HR: 5 Signs Your Customer Service Is In Jeopardy

Engaged employees offer more postive interaction than disengaged employees. Positive interactions with employees will prompt customers, vendors and job applicants to return to your organization.

In his recent article, What is Employee Engagement, Kevin Kruse defines engagement as, "the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals." He continues, "Engaged employees actually care about their work and their company."

Why should you care? People like to work for and buy things from employees (and brands) that satisfy them. They will fire those that don't.

One Chance to Make a Positive First Impression

I wanted a new wallet. My checkbook wallet, when paired with my iPad, smartphone and keys, messed with the relatively slim profile of my new purse. I went to Fossil on Friday and bought a smaller wallet. I started using it immediately and, by Saturday, I hated it.

I returned to Fossil, explained my dilemma and right there, next to the sign stating they will exchange only UNUSED items, I emptied the wallet I had been using and exchanged for another. The manager clearly had every right to deny my request-  but she did not.

This was my first time shopping there and I'll be back. 

My Give-a-Care is Busted

Not all business are as fortunate, or all employees as engaged, as the manager at Fossil was that one Saturday afternoon. Here are five strange but true signs your HR customer service is in jeopardy (courtesy of my HR friends and colleagues):

1. Lights are on, computers are fired up and an employee comes up to HR at 7:25. HR employee says, "I'll help you, but, for the record, we don't open until 7:30."
2. When asked a question that did not relate to her role, HR employee responds, "I don't have anything to do with that. Call someone else."
3. When asked by an applicant why she did not get referred for a position, HR employee responds, "You are clearly not qualified for the position and with your lack of formal education, you'd have a better chance applying for unskilled positions." 
4. When his inappropriate response to a customer was raised for discussion by his supervisor, the employee explained it this way, "I am a mirror, I reflect back what I see."
5. An employee brings an error in her promotion pay calculation to HR. Without much ado - or any research - HR staff erases the old number, changes it to what the employee though it should be. Which was still wrong, BTW.

Nip it in the Bud

These incidents do not reflect the look and feel of employee engagement and, in each, you may have a performance problem on your hands. Is it a one-time incident or a pattern? Let it go at the risk of further jeopardizing your customer service, the engagement of your other staff and the overall performance of your team, department or organization. Nip it in the bud. Now.

Photo credit: Canadian Business.com via Andrew B. Meyers

3 Questions You Must Ask During a Performance Review

Performance reviews. Whether you  love them, hate them, or you would ditch them in an instant "if you were in charge," bottom line is that they are a reality in a day in life of most HR professionals, supervisors and employees.

Performance reviews involve forms, goals, expectations, objective - ok, subjective - ratings and sometimes pay increases and rewards. Every system is different, yet every system is the same in that one person is assessing the performance of another.

Listen to that again.

Regardless of the system, performance reviews come down to 2 people interacting with each other and the value of that interaction falls squarely on the shoulders of the supervisor, or rater.

After supervising and rating soldiers, junior officers, employees and students for over 25 years, you'd think I'd have this down to a science now, but I don't.

Each year, I am left with the feeling that I could have done more, I could have done it better. And each year I try something different. This year, I asked everyone these 3 questions and they were very well received:

• How do you rate yourself? Not one person directly answered the question (stinkers!) but we had good conversations about how they see themselves in their role, thier challenges, and their interests.

• What are you doing that I am not seeing? I know I don't see everything that people do each day to make this department work so this was an opportunity for each to tell me about problems they solved, customers they served, projects they finished and anything they were proud of.

• What is happening in the department that I am not seeing? This was more for me than for anyone else but I wanted to know what happens that they wonder, "why doesn't she just freakin' do something about this?" 

You are preaching to the choir when you begin to whine, "It's so Hard." I started this blog almost 6 years ago with the very same lament and I can tell you  - it is what it is and it never gets easier.

So quit your whining and tell me, what are you doing, or what have you done, to increase the value of your interactions with your employees during performance reviews?

Photo credit: iStockphoto