Rick Bell – Page 70

July 25, 2017June 29, 2023

OSHA, What Say You About Michael Phelps vs. Shark?

This week is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.

And the marquee event of this year’s Shark Week was Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps “racing” a great white shark. I say “racing” because Phelps did not race an actual shark. Instead, he swam against a CGI shark based on a previously recorded shark.

To create the CGI, the show had to record a shark swimming in a straight line for a pre-determined distance. And, since great white sharks are not known for their trainability, the job to lure the straight-line swim fell to this guy.

Yes, that is a man, paddling a pontoon bicycle, a few feet in front of a pursuing great white shark, wearing absolutely zero protection. #worstjobever

OSHA has thousands of standards that cover many of the specific safety issues that could arise in the workplace. While these standards dig into the minutia of the American workplace, I can guarantee that OSHA lacks one for “shark-race bait.”

OSHA, however, does not solely regulate of the safety of the American worker via its specific standards. It also has a General Duty Clause, which provides, “Each employer shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.” For example, OSHA used this general duty clause to cite Sea World of Florida following a trainer’s death from a killer-whale attack. If the general duty clause can reach Sea World, it can certainly reach Shark Week.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

July 25, 2017June 29, 2023

Unicorns, Meet the Dinosaurs: Leading a Fast-Growth Tech Company at Age 50

It was clear from the 2017 SaaStr conference in San Francisco that technology has not lost its luster. In only its third year, the three-day conference was a huge hit with around 10,000 post-revenue software as a service founders, executives and investors. But at the same time it had identified some disparities, such as clear underrepresentation of female founders and CEOs.

While rare at 22 percent attendance, the female executives were still remarkably more visible than an almost extinct cohort: the over-50 tech executives. These “dinosaurs” appeared to be so rare that no one even dared (or cared) to take the statistical analysis of their presence (or lack thereof).

The only anecdotal knowledge of their existence was my own experience observing the busy hallways and energy-filled sessions and looking for my own kind. An occasional nod from a like species as a sign of mutual affection and understanding was accompanied by a sheer sign of strength, confidence and pure enjoyment, as if we already knew the end of the movie and all other participants were just watching the trailer.

Do Unicorns Need Dinosaurs?
Unicorns are startup companies valued at over $1 billion. By the latest analysis, there are 197 private tech companies valued at $1 billion or more (including whisper valuations). According to Fortune, at least a dozen of those would have a chance of making it to the S&P 500 list; an impressive feat.

It is well known (and celebrated) that 14 out of the top 100 wealthiest tech CEOs are under 40 years old. At the same time, the median age of a U.S. worker is 42. In Silicon Valley, that number drops to 31, according to Bloomberg. Even more remarkable, and to put things in perspective, less than 10 executives under the age of 40 are heads of non-tech Standard & Poor’s 500 companies, according to Spencer Stuart, while the average age of all CEOs at S&P 500 companies is 53, according to The Conference Board.

Is there an executive age bias in Silicon Valley? It is not due to age discrimination. A vast majority of tech firms are socially and culturally very liberal and pride themselves on diversity.

The best way to understand it is to look at how most tech firms get started and by whom.

In most cases, there is an identified, unfulfilled need that is subject to a “disruption of an existing solution” and it triggers a professional cognitive “juice flow” by either a young marketer, or (in most cases) a young programmer who believes they are placed on this Earth to solve that problem.

Those individuals are rarely busy running large organizations and are frequently either students, or employed by other young marketers or programmers whom they want to emulate or even one-up. Once the idea is born, they have the time and passion to drag their friends out of their jobs (or dormitories) and convince them to resort back to the college all-nighters in order to produce a prototype or launch the app so the initial capital can be raised and get the company started. Very few, if any, existing mid to large-company CEOs are going to do that (unless already retired from a previous financial windfall).

In most cases, the founder(s) end up not including a more experienced business executive in their early ranks, either as an adviser or, even rarer, as their boss. Here are the most common reasons as to why this practice is so rare:

Twenty- to 30-year-old tech wizards are very self-assured and believe that their tech prowess or expertise in marketing to like cohorts will create products and market demand for the company to succeed on its own and within their own leadership.
The technology evolves so rapidly that there is a common belief that if an executive is over 40, their ability to recognize, apply and leverage the most advanced techniques and tools is outdated and therefore rendered immaterial.
Since most young founders have rarely held more than midlevel jobs at more established companies, there is a significant lack of mentoring and familiarity created between the two (sometimes three) generations of leaders.

The Case for Dinosaurs
So, are the young founders missing out? Why should they reach out to gray-haired elder statesmen and women? Here are three reasons:

Experience. Older executives have seen the market cycles, funding fads and corresponding investor mood swings. They have, in most cases, already made operational errors in burn rates and know when to step on the gas and when to brake.
Patience. As Rome was not built in a day, neither is a successful company. The best outcome for a growth company is to combine youthful exuberance with cautious optimism.
Advice and confidentiality. Since few if any tech startups are created by a parent-child team, the next best thing is a synergistic, complimentary relationship of a visionary young founder and a mature executive whose personal interests for the partnership are diverse and business interests aligned.

Every aspiring Mark Zuckerberg and Nathan Blecharczyk ought to have a Warren Buffett or Sir Richard Branson in their executive suite. Because when they are planning to create that next unicorn, they may just need a dinosaur to sustain their dream.

Sasha Poljak is the executive chairman of Nimble Software Systems, creator of Ximble.com, a staff scheduling and time tracking app software platform deployed in more than 30 countries worldwide. Poljak is a seasoned entrepreneur and angel investor who has led strategy and market development in a number of successful tech ventures.

July 24, 2017June 29, 2023

Court: Religious Accommodation Request Isn’t Protected Activity

A Minnesota federal court has ruled that an employee’s request for a religious accommodation did not qualify as protected activity to support the employee’s retaliation claim. EEOC v. North Memorial Health Care (D. Minn. 7/6/17) involves a hospital that withdrew a conditional job offer to a nurse after she disclosed that she was a Seventh-day Adventist and could not work Friday nights because of her religion.

As an accommodation, the employee offered to find a substitute for Fridays on which she was scheduled, and that she would work if she could not find one. The hospital denied her request, and, ultimately, the EEOC filed suit on her behalf claiming that the hospital retaliated against her because of her religious accommodation request.

In dismissing the EEOC’s claim, the court applied strictly interpreted Title VII’s retaliation clause.

Under Title VII, an employee engages in protected activity when she either (1)”oppose[s] any practice made an unlawful employment practice by [Title VII]” or “ma[kes] a charge, testifie[s], assist[s], or participate[s] in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under [Title VII]. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a). …

Applying the plain language of the statute, the court concludes that requesting a religious accommodation is not a protected activity. Under the opposition clause, a plaintiff must communicate her opposition to a practice that she believes, in good faith, is unlawful. … [M]erely requesting a religious accommodation is not the same as opposing the allegedly unlawful denial of a religious accommodation. …

Neither is [the employee]’s accommodation request protected activity under the participation clause. There is no evidence that [she] “made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing” prior to her termination.

While I applaud this court’s strict reading of the retaliation statute, employers should not view this lone district court case as a mandate empowering them to deny accommodation requests free from risk. The law on this issue is far from settled. Instead of using this case as a justification to deny an accommodation request, employers should view it as a reason to have an open dialogue with a religious employee requesting an accommodation.

How should this case have played out?

Employer: “Nurses must work every other Friday night.”
Employee: “My religion prevents me from working Friday nights.”
Employer: “Then you cannot work here.”
Employee: “What if I find a substitute for the Fridays that I am scheduled, and I’ll work any Friday night shifts for which I can’t find one.”
Employer: “Let’s give that a try.”

No harm to the employer; it has its Friday nights covered. And, if the employee fails to locate coverage and fails to show at work, it becomes an attendance issue, not an accommodation issue. At that point, the employer can then discipline or terminate without fear of retaliation liability for denying the accommodation request, no matter what the law says.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

July 24, 2017June 29, 2023

What Companies Get Wrong About Worker Happiness

From in-house yoga to free Netflix subscriptions and office game rooms, businesses are spending big bucks trying to keep their workers happy.

Despite the proliferation of offbeat perks, many employees are not genuinely happy or immersed in their work. According to a new Gallup survey, 70 percent of American workers aren’t engaged with their jobs.

As a growing body of research makes clear, fun company events or quirky fringe benefits won’t accomplish much if workers don’t feel satisfied, appreciated and proud of their work. For companies whose success depends on building a talented, motivated workforce, a more comprehensive approach to employee well-being isn’t a luxury — it’s a basic necessity.

The benefits of a happy workforce are difficult to deny. For starters, happy employees tend to work harder — and more effectively — than their unhappy peers.

According to a survey by Horizons Workforce Consulting, nearly two-thirds of happy employees regularly devote extra effort to their work. Research by Gallup has found that engaged employees are up to 21 percent more productive than those who aren’t engaged at work.

Dissatisfaction with a job, on the other hand, can take a toll on one’s health. Happy employees take 10 percent fewer sick days than unhappy colleagues, according to the consulting firm Happiness Works.

The company also estimates that happier work environments reduce employee turnover by 10 percent.

Add it all up, and it’s clear that businesses can’t afford to treat worker happiness as an afterthought.

Nevertheless, even companies willing to prioritize employee happiness have a hard time finding strategies that work. My own organization, Robert Half, discovered as much during a recent survey of 12,000 workers across the U.S. and Canada that we conducted with Happiness Works. But we also identified several effective ways that companies can boost happiness within their workforces.

That process starts by hiring workers who fit well within a company’s culture and mission. Our research found that the top driver of worker happiness, by far, is a sense of pride in one’s organization. Workers who are proud of their employer are three times more likely to be happy on the job.

When workers share in a company’s vision they find meaning in their work and enjoy a sense of accomplishment — all of which contribute significantly to overall happiness.

By the same token, businesses must be willing to turn down job candidates who aren’t good fits for their organizations even if they’re highly qualified. Whether your firm fights global poverty or builds enterprise software, a worker who isn’t committed to a company’s vision is unlikely to find joy in their work.

Fair treatment is also an essential component of employee happiness — and an area where many companies have room to improve. Our research showed that just 58 percent of men and 52 percent of women believe they are paid fairly.

Regardless of whether these feelings are justified, they certainly detract from employee well-being. Addressing this issue can be as simple as establishing clear guidelines for promotions and raises. Businesses can also provide opportunities for workers to communicate honestly with their managers when they feel disrespected or unfairly treated.

Giving workers the space to thrive outside the office is yet another way businesses can promote happiness. One-third of respondents to our survey were unsatisfied with their work-life balance. To address this issue, managers can encourage workers to leave the office on time and refrain from unnecessary after-work emails and calls.

Finally, celebrating employees’ successes goes a long way toward boosting well-being. Our research identified the feeling of being appreciated as one of the top two contributors to professional happiness.

In other words, don’t underestimate the power of a heartfelt “thank you” to raise a worker’s spirits.

Creative perks are great. But 30 minutes of on-site yoga can’t make up for 40 hours a week spent on joyless, unrewarding work.

Paul McDonald is senior executive director at global staffing firm Robert Half. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

July 20, 2017June 29, 2023

Finding Solutions: This Is What the Interactive Process Is Supposed to Look Like

Last week, my son Donovan turned 9. Since we were in California during his birthday, we’ve had a bit of a delayed celebration back home. Since D-man has Celiac Disease and cannot eat anything with any gluten, he wanted an ice cream birthday cake. For him, however, ice cream can be tricky. Even if the ice cream itself contains zero gluten in its ingredients, it can still make him ill if it becomes cross-contaminated.

Enter Mitchell’s Homemade Ice Cream (which is not only Cleveland’s best ice cream, but also happens to be some of the best ice cream anywhere). Mitchell’s takes its allergens seriously. All you have to do is mention a gluten allergy, and the servers know exactly what to do to eliminate any risk of cross-contamination.

They not only sanitize the scooper, but also open a fresh, untouched container of the flavor-of-choice. For these reasons, we have as much confidence as one reasonably can have that Donovan can enjoy his ice cream without ingesting any accidental gluten.

When we celebrated my daughter Norah’s birthday in May, we also ordered an ice cream cake from Mitchell’s. At that time, we advised of the gluten issue, and they prepared the cake with zero cake base, all ice cream.

Since May, however, Mitchell’s has discontinued its prior practice of gluten-free, ice-cream-only cakes. Thus, when we called earlier this week to order Donovan’s cake, the response was, “We don’t do that anymore.”

Unwilling to accept “no” for an answer, I asked for the store manager to give me a call. He explained that his hands were tied, and that corporate decided that a missing cake base allowed for too many irregularities in shape. Thus, no more gluten-free cakes.

Still unwilling to accept a flat “no”, I asked for the phone number of Pete Mitchell, one of the company’s founders, owners, and executives. With phone number in hand, I left a message for Pete, explaining my dilemma, asking that he make an exception for Donovan. Within a couple of hours, the store manager with whom I had previously spoken, Adam, called me back.

He said that Pete Mitchell had received my message while on. Pete called Adam, and they discussed a possible solution, which Adam relayed to me. Instead of making a gluten-free cake, they could clean and sanitize a pie tin and craft a gluten-free birthday “pie”.

Problem solved. Satisfied customers. A happy birthday boy.

And, an employment-law lesson to boot. When dealing with a disabled employee, the ADA requires that you engage in what is called the “interactive process”. This process is one of communication and cooperative problem solving; you must talk to your employee to identify appropriate reasonable accommodations and implement one, if available and without imposing an undue hardship, that will enable the employee the perform the essential functions of the job. The failure to engage in this interactive process (even if you view it as an act of futility) is, in and of itself, a violation of the ADA.

Don’t take the easy way out with your disabled employees when they ask for accommodations. Talk to your disabled employees and see if there is an available solution. Even if you are legally right (and, the odds are good that you won’t be), you will leave the employee feeling offended and upset. Those feelings breed discontent, which, in turn, breed lawsuits.

It would have been easy for Mitchell’s to keep saying “no” until I went away. Thankfully it didn’t, and crafted a solution that fit within its new policy and provided Donovan the gluten-free ice cream cake he wanted.

So thank you Pete Mitchell and Adam, the Strongsville store manager, your flexibility and accommodating nature made a 9-year-old boy very happy.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

July 20, 2017September 5, 2023

People Don’t Take HR Seriously; Here’s Why That’s Dangerous

Talent is what separates good companies from great companies, so why does the team in charge of managing and developing talent — human resources — get less respect that other core business functions?

I’d offer that the modern-day perception of HR is rooted in myths and stereotypes that simply do not apply to progressive companies that understand the critical role of people development when it comes to the future growth and success of their businesses. For this reason we’ve seen companies like Bonobos (recently acquired by WalMart) appoint chief people officers, and startups like Slice strip the HR verbage completely with roles like head of people.

The move from “human resources” to “people” is subtle yet significant, as it indicates a shifting understanding of the core mission of employee support within an organization. In many ways, the objectives have been simplified — keep the best people happy, motivated and engaged — as the talent landscape and technologies available to manage people proliferate and become increasingly challenging to navigate.

Here are a few outdated perceptions of HR and why they are dangerous to the future success of your business.

“HR doesn’t contribute to the bottom line.”

Without a direct P&L, HR gets no love. Sure, it’s difficult to make a direct link between revenue or business impact and the activities of a talent team, but the connection is there. Engaged employees are not only more pleasant to be around; they are also 22 percent more productive than their disengaged counterparts. In other words, happy employees get things done.

A recent Gallup poll revealed that 70 percent of U.S. employees are not engaged at work. Put a different way, companies that are not proactively taking steps to improve employee engagement are sitting back while productivity falters. They are leaving money on the table. Failing to see the business benefit of promoting an engaged company culture hurts the bottom line, whereas leveraging HR as the primary resource for building up a strong culture will have a tangible ROI when measured by output and the ability to attract and retain your very best people.

“HR makes things harder than they need to be.”

HR tends to have a tough go at it within an organization. From minor inconveniences like changes to seating arrangements to layoffs, HR is often made to be the bearer of bad news. We all know it’s not fair to “kill the messenger,” but since the beginning of modern workplaces, HR has been taking the fall for decisions that are oftentimes made outside of their own jurisdiction. Of course, this is often a strategic and necessary decision that’s made to protect senior leadership, but is it really fair to believe that HR exists to make our lives harder? I’d argue that it’s not.

In fact, at companies with healthy corporate cultures, the opposite is true. HR exists to make our lives easier and better. They exist to improve how we feel about our roles, our colleagues and our teams. They are here to listen to our feedback, and then find solutions for turning that feedback into action where it makes sense. Employee intelligence tools are making it easier than ever for talent teams to surface transparent (anonymous even!) feedback on an ongoing basis, which can be used to drive real change at an organization. At these companies, acting on regular feedback is flipping the traditional stereotype of “HR as the bad guys” on its head.

“HR primarily focuses on admin tasks and do not have a strategic function.”

It’s true that some of the more traditional functions of HR, such as managing payroll and benefits, are being replaced — at least partially — by technologies. So, are HR practitioners at risk fall victim to future job automation? In this narrow, admin-focused view of the role, I am afraid to say they most definitely are. Artificial intelligence will soon streamline most people management functions of HR, but the good news for talent professionals is that more time will be freed up to focus on people development.

And when we really think about it, isn’t developing and growing your best talent, and building a healthy and transparent corporate culture, the single most important responsibility of HR practitioners? One area where companies can improve is educating junior to mid-level managers in leadership.

According to the Harvard Business Review, most organizations wait a decade to offer any type of leadership training to their managers, creating a gap that can breed disengagement and attrition. After all, the No. 1 reason people quit their jobs: bad managers.

In a widely circulated HBR piece from a few years back, author and leadership consultant Ram Charan called for a splitting in two of HR as a function. He advocates a model in which the administrative function of HR forms its own unit, reporting to the CFO. The remaining function, reporting to the CEO, would primarily focus on leadership and development.

As the administrative function of HR is increasingly becoming streamlined by technologies designed to make people management more efficient, organizational leadership should consider re-engineering their teams to staff the right people against people development.

This requires appointing visionary talent leadership who possess the capabilities to train and educate employees within a transparent, inclusive corporate culture.

David Mendlewicz is the CEO and co-founder of New York-based Butterfly, a chat-bot that offers real-time leadership training and supports managers based on their team’s feedback and surveys. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

July 19, 2017June 29, 2023

No Such Thing as ‘Fair’ at Work

This past school year I had the pleasure of assisting in my daughter’s fifth-grade class as a room parent.

For the uninitiated, room parent is a fancy title for a classroom aide. We assist the teachers with classroom events and facilitate communications between the homeroom teachers and the parents for volunteers, supplies, etc. As the school year wound down and the kids approached lower-school graduation, my room parent duties expanded with a request from the teachers in regards to an end-of-year party, allegedly in the planning stages by someone other than me.

The request, however, was not for my party-planning assistance, but instead to send a note to all parents asking that any such off-campus, private parties be inclusive of all, and that no children be excluded, as word had spread of this “invite only” party, and some of the excluded children were hurt.

Equal treatment for all? Sounds fair, right? But is anything about the workplace fair? What does fair even mean, and, more to the point, does the law require it at work?

Nothing in the law requires the workplace to be fair. It only requires that you treat similarly situated people of different protected groups similarly. Equality across protected classes, however, is not the same as fairness.

Yet if society expects fairness, then unfairness will cause lawsuits, and members of the same fairness-expecting society will comprise the judges and juries that will decide the legality of your terminations. As a result, some basis of fundamental fairness should ground each employment decision you make.

What does fundamental fairness in the workplace look like?

Don’t ambush your employees. They should understand why they are being fired via prior discussions, prior performance reviews and prior discipline.

The punishment must fit the crime. Do you really need to fire the employee who is late for work occasionally? Maybe, if he or she has been repeatedly warned. But the first time? If the punishment far exceeds the misconduct, the employee will look for a reason for the mistreatment and unfairness, such as race, sex, age or disability. Do not provide an impetus to look past the stated reason. Alternatively, a sufficiently serious offense (e.g., sexual harassment, theft, violence) may support a termination on the spot. Otherwise, however, employees should have an ample and bona fide opportunity to correct their misbehavior.

Have documentation to support your decision. Do you have a performance review, written warning or other contemporaneous notes in a personnel file to support your decision? If not, it’s best to wait until you do. And, no, this is not an excuse to create a paper trail after the fact. Documentation should be contemporaneous to the misconduct.

Be consistent. Do you handle similar disciplinary problems similarly and to the same degree? If not, those that suffer the worst will ask why, and they may do it via their attorney in a lawsuit.

To make this concept of workplace fairness even simpler, do unto your employees as you would have your employer do unto you. If you treat your employees as you would want to be treated (or as you would want your wife, kids, parents, etc. to be treated), most employment cases would never be filed, and most that are filed would end in the employer’s favor. Juries are comprised of many more employees than employers, and if jurors feel that the plaintiff was treated the same way the jurors would want to be treated (i.e., fairly), the jury will be much less likely to find in the employee’s favor.

As for the party-fairness issue in my daughter’s class, here was my response:

“I believe that a party host should have discretion whom to invite and not invite. No one should feel obligated to invite the entire grade if they don’t want a gradewide party at their private event. To go one step further, if they don’t want my daughter to attend, and only after-the-fact invite her out of a sense of obligation, then I don’t want her there and would strongly counsel her against attending (and I think she’d agree with me). As awesome as I know she is, I am not naive enough to think that she is on the ‘friend’ list of everyone in the 5th grade (nor is she).”

Sounds fair to me.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

July 11, 2017August 31, 2023

Beyond Great: Features of Today’s Legendary Companies

While solid economic and financial performance may be an indicator of a “great” company, legendary status isn’t solely based on stock returns.

Companies such as Zappos, Nordstrom Inc., USAA, Costco and Lego stand out as legendary brands in the marketplace because they obsess about both the customer and the employee experience. Their customers recognize and celebrate them, and their employees engage and act as spokespeople for the business. In this sense, customers and employees alike become loyal promoters of the brand, and it is the combination of the two that makes for a legendary status.

There are five characteristics that distinguish great and legendary companies: Others Tell Stories; Customer Value Focused; Live the Purpose; Promoting Stakeholders; and Transcend Industry. Let’s take a deeper dive into each distinctive characteristic.

Others Tell Stories

The word “great” refers to being big in size, long in duration, or above average in quality. The word “legendary” means something is remarkable enough to be famous. Legendary goes beyond great. A business has a legendary status when customers begin to tell — and retell — stories about their unique and positive experiences with the company.

Zappos has become known for exceptional customer service. The company trains its call center representatives to “go above and beyond” for every customer without worrying about the length of time they spend on the phone. They ask representatives to develop a personal and emotional connection with each customer. This high standard was showcased when Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, was with a group of hungry people late one evening in Santa Monica, California. Food service was no longer available at their hotel. They cajoled a woman in the group (not a Zappos employee) to call the Zappos call center, which is open 24/7, to find the names of local food establishments still open and willing to deliver at that hour. After a bit of understandable confusion and brief research, the representative provided the names of five pizza places still open, according to a 2010 Harvard Business Review article by Hsieh. He created a Zappos story with this experience — one which is being told and retold all over the world and has become free marketing for the company.

Adult fans of Lego, the Danish toy company, have organized themselves into groups. These fans know much more about Lego bricks and systems than the average customer and typically much more than Lego employees. Known as AFOL, they show incredible passion for Lego by constantly posting creations and ideas online. Members meet up at self-organized user groups and even have an annual exhibition called BrickCon. Most of the hundreds of millions of Google search hits and tens of thousands of YouTube videos on Lego come from this fan base. This is a good example of how customers share stories and promote a brand’s business.

Customer Value Focused

Companies that know their customers have a significant advantage over competitors. They educate their employees on the specific needs of their target audiences and provide functional product offerings that offer exceptional significance and value. By understanding their targeted customers, legendary companies develop the opportunity to create an emotional connection with customers by speaking to their needs and giving them a positive experience.

USAA, a financial and insurance services company, serves primarily military personnel and their families. USAA offers a wide array of banking and insurance services, supplying members of the institution with a single relationship to manage, thereby avoiding hassles and saving time.

More importantly, by speaking the language of the military personnel they serve, USAA provides a sense of affiliation and belonging as well as familiarity, which reduces the anxiety common to banking and insurance relationships. By considering both the functional and emotional needs of their customers, USAA focuses in on providing high value that has resulted in a much deeper relationship with its customers.

Companies like clothier TOMS take it a step beyond the emotional and functional elements of value to further connect with their customers through benefiting others. Research by Bain & Co. and published in the Harvard Business Review in 2016 correlated the elements of value provided to customer groups with the six levels of human needs on psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, self-actualization).

The research found that more elements of value offered to customers resulted in higher levels of loyalty and higher levels of revenue growth. Emotional and functional elements of value typically address needs on the first three levels of critical human needs. Providing value elements that speak to higher level needs can create an even stronger connection with customers. By giving a pair of shoes away for every pair purchased, TOMS provides a sense of serving others that fulfills the upper levels in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and attracts a specific, loyal and activated customer group.

Live the Purpose

Legendary companies are driven by an all-encompassing purpose. They nurture everyone involved with the company — both internally and externally — to adopt that purpose. Internally, legendary companies engage and emotionally connect their employees in their purpose, converting them into voluntary “spokespeople” for the company. Externally, customers become promoters for the business when they tell others of their positive experiences and personal connection to the company’s purpose.

As a toy company, Lego’s purpose and vision are about human possibility. The company wants to “inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow” and “invent the future of play.” Lego realizes that its success hinges on motivated employees that are inspired by the company purpose and feel engaged in the strategy. To understand how this motivation manifests internally, the company conducts an annual employee survey. This survey includes a question, measuring the degree employees are willing to recommend Lego as an employer. This question is called the Employee Net Promoter Score, or eNPS, and Lego uses this metric to benchmark employee engagement and satisfaction. With a stated goal of making Lego “the best place to work in the world,” the survey helps Lego determine the underlying drivers of employee engagement and satisfaction. Lego considers the voice of employees as important as the voice of customers.

Nordstrom is another example of a company’s purpose being both internally and externally embraced. Nordstrom’s purpose is “to deliver the best possible shopping experience, helping customers possess style — not just buy fashion.” The company provides “superior customer service and product quality” in the brick and mortar retail business as well as online. Personalized sales associates research their customers to better assist them. Customers, in turn, are quick to share those experiences in their communities.

Promoting Stakeholders

Legendary companies pay careful attention to how they are viewed by their customers and employees. They aim to have engaged employees and loyal customers. Engaged employees are likely to be active spokespeople for the company, and loyal customers will promote the business to others. Companies with one, but not the other, won’t attain legendary status.

The Net Promoter Score is the best quantitative measure of how customers perceive a company or brand. “Great” companies score above 55, which is recognized as a desirable rating, and companies that score above 70 are a rarity. Very few companies achieve this level of loyalty from their customers. To complicate matters, maintaining loyalty requires constant attention since the NPS — a measure of customers’ perception — can shift quickly. USAA had a NPS score of 75 in 2015, while the general financial industry averages around 35. Zappos’ recent scores have been in the 50s; the retailer was recently outranked in NPS by its parent company, Amazon. In 2016, Nordstrom scored the highest of all “officially measured” consumer brands with an amazing NPS of 80. They “beat” Costco, which scored 79 the prior year.

In a “State of the American Workplace” report from 2013, Gallup pollsters concluded that 70 percent of the American workforce is disengaged from the company that employs them. Disengaged employees may passively, if not actively, speak negatively about the business and consequently take part in sabotaging its reputation. Instead of focusing on employee satisfaction, legendary companies concentrate on creating employee engagement by instilling a culture that is aligned with the company’s purpose. Employees in these companies are proud to represent the business, creating invaluable and positive ripple effects in the marketplace. Metrics to monitor the level of engagement are now frequently used, including surveys that ask questions such as, “How likely are you to recommend employment at the company to a friend?” Glassdoor allows current and former employees to review online the companies (and CEOs) for which they work or have worked. While skewed by reviews from former employees, the website’s scoring does provide an insight into company culture and how likely employees are to recommend the company to a friend. Scores above 60 indicate the company has a “great” workplace culture.

Legendary companies differentiate themselves in the marketplace and redefine, or at least reprioritize, market factors to transcend their industry. This is often at odds with industry best practices, which homogenize instead of differentiate. A best practices approach can prevent deep listening to the customer and hinder learning, which makes it vital to scrutinize the limitations that come with such an approach. Legendary companies take deliberate chances on investing in factors that differentiate them in the marketplace.

Costco’s refund policy and rewards programs are legendary. The company allows for returns of anything purchased (with a few exceptions) at any time for a full refund without a receipt as long as you have a membership. Costco calls it their “Risk-Free 100 Percent Satisfaction Guarantee.” This benefit combined with the cash back rewards from using the store’s branded credit card or being an executive member is seen by customers as an investment in service that surpasses the industry.

Likewise, Zappos was one of the first to introduce free shipping and free returns of their products. Despite the associated cost, this offer differentiated Zappos in the marketplace and cemented its legendary position among online retailers.

The Path from Great to Legendary

There is no linear path to follow to achieve legendary status as a company. Legendary companies break with the status quo to transcend their industry and receive societal recognition. They dare to ask questions that fundamentally change industry paradigms.

The path starts with a relentless obsession to bring utility, value and service to customers and employees. Legendary companies deliver quality products and go above and beyond what is typically required in terms of service and customer care. They make an emotional connection so the relationship with their customers goes beyond satisfaction to a real sense of affection. Employees in these companies are happy and engaged.

While the path to becoming a legendary business is neither linear nor easy, both the journey and the destination are well worth the effort.

Soren Eilertson is an executive consultant, adviser and an adjunct faculty professor of business strategy at Pepperdine University’s Graziado School of Business management. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

July 11, 2017June 29, 2023

Some Constructive Criticism on Wellness

[vc_row][vc_column] New York Magazine just published an interesting — and fairly critical — article called “How Wellness Became an Epidemic.”

I’ve been thinking about it for the past week. Now, I’ll note that this article focused on the wellness industry at large and not just corporate wellness, but I still think there were some solid takeaways for employers.

Here’s a paragraph that stuck out to me:

“It can be easy to be cynical about wellness, about the $66 jade eggs that Gwyneth Paltrow suggests inserting in your ‘yoni.’ There’s something grotesque about this industry’s emerging at the moment when the most basic health care is still being denied to so many in America and is at risk of being snatched away from millions more. But what’s perhaps most striking about wellness’s ascendancy is that it’s happening because, in our increasingly bifurcated world, even those who do have access to pretty good (and sometimes quite excellent, if quite expensive) traditional health care are left feeling, nonetheless, incredibly unwell.”

It hits the major beats of the article, mainly that A) it can seem like in this industry, wellness is something that can be bought, if only you have the wealth to buy it; and B) in today’s current health care environment, both the haves and the have-nots are feeling unwell in some way and looking for the cure, sometimes in very different places, whether that’s through alternative or traditional treatment.

It’s also worth noting that author Amy Larocca C) entertainingly has a huge problem with Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, a “modern lifestyle brand” launched in 2008. Larocca finds much of this advice silly. For example, Goop recommends a vitamin protocol called High School Genes for women who find it harder to lose weight as they age. As Larocca points out, “i.e., ALL WOMEN.” I would add: all people!

I have a few responses related to the employer market. First, do you think “feeling unwell” is an epidemic in the workforce? My perspective is probably skewed because of the articles I read and the people I talk to about wellness, whether it’s mental health, meditation or sleep.

From this point of view, it would definitely appear that wellness is an epidemic. But as much as employers push wellness programs, utilization can be low. A lot of reasons might play into this, but there’s one I never hear about: employees who already feel well enough and/or deal with various stresses on their own.

They might not be interested. They might take care of themselves in their own way and not rely on their employer. They may independently track their steps or their mood but feel no need to share that on an app with all their co-workers. They’re doing all right on their own.

Obviously, even these people have stresses in their life. Which brings me to my second point.

Haven’t people always been stressed, only now there’s a whole industry focused on dealing with those stresses? Having highs and lows in any area of health or well-being, whether that’s physical, financial or mental, is the human experience.

On one hand, it’s great that the wellness movement is aiming to help people through these lows. It’s better than the alternative, like not so long ago when even acknowledging mental health problems was taboo. On the other hand, to quote this New York Magazine article again, “It can be easy to be cynical about wellness” when companies try to sell you overpriced solutions you don’t need.

To put this in business-speak, yes, employer-sponsored wellness programs can help a lot of people who are struggling with some health issue. But relatively healthy employees who see these programs as a solution they just don’t need at this point in their lives? Just let them be.

Is it moral to push wellness programs on employees who feel well? Are there some cases where pushing a program on someone can cross the line from simple corporate communication to trying to force a solution on the disinterested? I’d hope corporate wellness doesn’t cross that line and try to create problems where there are none.

I’m optimistic that wellness programs can do a lot of good for companies and employees, otherwise I would not write this blog. I’ve spoken to many HR practitioners at companies who have done very impressive things with their wellness initiatives, whether that’s educating employees on drug prices, teaching about proper nutrition or offering healthy breakfasts in the morning. There’s a lot of excellence happening in this space.

But it’s worth being critical about an industry that has grown so quickly through some means that don’t seem quite kosher, at least in the commercial wellness space. Like convincing people they need things they don’t need.

Employees already have natural stresses in their life. They don’t need anything added to that unnecessarily.

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

July 7, 2017June 29, 2023

Take it Easy on the Boss; There’s a World to Save

HR, I bet you’ve grown weary of people telling you how to do your job.

I’m not talking about your corporate executives, or IT geeks and their annoying heavy sighs or those eternally optimistic yet preachy internal communications people. No, I’m talking about the know-it-all thought leaders and consultants who have written the hundreds of books scattered around my office. You know, evolve or die, understanding EQ, and how much better off you’ll be building a team of teams (yeah, I don’t get that one either).

As I scroll through my 40,000-plus deleted emails there are strategies for networking success, tips on the “new” workplace-training model and dire warnings that your department will combust if you don’t beef up cybersecurity (OK, I made that up, sort of). If I had the patience to scroll past the first 5,000 or so I’d probably come across best practices in building better mousetraps.

And despite being a decade into it, there’s no shortage of millennial management tricks even though these generationally obsessed experts likely couldn’t get their own millennials to clean their bedrooms no matter how much they assure them they are more than just a cog in the housekeeping wheel. Chalk it up to the lack of a fun, employee-centric, team-like environment around the ol’ homestead.

You didn’t ask, HR; you seldom do. Nonetheless, there is more advice, assistance and admonishments available these days than you can shake a carrot and stick at.

So instead of badgering you with more truly meaningless generational cohort banter, let me offer one little sliver of perspective.

Be grateful you aren’t your boss.

Now I realize that bosses also are on the receiving end of a lot of unsolicited advice.

Unlike you in HR, who really must do it all, from stocking the supply room when Post-it notes run low to assessing the latest iteration of performance review forms (should 1 or 5 indicate strongly agree or strongly disagree?), bosses get an entirely different set of uninvited topics dished out for them.

It’s not only on them to change the workplace, bosses are being told that it’s their duty to reshape the world as well. That’s one heavy load to shoulder.

Take health care, for instance. I have no doubt the vast majority of bosses want to provide a plan that takes care of their workers and their families. It’s a big cost — possibly their largest expense, next to that constantly dwindling supply of Post-its. But we’re far enough down this well-traveled roller-coaster ride that is the government-sponsored health care debate to know that healthy employees make better workers.

And that’s precisely why your boss is being tabbed to enter the fray. Time was, health care was your domain. And in many ways it still is.

But consider that it’s the bosses, not you, who provide nearly 170 million people with their health care insurance. That’s half the U.S. population! And there are plenty of people harping on your boss to step up and dictate how health care is funded and delivered.

In addition to calls to fix racial tensions, widen organizational diversity and implement pay equality there’s also a groundswell of support for bosses to be the planet’s caretakers. In the wake of President Trump’s eye-rolling move to join such progressive-minded nations as Nicaragua and Syria in rebuffing the Paris Climate Accord, the chorus of “employers must protect the planet!” has escalated from a whisper to a lung-burning scream.

Your boss is no voice in the wilderness, either. Plenty of corporate captains are tackling that task already. Tesla’s Elon Musk, GE’s outgoing chief Jeff Immelt and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein are committed to, as Apple’s Tim Cook wrote in a memo to his employees, “protect the environment.”

I mean, this is heady stuff. We’re not talking about disrupted supply chains and building organizational agility and resilience here. Solve the nation’s health care woes AND be the earth’s savior at the same time? That’ll have your boss pining for the days when busting unions and skirting ethics laws were their biggest challenges.

Look HR, I know you have a lot on your plate. But take it from someone who’s made a living out of telling people that “you should do fill-in-the-blank:” Go easy on your boss. There’s an ailing health care system to cure and a mighty messy environment that needs saving.

And if you want to hand off a less taxing responsibility, let them select whether 5 or 1 means strongly agree. The diversion will do them good.

Rick Bell is Workforce’s editorial director. Comment below or email him at rbell@workforce.com