What Your Office Says About Your Company (And Why You Should Care)

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If there is one thing we have learned through the economic twists and turns of the past decade, it is that people make our companies run. Even at the depths of the economic downturn with the high unemployment rate of 9.9 percent, there were 3.8 million jobs in the US that went unfilled for more than six months and that problem only gets worse as unemployment drops. Consequently, attracting and retaining high quality employees is ‘job one’ in 2014. Is it any wonder that CEO’s and their HR departments, are scanning the horizon for any new idea to help fill those positions? Enter stage left, the open office concept.

The open office concept has its detractors and there is actually much to be said for the traditional office with its spaces for privacy, learning, and focused work, but an open office strategy, when thoughtfully deployed can create environments that support employee attraction and retention.

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About the Author

Kristine WoolseyKristine Woolsey is a business strategist, speaker, and author. She is a transition specialist, helping organizations reshape themselves during times of change including mergers, extreme growth, and adaption to today’s changing workplace. She works at the intersection of organizational behavior, brand alignment, and facilities. She guides leaders to understand the power of leveraging natural behavior patterns using research based strategies with measurable results.

Kristine was trained as an architect and then moved into the business arena. Now, she teaches and speaks about the future of work and behavioral strategy to groups and conferences nationally. Kristine consults for medium to large companies, helping business leaders use behavioral strategies to adjust their value proposition, identity/brand, organization structure, and facilities to create the most direct path through any organizational transformation. For more information visit: www.kristinewoolsey.com.

The Evolution of Enterprise Social Collaboration

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organizational collaborationEnterprise social collaboration tools can be a powerful means to support employees in their daily business, also helping them foster cross-company collaboration. This infographic from AgreeYa Solutions provides a comprehensive introduction to the world of enterprise social collaboration. Review the illustration to learn more about enterprise social collaboration and how it can enhance business-wide productivity.

The image to the right is just a small snippet of the whole infographic. Click here to download a full-size version of this infographic.

All airlines are the same, except for their people.

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As you may know, I’m a regular flyer. About 200 flights a year. Mostly on major airlines, but because I’m more interested in flying non-stop than getting travel miles or points, I take whatever airline is most convenient for my schedule.

This past Friday I found myself flying Alaska Airlines from Atlanta, Georgia, to Portland, Oregon.

There are only a few Alaska gates, and they’re hard to find, in Delta-dominant Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. FYI: Alaska is part of the same SkyTeam co-op airline alliance as Delta. That’s where the similarity ends.

The Alaska ticket agents were amazingly friendly. Actually smiling, laughing, engaging, helpful, and friendly. I hope airline employees at your airport act that way!

NOTE WELL: Yes, there’s an occasional ticket agent or two that are friendly and helpful, and there are some friendly, helpful agents in Charlotte, North Carolina, that I’ve known for more than a decade. But these Alaska people were amazing.

I engaged them in a few minutes of lighthearted conversation and asked them what the hiring criterion was. That’s when the startling admission came, “We’re actually Delta employees who were hand-picked and retrained.”

Hand picked and retrained. What does that tell you?

WAIT A MINUTE! Retrained? It’s the same computer system and the same baggage criteria. Just cross out “Delta” and substitute “Alaska” right? Right.

“We were trained to greet and treat customers in a different way,” said one of the agents. “You know – smile, chat, be friendly, thank customers as you look them in the eye, and not use certain unfriendly words and phrases like ‘policy’ and ‘all set.’”

Wow! There’s a concept.

Yes, I boarded the plane happily and on time. Yes, the flight attendants matched the ticket agent’s and the gate agent’s friendliness. In-flight service – all five hours of it – was excellent. NOTE: These days, flight attendants emphasize they are there for “your safety” and never say the word “service,” let alone the word “friendly.”

These flight attendants were gently professional, and friendly; not assertively demanding – almost rude when telling me and others to “turn off electronic devices.” I fell asleep between ordering and receiving food. Next thing I knew, a flight attendant was gently rubbing the side of my arm, and smiling as she helped me put my food in place. Classic.

Well, that would have been the end of the story had I not spent the weekend with a 10-year Alaska Airline employee. I told him about my experience and he just smiled.

I asked him what makes Alaska different.

Here is his eye-opening response about the big things Alaska does better than other airlines:

  • It starts before training. It’s all about who they hire. It’s about finding the BEST people. They have some process of pre-identifying the right people.
  • No test at time of hiring. Interviews are human to human. They ask questions and go with gut feelings.
  • They select people they believe will be hard workers. People who they believe will go beyond what’s expected. “North” of what’s expected.
  • They select people they believe have a natural inclination to take ownership. People who are caring and friendly.
  • They select passionate people who love what they do.
  • They don’t just train front-line employees, they train all employees. They have found that front-line people are buoyed by internal employees if attitudes are consistently positive throughout the company.

Why is this eye opening? Because it’s not fancy! It’s nothing new.

It’s not complicated. It’s natural.
It’s not costly. It’s human.

You know the rest right? Alaska Airline’s leadership and management is ‘by example’ not ‘by the book.’ All employees feel valued and are happy to serve. And customers love it. It’s humanized and natural. It’s caring people serving traveling people in need.

Well, why don’t all airlines do this? Long list of reasons. Too numerous and way too negative to mention here. This is a business lesson, not an airline reprimand.

HARD QUESTIONS:
What’s your culture?
How consistent is attitude throughout your corporate environment?
How is that affecting your morale?
And more important how is that affecting your customers?

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

StrategyDriven White Paper Advises Leaders on Preventing Catastrophic Industrial Accidents

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StrategyDriven’s Preventing Catastrophic Industrial Accidents reveals how high-risk industry leaders can reduce their significant event risk exposure through application of safety-first principles.
 
 
StrategyDriven Safety Culture Point of View DocumentStrategyDriven released Preventing Catastrophic Industrial Accidents, a white paper revealing how high-risk industry leaders can reduce their significant event risk exposure through the cost effective adaptation of key aspects of the U.S. nuclear industry’s safety-first principles.

After the several recent catastrophic industrial accidents within the United States, including the devastating explosions at a Texas fertilizer plant and Louisiana chemical plant, StrategyDriven wanted to help industrial and utility leaders reduce the risk of similar accidents at their facilities.

“Many of today’s significant industrial accidents are preventable, the byproduct of human errors made when safety was subordinated to other priorities,” explains Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “By fostering an organizational culture that puts safety-first, executives and managers create a workplace environment where errors are recognized and proactively corrected before they result in a material event.”

“An effective safety culture is far more than slogans and posters,” continues Greg Gaskey, StrategyDriven’s Chief Operations Officer. “It permeates the organization’s performance standards, operating processes, training programs, rewards systems, and, most importantly, the decisions and behaviors of everyone from the C-Suite to the shop floor.”

Nathan and Greg authored Preventing Catastrophic Industrial Accidents based on their decades of experience managing nuclear and industrial complex operations. Additionally, Nathan led the development of the nuclear industry’s operational risk management, high-risk decision management, and plant operations performance standards while working at the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations.

Highlights from Preventing Catastrophic Industrial Accidents include:

  • Safety Culture Attributes – safety focused executives, managers, and employees collectively assume responsibility for both their and their co-workers’ safety; embody a questioning attitude; encourage issue reporting and priority-based resolution; employ error reduction techniques; embed safety-first features within operational, training, and rewards programs; and embrace ongoing organizational learning
  • Identifying the Strength of Your Safety Culture – artifacts of the safety-first values are not only found in the outcomes achieved, but also reside in the organization’s goals and performance measures, standards and expectations, policies and procedures, rewards systems, training, and organizational learning and continuous improvement programs
  • Improving Your Safety Culture – individuals at all levels of the organization must be engaged in order to foster a robust safety culture; originating from executive defined attributes and goals and translated to the day-to-day decisions and actions of all employees

Preventing Catastrophic Industrial Accidents is being distributed to StrategyDriven’s clients, including some of the world’s largest utility operators. Download the white paper by clicking here.

About the Authors

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Greg Gaskey, StrategyDriven PrincipalGreg Gaskey is a StrategyDriven Principal with over twenty years of nuclear plant operations, maintenance, and large-scale program and project management experience. An experienced Operations Manager, he has managed critical Department of Defense programs, projects, and business lines; spanning multiple engineering maintenance disciplines including mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, and instrumentation and controls systems. To read Greg’s complete biography, click here.

Corporate Cultures – How Stressful is Your Workplace Environment?

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How stressed is your workplaceStress in the workplace leads to significantly detrimental impacts on overall business results. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, workplace stress contributes to a number of adverse physical and performance consequences among affected employees including:

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.