Five Star Blog

Much has been written about the differences between the four generations composing today’s multigenerational workforce. For example, below are some common generalizations that have been made for each of the generations.

• Traditionalist (conformists, consistent, and experienced)
• Baby Boomers (youthful identity, optimistic, and want opportunity for growth)
• Gen X (entrepreneurial, multi-task, and comfortable with change)
• Gen Y (new to the workforce, tech savvy, and require a work/life balance)

In order for an organization to achieve success in executing strategy and creating sustainable high-performance, bridging the gap between these generations to create a collaborative work culture is absolutely essential. Yet, this begs the question, “How?” Although there is not a simple answer to this question, a great starting point is to focus on what is common and consistent across each of the generations. We believe that there are five fundamental needs that are consistent across every generation. They include:

• Satisfying Work – People, regardless of generation, want the opportunity to do satisfying work that aligns with their purpose and goals.
• Trust and Respect – It is imperative to all the generations that they are trusted and respected as individuals.
• Learn and Grow – The ability to learn and grow in a way that best suits their lifestyles and particular career goals is an essential need to each generation.
• Recognition and Rewards – Being recognized as an individual in a meaningful way will nurture their feeling of accomplishment in their role.
• Effective Leaders – Feeling confidence in leadership and knowing that the company and their roles are being managed by effective leaders fills a basic need.

By focusing on solutions that attempt to fulfill these needs, you can begin to create bridges across the various generations. Moreover, using these needs to unify your workforce is an advantage to your business and its employees, helping you to gain attraction, retention, and job satisfaction of high-performing employees from all generations!

Every business wants to provide their customers with excellent service. In today’s Web 2.0 world where information is freely shared, providing excellent customer service is more than just good business, it’s an essential component that sets businesses apart. In fact, your business is at a greater risk if it is not providing excellent customer service. There are sites like customerdisservce.net, for example, that act as an open forum and invite scorned consumers to vent about their bad (and sometimes humorous) customer service experiences. Although these entries are entertaining to read, they are detrimental to the businesses discussed. How can you ensure that your company never turns up on one of these sites?

In a recent conversation with Jamie Bongiorno, a Business Development Specialist, we asked her this question and she quickly referenced a book that she has used for years called Raving Fans. In this book, Blanchard and Bowles outline a three-step strategy that can serve as a foundation for a customer service plan. Below is a short summary of these steps.

• Decide What You Want
  If your business is like most businesses, you want loyal customers that will promote you and your business. You have to make it easy for customers to do business with you and make it a pleasant experience. Remember that before implementing a plan you must gain employee buy-in and communicate your vision of perfection centered on the customer, while remembering to focus on constantly achieving your vision.
• Discover What Your Customers Want
  In order to understand and exceed the expectations of your customers, you must listen to what they say and what they don’t say. For example, your customers may say that they like your competitive pricing, but they value on-time service and great quality. Find out what your customers actual priorities are and meet their standards. How do you find out their priorities? Ask sincere questions and win their confidence by keeping an open dialogue.
• Know When to Ignore Your Customers
  This may sound conflicting to an excellent customer service person, but you must ignore what your customers want if it does not match your vision and what you want. If your vision does not match the customer’s wants and needs, direct them somewhere else. This behavior will build trust and create a relationship, which can lead to future business or word of mouth sales.

Everyone expects good service so the only time we really notice service is if it is truly exceptional, or really poor. By taking time to determine what you want, asking questions to determine true customer needs, and focusing on the customers that align with your vision, you will be well on your way to achieving excellence in customer service. If you have not read this book, you can find Raving Fans on Amazon. And, as always, please share with us your exceptional customer service stories by clicking the comments link below.

Content is an extremely valuable asset for organizations; so much so that most have established guidelines and procedures defining how it should be developed and distributed. Yet with the emergence of Social Media, organizations large and small are faced with this question: “How should an organization respond to the prospect that virtually anyone can create and distribute content?”

Ultimately, there are three ways organizations can respond.

1. Ignore it and pretend that it does not exist (sadly, the most common response).
2. Establish strict policies, procedures, and guidelines that drive people away and discourage use.
3. Embrace it and seek ways to effectively implement it.

Unfortunately, most organizations have embraced either the ignore it or over-regulate it path when faced with creating a response to Social Media. However, some organizations, like Sun Microsystems, have responded appropriately by acknowledging the value of Social Media and establishing initial guidelines to establish expectations for using these tools. Let’s take a look at what they have done well.

If you visit www.sun.com/communities/guidelines.jsp you will see that Sun has published its “Guidelines on Public Discourse.” There are three things that become quickly apparent as one reads this note.

1. Sun acknowledges that Social Media tools can change way people work, and people should be using them. In fact, this message becomes obvious as soon as visitors enter the site: “Many of us at Sun are doing work that could change the world. Contributing to online communities by blogging, wiki posting, participating in forums, etc., is a good way to do this. You are encouraged to tell the world about your work, without asking permission first, but we expect you to read and follow the advice in this note.”
2. Sun believes that Social Media has great value in creating and enabling conversations. “Remember the Web is all about links; when you see something interesting and relevant, link to it; you’ll be doing your readers a service, and you’ll also generate links back to you; a win-win.“
3. There is a place for guidelines and acceptable practices in the world of free thought. By offering advice on how to write content, use other people’s content, and discuss company-related issues, Sun establishes a baseline for conduct while giving people the liberty to be themselves.

As you begin to build you Social Media strategy, we would recommend that you check out Sun’s Guidelines and use them as a reference. They have done an excellent job in carefully outlining baseline expectations, while not hindering people from using Social Media. As always, we would like to hear what you think. Use the comments link below to discuss.

So, you have decided to implement Social Media within your organization. Now, what?
By nature, Social Media provides people with resources and tools for accessing information they deem valuable. However, the ability to access this information is not always reason enough to motivate people to adopt and use new Social Media. Knowing this, what steps should you take to get people excited and motivated to start using your new Social Media?

Consider the following as you create an implementation strategy:

1. Identify your application’s purpose and communicate it!
   There are many reasons why people choose to use Social Media, but at the root of it all are three desires: connect with others, build relationships, and create shared communities. What makes Social Media unique among all new technology is its ability to provide people who have similar interests and passions with a way to connect and create shared communities of common interest. As you build your implementation strategy, is it vital that you keep these desires front-of-mind and communicate how your application will either improve or help to remove obstacles hindering people from doing any or all of them.
2. Engage early adopters and share their thoughts with others.
   Engaging people who are already using other Social Media applications or who are early adopters can help you do three things. First, by engaging these people you are able to quickly gather insights into the perceived value of your application so that you can make changes that will benefit the larger population. Next, feedback from these people can be used to actively market the application to others. Most importantly, word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals from these people help to create buzz and raise awareness about your application and its value to others.
3. Don’t forget to engage the big cheese.
   People want to feel that their contributions are of value and that they play an active role in shaping the quality of their own lives and the quality of their future work. Therefore, it goes without saying that if people feel that their contributions are of no value, they will not participate. It is for this reason that getting influential people (like senior leaders and executives) within the organization informed and engaged is so important. A great example of this was illustrated by Bell Canada’s implementation of “ID-ah!” (a Social Media application for gathering and rank ordering ideas for improving the company). Once employees knew that senior leaders of the company were reading the posts and had a sincere desire to implement the best ideas (a total of 12 ideas have been implemented), the adoption and usage of the application rapidly increased.
4. Promote through other technology and think interactive.
   As you actively market and promote your new Social Media, be sure to seek ways to link and promote it on other heavily trafficked sites and resources being used within your organization. For example, if your organization has an Internet site or enterprise portal, look for ways to partner with the owners of these sites. Some ideas include trading links or creating interactive campaigns that “drive” users from their site to yours.

As you roll out new Social Media applications, be sure to focus on these considerations. We would like to learn more about how you are exciting and motivating people in your organization to use new Social Media. Feel free to comment below!