Last month I wrote a post called I’m confused. Why do most CEOs not get employee engagement?, where I bemoaned the fact that many CEOs/MDs and other business owners are not getting the fact that an engaged set of employees can be the key to business growth, great service, repeat business and sustainable growth.
Thinking about engagement a bit more, I started looking again at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Wikipedia entry) for clues as to how we can improve employee engagement. The Wikipedia entry says that:
All humans have a need to be respected and to have self-esteem and self-respect. Also known as the belonging need, esteem presents the normal human desire to be accepted and valued by others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel accepted and self-valued, be it in a profession or hobby.
When I read that entry it implied to me that recognition follows engagement. However, at the beginning of February, I met Derek Williams of The Wow! Awards – a man on a mission to raise the standards of customer service across all industries through employee recognition.
What I think is really interesting about what The Wow! Awards are doing is that they are turning the idea that recognition follows engagement on its head and they are using recognition by peers and customers to build engagement.
It is easy and is becoming easier for customers to make complaints about customer service, but what The Wow! Awards are doing is enabling the businesses they work with to help tell their people how good they are too.
The WOW! Awards, started in 1999, are the UK’s only national award for customer service based purely on customer nominations and they are working with all sorts of customers large and small. You can check out their client list here. The success of the programmes they run have meant that they are now expanding to the US too.
Their work has shown that using the The WOW! Awards helps businesses create three things:
What do you think? Do you think you could use this in your business? How do you think it could help you?
Thanks to shutupyourface for the image.
14 Comments
Daniel M. Wood on February 15, 2011 at 3:10 pm.
The Wow! Awards is a great concept. If you are nominated it proves that your customers are pleased with the help they get and how far your employees will go to help them.
Getting your employees to act in this manner is a completely different questions though.
I think a lot of it is showing empathy. If you show empathy to your employees, they will show empathy to your customers.
Often “Monkey see, Monkey do” works better than anything.
Daniel M. Wood´s last [type] ..How to Set Goals That Will Excite You
Adrian on February 15, 2011 at 6:35 pm.
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I agree that leadership and empathy are key ingredients in all of this and as important as gaining recognition and feedback. However, often some people find empathy a hard skill to master. I’d be interested to learn what has worked for you or has helped you better develop your empathy skills?
Adrian
Michael Cowen on February 15, 2011 at 3:30 pm.
Hi Adrian – I was very amused reading the content of this blog and seeing the picture credit was from shut up your face. A bit of connected disconnection
.
I love the idea of the WOW awards. The more I spend time developing my insight into the customer, the more scared I get of the old business model and how truly broken it is that make the WOW awards necessary.
What is also so sad is how soul destroying the old model to the people within the system.
Cheers
Michael
Michael Cowen´s last [type] ..A Case Study On How Bad Profits Can Destroy Your Business
Adrian on February 15, 2011 at 6:37 pm.
Hi Michael,
I’m glad the picture source made you smile. It had the same effect on me too.
I’m glad that you like the idea of the Wow Awards and the power that it can have in powering employee recognition and engagement. If you see any applications for this in SA then do let me know and i’ll put you in touch with Derek.
Adrian
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Marc Sokol on February 16, 2011 at 2:50 am.
Wow Awards are a great idea, particularly at the time of year when we are focused on Grammy Awards, Oscar Awards, etc. Last year I wrote about a company that has mastered the art of employee recognition. Check out the post, “And the award goes to…’ at http://www.bestcustomerconnection.com/?p=161
The beauty of it all is that we know people have a deep desire to be seen, recognized and valued for what they care most about. It’s even more powerful when your colleague, managers and the managers of your managers take the time to show they know you make a difference.
Let’s look forward to seeing companies produce TV spots that take a minute to showcase great customer service agents rather than great salty snacks!
Marc
Marc Sokol´s last [type] ..Is marketing the new customer service or is customer service the new marketing
Adrian on February 16, 2011 at 8:38 am.
Hi Marc,
That would be an interesting approach and development. I would like to see how someone could produce that type of ad for TV without it looking ‘cheesy’ or staged.
Perhaps, if they just did everything right and focused on the customer and being the best they could be then word would get around and they wouldn’t that TV spot after all. That’d be pretty cool, don’t you think?
Adrian
Marc Sokol on February 16, 2011 at 12:35 pm.
Bill Park recently directed me to a Mercedes set of video clips… http://www.mbusa.com/impact/index. Very powerful stories from crash survivors of the event, what they were thinking just before, during and after the crash; high impact, probably because they got people talking and experiencing real emotion in the moment. I bet something similar can be done with customer service, but more geared toward the emotions and thoughts associated with this type of work.
Marc Sokol´s last [type] ..Is marketing the new customer service or is customer service the new marketing
Adrian on February 16, 2011 at 6:26 pm.
Hi Marc,
I think that’s a great idea and they could serve as real testimonials about how great a business is. I wonder if Derek has thought of adding that to his offer. I’ll have to remember to ask him.
Thanks for extending the scope of the post.
Best wishes,
Adrian
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Bill Park on February 17, 2011 at 3:28 am.
Adrian,
I’m an advocate for putting employees first in any business. I’m going to take a deep dive into the WOW site, and would love to get connected to the founders. I have been kicking around a way to use a community based platform (knock-off) that showcases the people behind the business. Not only to recognize them for moments of great service, but also moments of going above and beyond, moments of being excellent and not ordinary, and a way to build their confidence through personal branding. Sort of an ‘iWOW’ site.
Thanks for the sharing this!
Bill
Bill Park´s last [type] ..Creat a winning collision repair shop-Part 1
Adrian on February 17, 2011 at 12:33 pm.
Hi Bill,
That sounds like a great idea…. and iWow site and I am sure that is something that Derek would be keen to talk to you about and how he could help. If you send me an email I’ll connect the two of you.
Adrian
Heather Townsend on February 17, 2011 at 10:51 am.
Adrian,
Interesting that the two of us are thinking about employee engagement at the same time – this was what I blogged today – http://business-efficiency.theefficiencycoach.co.uk/index.php/people/training-development/why-my-husband-is-in-the-dog-house/
I’m interested that you use maslow’s hierarchy of needs – which holds true at the bottom three levels, but the theory doesn’t necessarily hold true when you get to the top three levels. I agree with you that recognition is fundementally important to good employee engagement – but there are more drivers for good employee engagement than just recognition – such as career development, ‘total reward’ – and it’s worth looking at Herzberg’s demotivators as well.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts.
Adrian on February 17, 2011 at 1:08 pm.
Hi Heather,
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment. I’ll head over and take a look at your post.
What I thought was interesting and cool about the Wow! Awards was that they are a simple way of both kick starting the engagement process as well as providing motivation to improve the level of service that is being delivered….two birds with one stone.
However, you are right that Maslow’s framework is useful but only up to a point and that there are many other drivers that have an impact on the levels of engagement. What have you seen as good and effective ways to improve engagement?
Adrian