Image by Stephen Poff
Renegade HR is a simple approach to HR: Recruit great people and help them do amazing things that drive your business.
You’ve got an organization filled with rockstars. Now how do you help them do amazing things that drive your business?
What IS your business?
You can’t help your employees drive your business until you understand what your business is. How does your organization make money?
But more importantly, what sets your business apart. Why should a customer choose you over the hundreds or thousands of other companies who provide the same exact product or service that you do?
Do you offer better customer service, higher quality or a lower price (or some combination of those things)? Are you more convenient? Do you offer a unique experience (like Disney World or Atlantis)?
What sets you apart?
What do people need to do?
Understanding your business isn’t enough. You need to understand what people actually need to do to support it.
Customer service at Southwest Airlines looks a lot different from customer service at Nordstrom (which looks a lot different from customer service at Zappos or Dell).
Southwest is about great customer service, but they’re also about cheap airfare. They’ll go out of their way to please a customer and provide a great experience… as long as it won’t drive up the price.
Nordstrom is about great customer service and high-quality items. Price isn’t a factor. Two different approaches to customer service. Two different ways people need to behave.
Disney World and Plymouth Plantation both offer a unique experience. One is magical and fantastic. The other is historic, pretty accurate, somewhat nostalgic. People at Disney behave a lot differently than people at Plymouth Plantation.
What specific things do you need your people to do to support your business?
What do you reward?
Most management books will tell you that you get the behaviors that you reward. Who gets promoted in your organization? Who gets a bonus? What did they do?
These things are important. They let people know what you value. They help shape your culture.
But it’s not just about who you reward, and what you reward them for. It’s about what you celebrate.
What do you celebrate?
Who gets recognized – publicly celebrated – for what they do? Does your organization have any traditions? Any myths?
Nordstrom tells stories about employees (or Nordies, as they call themselves) who have gone out of their way to provide amazing service:1
- The Nordie who ironed a new shirt for a customer who needed it for a meeting that afternoon.
- The Nordie who cheerfully gift wrapped products a customer bought at Macy’s.
- The Nordie who refunded money for a set of tire chains – even thought Nordstrom doesn’t sell tire chains!
It’s one thing to say you value customer service. It’s another to give people concrete examples of what others have done.
What stories does your organization tell?
Footnote
- Made to Stick, p. 73 – 74 ↩
I totally agree with HR folks needing to understand the business, the differentiators, and what the business needs to be successful. HR folks need to make HR “stuff” as easy as possible for the people in the business, and they need to focus on those HR activities that will really impact ways to bring in better people, make their current people better, bring in more revenue or cut costs. Know the needs of the business, and build HR work around them.
RJ,
HR folks need to make HR “stuff” as easy as possible for the people in the business.
I love that!
Chris
Excellent post and very timely considering the recession. Many companies have had to reevaluate their strategic priorities to refocus on a new direction. But how many bothered to share the details of that new direction and, more importantly, what that means to how employees should be performing their everyday work?
This kind of alignment is critical at any time, but as the recovery builds it will separate the winners from the losers in the marketplace.
I wrote more on this realignment need here: http://globoforce.blogspot.com/2009/09/realigning-your-workforce-with-your.html
Derek,
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your insights!
Chris