I’m not really surprised at the results of this study.  What does surprise me is that the words “Employee Engagement” don’t appear anywhere.

While some experts are focused on all the things managers should “do” to get more employee engagement, why aren’t more looking at the skills of the managers?  Take a look at the second to the last paragraph “did they start well and just run out of steam?”  I think this question is critical for us to discover the answer.  More of the problem lies with management abilities than people are recognizing, but the old adage “some people are born to manage” just isn’t true.  Professional athletes had to hone their talents, professional actors have to hone theirs, I certainly have to hone mine as a professional.  Why not managers?  If they don’t get the support, training, & coaching they need to be effective, they won’t be able to do it on their own.  What can you do to help managers improve their skills in your organization?

There’s a lot of discussion about the major fail for Papa Johns PR & Marketing.  It involves an employee at a franchise that used a slur as a description of a customer (see pic below).  Not only did the customer discover it, but as a PR professional, she took a picture of it and published it in the world of social media.  I’m sure Papa Johns would prefer it is all history, but it’s not over yet.  Check out this link for the story http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/10538.aspx

Papa Johns has posted that the franchise employee has been terminated, but isn’t that a private matter?  And what of the leadership in that franchise?  Have they trained employees on: customer service, communication skills, and/or dealing with difficult situations?  Has this employee shown signs of poor form in the past?  And, just to be fair to the employee, is there any chance this person is just really ignorant and doesn’t know better?

You might be surprise at my last question.  How could people not know better in this day and age with so much information available.  I personally can’t relate to people who live such lives, but my travels have proven to me that many such folks do exist.  And more often than not, there is nothing mean spirited in their intent, it is just purely ignorance.  They don’t know better until they are taught.

As a leader, you may find yourself in situations where people who work for you seem to not have even the most basic of skills.  No doubt, you will find it frustrating to have to train them on such basics.  But by doing so, you ensure that the encounters your customers have with your staff will not leave you as embarrassed as Papa Johns is right now.

Our mothers noticed this first.  It sounded something like “I can tell who you’ve been hanging out with by your attitude.”  People’s attitudes do rub off on us, and if we’re not careful, it will be the wrong attitude.  I love how Jim Rohn says it.  For more info on this post, see the post from 12/28.

I’m a new convert to Groupon.  I have to admit…I’m crazy about it.  I’ve been a deal or bargain shopper since elementary school.  Not on my own obviously.  My mom passed this on to me.  I learned how to discover fashion finds and furnishings by going to second hand shops, resale shops, and consignment stores.  Heck, my mom was known for bargaining in the grocery store if she thought veggies were sub par.  A fun bonus of getting a phenomenal bargain are the bragging rights they afford you.  And of course bragging rights for me is free advertising for the merchant.

That said…bragging rights for me will evaporate like the mist on my sun glasses on a cold day if I’m treated poorly by a merchant.  And that’s exactly what recently happened.

My deal was to treat myself to a remote start for my car.  I hate getting in a cold car and have been quite spoiled by having a garage.  But this winter I’m traveling out of state less, so I’m driving my car more.  And when my car is ice cold inside, the last thing I want to do is sit in it waiting for it to warm up (which is bad for the engine).  I figured getting remote start was a win-win.  I’d have a warm car, and it’s better for my car if it’s warm before I drive away. It was also 60% off!

It took me about a week to call and make my appointment.  HUGE mistake.  The soonest they could see me was February 28.  What a disappointment.  By then, I wouldn’t need the remote start!  I said all this to the merchant rep on the phone.  That’s when things went south.  His response to me was a smart aleck “Well, you could wait until NEXT year and pay 3 times as much!”

Wow…and this guy’s boss actually pays him to talk to people that way!

Do you have staff that deal with the public?  It is inevitably going to happen that a customer is going to be disappointed.  Garbage Happens!!!  When it does, it only takes a little effort to understand things from the customer’s perspective.  In my situation, it would have gone a long way had the guy acknowledged the obvious “ma’am, I’ll bet it IS disappointing.  We had no idea the deal would have been this popular, so there’s no way you could have known we were booking so far out.”  He could have then given me options for cancellations etc.  It wouldn’t have taken any more time than the smart aleck remark that only did damage.

It’s not easy being in customer service, but a little understanding can go a long way to move your staff from “order takers” to sincere customer service agents.  Share your scenarios.  Have you ever experienced a smart aleck?  Have a smart aleck employee? Let me know if you need verbiage to teach the employee how to respond differently, and I’ll give you some options.

Sometimes I fill this in with things I want to accomplish to help me stay focused.

(See blog post from 12/28 for more info)

I got this poem off of a gift bag! I remember the irony of the gift of the bag being so much more valuable than the gift inside. (See blog post from 12/28 for more info)

Another one of my favorite office signs (read post from 12/28).  I had to edit the original after my 12 year old nephew came into my office. Use your imagination for which word I changed.  This is the edited version.

I’m in the process of getting my house ready to sell.  As anyone who has gone through this knows, all you hear from real estate agents is “declutter depersonalize.”  It’s darn near a chant.  I’m ok with most of it…just don’t ask me how I feel about painting my house to make a buyer with no imagination happy.  For me, part of declutter & depersonalize means I need to store all my inspirational office signs.  That means pictures of my dream car (yellow convertible Chevy Camaro).  I have this one as a screen saver and a pic on my refridgerator.  Definitely trying to manifest this one!

I also have pics of both my current Harley (a 2007 Cobalt Blue Street Glide) and my dream bike (a Cobalt Blue Harley Davidson CVO Road Glide) .

It’s a good thing my walls have limited space as I’m crazy for old cars too and would have my walls filled floor to ceiling with automobile inspiration.

Besides the photos of my dream vehicles, I have inspirational signs I have placed all around me.  Some of them are simple and just have a picture or a few words on them.  Two of my favorites came from a website that let you add your picture to the cover of a national magazine (the site doesn’t exist any more or I’d share the link).  I added mine to People & Time.  You know what they say…”if you can visualize it, you can make it happen.” Isn’t that all you need sometimes?  Since I’m going to have to put these away for a while, I thought I’d share them with you.  This first one is one of my favorites.  I started using it years ago.  It’s just the word “Next”.  I use it to remind me to move forward whether I’ve been told “no” for a speaking engagement or things didn’t work out when dating.  It’s an incredibly efficient word and inspires me to remember to move on with my life.  If you like it, print it out (I always print mine on photo paper.  It makes them look really cool!  At least if they can’t be up in my office, they will be inspiring someone else in theirs.

Twas the night before Christmas and I discovered an app
That would let be Blog from my Blackberry when I found time with a gap.
My office was set up with all kinds of fare
So I could be productive and get lots of work done there.
When what should occur, but for me to get bored
So I took off into the masses to see what’s in the stores.
Now standing in lines longer than my street
Why couldn’t I save shopping til late next week?
So I settle in to wait wondering how to spend my time
And realize how nice to have an app to send you this rhyme.

Merry Christmas!

I just posted a quick little survey on my Facebook page titled “If You HAD to be Laid Off.”  http://www.facebook.com/MariansFans

The idea was triggered by a blog post that I read yesterday that stated that most companies laid people off in January. The corporate philosophy was “why ruin people’s holidays?”  However, people often have much regret over holiday spending in which they would have never indulged had they known the layoff was coming.

The article stuck with me because my experience has been very different.  I have been through 3 layoffs.  All 3 were in November just before the Holiday season started.  (I worked for a financial institution all 3 times…maybe a connection?)  It’s not actually the damper on my holidays that has perturbed me most about the layoffs.  It is that NO ONE is changing jobs, so my prospects for employment are zero until after January 1.  So not only is holiday spending curtailed, but I found myself pulling my hair out trying to find ANY leads for a job.

So, I’m curious.  If YOU had to be laid off…when would you want it? Go to my page & respond via the survey.  Tell me what you think.

http://www.facebook.com/MariansFans