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Treat Employees Like Dogs To Boost Loyalty, Commitment And Excellence In Your Bank - By Ray Adler
Essential to earning the trust, respect, and business of today's value-conscious, media - saturated customer is the level of trust, respect, and consideration bank managers give to their employees. Your bank's products and services don't distinguish you from the "guys down the street." New products and services are easily copied and seldom give more than a brief competitive advantage. True distinction is much more predicated on the level of service received by your customers than any other single factor. And a primary factor in determining how well your customers are treated is how well your employees are treated.
You might be wondering how treating employees like dogs is going to have anything but a negative effect on your bank. Granted, the "treat employees like dogs" concept may seem rather simplistic in our complex, high tech world. Yet the idea of nurturing, praising, training, having fun with and caring for our pets is surprisingly the same process required to develop loyalty, commitment, and excellence from employees.
Today it is estimated Americans spend $25 billion per year on nutrition, health, and the general well-being of pets. It appears that many of our pets are living a better quality of life than a substantial portion of the U.S. population. Is the loyalty, companionship, protection, love, support, and fun we receive from our pets worth the investment? Based upon our spending habits, it appears so. How much, then, is the morale, loyalty, and dedication of our work force worth?
Invest More Time On Relationships Inside The Bank
Sharon Harwood, manager of Disney University, says, "Disney knew you couldn't have a supervisor in the back room yelling at you and then walk through the door and a greet a guest with a big smile as if nothing were wrong." At the heart of the matter is the quality of the relationship between a manager and his or her employees. Any built-up resentment, anger, frustration, lack of trust and/or confusion between managers and employees gets communicated to and received by a customer in a variety of ways. It is essential that senior managers and line supervisors spend more time (outside of salary and performance reviews) with employees, cleaning up resentments and frustrations, asking opinions and seeking creative ideas to enhance product and service delivery. Few actions display respect and value more to an employee than earnestly listening to ideas and opinions or resolving past resentments.
Share More Information: Expand Employee Involvement
Equitable Insurance's CEO had to cut $100 million from the annual operating budget. After a meeting with key employees, within a few days the employees made suggestions that resulted in $162 million savings. Another story revolves around volunteer teams at a GE Mobile Communications plant in Virginia. Apparently 36 teams of employees generated 1,164 suggestions in one year resulting in $7.1 million in savings to the company. Employees become unstoppable when moved by a common vision or challange and have the authority, tools, and training to accomplish it.
Nurture, Praise, And Empower Continuously
One of the biggest challenges banks face today is retaining employees. In fact,
studies indicate that of the top five factors that contribute to job satisfaction and employee retention, surprisingly salary and security rank fourth and fifth. The top three factors identified as contributing to high job satisfaction are: being appreciated and asked to share their opinions; the feeling of being "in" on decisions that effect employees; and the flexibility to handle personal matters. In a recent survey by Robert Half International, nearly 66% of those polled said they would take a pay cut in exchange for more flexibilty.
Bank employees, like other corporate employees, are looking for much more than just a paycheck. They want to derive a deep sense of satisfaction from knowing that what they do on a daily basis makes a difference. They want to know they are cared for through actions, not just words. They want to work with supervisors and managers who are committed to helping them succeed. They want to be nurtured, praised, and trained while working in a fun environment with enjoyable people. In short, treated like dogs!
Click here to read Article #2: Eliminate The Two Biggest Productivity Killers In Your Bank
To learn more about this topic and how BTI can bring value to your bank, please contact us.
- Ray Adler