – well that’s a whole other ball game.
What is the culture in your company? Is it one where team members are simply clocking in, going through the motions, and can’t wait to leave? Or is the culture one of engagement, where team members are inspired to create their own customer service experience?
Knowing what drives your employee loyalty and engagement and understanding why people want to stay at a company or join a company is the key.
When we research employees one of the first questions we ask is this “How likely would you recommend your company to a friend or a colleague as a great place to work with 10 being you would definitely recommend and 0 being you definitely would not recommend?”
When we look at the employees who scored a 9 and 10, NPS Promoters of their company we know they are extremely unlikely to leave, and we know we can trust exactly what they tell us about those areas that drives those experiences and therefore employee loyalty.
Generally, we find about eight key areas are pretty consistently mentioned when we do employee research – here’s the list in the order that it appears. 1 being the most mentioned to 8 being the least mentioned.
This determines Employee Loyalty Best Practice
People
They talk about – How the team engage each other, how they treat each other with respect, how easy it is to get along with other team members and the leadership teams, how everyone respects each other‘s capabilities, that everyone is friendly and have positive attitudes.
Support
They talk about – The support they get from the leadership teams, the support they get from fellow team members, how everyone works well together, that managers are accommodating with their needs and are available if they need them.
Management
They talk about – trust; management allowing them to work autonomously, the hands-on approach when managers need to, they make sure we are looked after, they coach and encourage us, they are working towards and share clear goals and a vision for the company’s future.
Culture
They talk about – family; It feels like it’s a family, everyone is supportive and committed to doing things the right way, there’s equality between lower and high higher paid employees, we all feel included.
Communication
The leadership teams ask us for our input on ideas, there’s excellent communication between management and employees, they are very clear about company policies and procedures and it’s easy to speak to leaders if there are problems.
Hours of work
They assign us clear and easy tasks to complete, there is always a good variety of work, they provide a very flexible work environment, they understand if we need to take time off, they don’t pressure us to come back during sick days.
Pay
They compensate every employee well, they pay us a very reasonable salary, they give us small but special bonuses, the pay rate acknowledges our hard work and commitment.
Training
They provide us with very useful training courses and with excellent coaching, they are always happy for us to improve our skills and upgrade our knowledge.
The above 8 areas are the main reasons employees scored a 9 or 10.
Not rocket science! Right? When reading the best practice loyalty drivers above, you will notice that pay is not number one and it’s never been a number one loyalty driver on any promotors research that I’ve seen.
5 Actions You Can Take To Ensure Employee Loyalty
Review your service standards. What extra things can you put into your system to have your business stand out.
Remember the basics are the most important. Does every customer get a greeting with eye contact and a smile and a farewell in the same way.
N.B. If you don’t have any service standards we need to talk. Service standards should also include dress and grooming standards.
Daily Set Ups. Meet with your team every day to set them up to deliver the best possible service.
Good questions to ask are: “What will you do to deliver great service today?”
Remember your questions should reflect your service standards.
The intention of this meeting is to ensure your team are fired up and ready to go, if not take an action to support them.
Coach Coach Coach. Observe your team members to ensure they are doing their jobs, offer any improvements to behaviours that are not consistent to your service standards.
Remember to be specific, don’t generalise or make personal judgements.
What did they say or do that needed to improve then ask them how they could improve for next time.
Catch them doing it right. Praise the behaviours that you want them to keep doing.
Remember ‘Praise is like champagne it should be served while still bubbling’.
The secret to any feedback is to be specific. Don’t just say that was ‘really good’, say exactly what was really good.
Finish the day or individual shift with a debrief. How did it go? Ask what could we improve and what went really well.
Remember always finish on the positives.
Thank each person for their individual efforts.
So often we think that more money is the answer but often your best staff are looking for more opportunities to grow their career prospects and skills. Everyone wants the opportunity to do good and interesting work that stretches them. What better way to recognise and reward top performers and loyalty by promoting them to a higher level of responsibilities; letting staff to try their ideas and see what happens; giving some flexibility and time-off; sending frontline staff to leadership courses or upskilling them with things that they value; the possibilities are endless and inexpensive.
So what have you found to be secret to building greater staff loyalty? What’s worked for you and your team?
Need more information? Have a look through my previous Blogs, located on The Loyalty Zone website or contact me, I look forward to hearing from you.
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Warm Regards
Craig Cherry