/U/People

Your values set expectations for how your employees engage with customers, partners, and one another in their pursuit of your company’s goals.

But setting core values, then failing to live by them, is just as bad as not having them to begin with. Values lose their credibility when you (as the business owner) talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. You need to be committed.

This blog was inspired by our experience in developing the values that drive Employment Hero:

We’re game changers and inventors

We’re not interested in following outdated processes. Instead, we are inventors and game changers, challenging existing assumptions and creating more efficient ways to get things done.

We’re team players

We’re a diverse mix of personalities, talents, skills and experience. Together we’re an unbreakable team of players, all working towards the same goals.

We aim for customer service excellence

We are committed to offering the best-designed solution and service for customers combined with the best discounts for their staff.

We’re creative and imaginative

We never stop imagining what it might be like to be in our clients’ shoes and tailor the best service to meet those unique needs.

For us, these values inspire each and every one of us to take our work to a higher level.

I’ve outlined five simple steps on how to create business values that set your business up for success:

1. Handpick your team

Involve the right stakeholders in the creation of your values – but keep your team small.

Depending on the size of your company, the team you choose could look very different.

• If you’re running a startup or very small business, you may only have one or two full-time staff to count on, in which case the key players should be yourself and your other long-tenured employees.
• If your company is a little larger, you might want to involve all senior managers or the executive team.

Whoever you choose, make sure everyone is committed to the process of forming your company values and willing to model the behaviour to the rest of your business.

2. Identify what’s important to your business

Set up a time for a brainstorm with the team, and ask team members to prepare by identifying what they think is important at your company, and what they think is unique about working there. To get the creative juices flowing, look at values from other businesses that have a similar culture to your own.

The point is for everyone to come prepared with their ideas about what they love about working at your business, and (possibly even more important) what they don’t like. Once you are all in the same room, you can discuss each of the likes and don’t likes and why each is important.

3. Collaborate and refine

Take all the ideas you’ve collectively brainstormed and combine the similar ones. If you’re anything like us, you’ll find as many as three quarters of the ideas are variations of the same theme. So, you should be able to narrow down your list to a more manageable number.

Further refine this list by ensuring these values reflect the traits your company can honestly claim today (and not those it’s aspiring to in the future).

Then write a sentence or two to describe each one to provide more clarity. Make sure your descriptors are short.

4. Try them on for size

When you’re happy with your initial values, don’t rush them out. Rather, put them all on the back burner for a few weeks. Write them up into a one-page document, share them with the core team and continue to get their feedback.

The idea here is to let this list of values settle, and get a feel for what they really mean to each of you in your roles on a daily basis. Get feedback, and, after a couple of rounds of edits, only then seek employee buy-in.

5. Seek employee input

Remember, while it’s your company and your values, you need to let your people have their say and tweak them accordingly. So ask your employees for their input. Often their observations and feedback will be coming from a very different perspective than your own. So, treat it all as valuable learning.

If your company is big enough, conduct focus groups with employees from different departments and job levels.

Rolling out business values

Of course, once you’ve finalised your list of company values, as much as you may want to set them in stone, you need to do more than putting up a poster in your kitchen to make them real.

Once you have the final version, you need a commitment from your management team to live these values every day at work. Everyone needs to walk the walk.

Think about introducing them at an all staff meeting so you can walk everyone through the journey and why it’s so important for everyone to embrace them.

Your values also need to be a prominent part of your workplace. For example, think about adorning the walls throughout your office with your company values as an ever-present reminder.

But it doesn’t stop there. Make your values an innate part of your business through:

• Training: Teach your company values through training and make sure they’re embedded in your onboarding process.
• Recognition: Recognise and reward values-centric behaviours through spot-bonuses, giving employees the opportunity to nominate co-workers for successfully living the values, and giving written recognition in newsletters or as a personal note.
• Hiring: Selecting candidates thatculturally align with your company is just as important as finding candidates that match your required experience and skill level.

And while it’s easy to see why these benefits help attract top talent, it’s not so clear whether employee benefit programs can really help to retain employees, too. After all, will a gym membership stop you from leaving a job (or manager) that you hate? Here we’ll examine the role of employee benefits in attracting and retaining employees.

What are employee benefits?

Simply put, employee benefits are the non-wage benefits that make up your employee’s compensation package. But they are so much more than a way to compensate employees. Employee benefits actually reflect your company’s culture and how you value your employees.

How do employee benefits programs attract employees?

Job seekers do their research in advance and take employee benefits into account when weighing up similar opportunities. The only right way is to offer choice and take the time to find out so you spend your company’s benefit dollars wisely. There are no right or wrong answers. It all depends on what your employee groups value.

For example, if you have a large number of younger Millennials on staff, offering financial literacy help and support to pay off student loans may be a winner while older Millennials may be more compelled by on-site child care or help with child care fees. Whereas, older employees may value scheduling flexibility, or help with financial and retirement planning.

How do employee benefits programs aid staff retention?

While employee benefits can certainly help with staff retention, you can’t mask poor workplace culture by offering a few employee benefits in place of creating positive workplace culture.

Benefits only work when employees are motivated and appropriately challenged by the work they do, and feel that their work is valued. Through professional development for instance, employee benefits can underpin an employee’s tenure in your business.

If this increases their stay in your company from two years to four, that’s not only good for the business, it’s great for your clients and for other employees. By increasing retention rates, you reduce the often considerable time, effort and costs required to replace outgoing staff.

How are companies using employee benefits?

Companies that invest in employees by offering a wide range of employee benefits see the positive effects on the bottom line in terms of increased productivity, improved morale, and greater engagement.

So, even though research conducted by Survey Sampling International (SSI) for SEEK shows 59% of Australians favour flexible working arrangements as themost desired employee benefit, leading companies continue to raise the bar. Recognised as the very best place to work in Australia in LinkedIn’s annual survey, PwC offers employee benefits aplenty. These include flexible working, 18 weeks’ parental leave, no dress code, free coffee with full-time baristas on site, health and fitness perks, and professional memberships among many other perks.

The professional services firm also encourages employees to personalise their working style. As their website says, “From meetings on treadmills, to connecting remotely using Google Hangouts, or simply playing with Lego on a much-needed mental health break, you’ll completely re-invent the way your work, for the better!”

Elsewhere, employee benefits programs offered by big firms feature an endlessly innovative line up of special treats. Qantas offers staff up to 90% off flights, Salesforce employees receive six days of paid volunteer time off a year, as well as $1,000 a year to donate to a charity of their choice.

Among its many employee benefits, Google also has its gourmet cafes offering multiple free meals every week and world class baristas on site who pour coffee just the way employees like it. Meanwhile, Deloitte offers generous sabbatical programs. Employees can take an unpaid, one-month sabbatical for any reason, or they can take a paid three- to six-month sabbatical to pursue personal or professional growth opportunities. The list goes on.

So, why do these successful companies go way beyond simply offering flexible working and invest in highly compelling employee benefits? It’s all about helping to keep staff happy and productive, and in doing so creating an environment where employees want to work. One that recognises people don’t just come to work to make money. They need purpose and meaning. They need to feel valued.

Use employee benefits to support a strong workplace culture, not to create one

You can’t supplement a poor work culture with employee benefits. But you can use employee benefits to reinforce your company culture and show your employees that they truly matter.

This post offers tips and insights to help you do just that. Our hope is by the end of the article, you and your staff will be more prepared to handle difficult shoppers.

Let’s dive in.

1. Have the right mental attitude

Take a few seconds to breathe and put yourself in the right mindset before dealing with the customer. Remind yourself that the shopper isn’t necessarily mad at you, but rather, they’re miffed about the situation.

Having the right mental attitude will help prevent your buttons from getting pushed and enable you to respond in a calm and professional manner.

Ricky Marton, founder of Be Robin Hood says that the most important thing to do when dealing with troublesome shoppers is to not let them see that they’re getting to you. “Once they realize they aren’t in charge, they’ll either leave or calm down and (hopefully) apologize.

2. Hear the customer out and empathize with them

People who are upset need to be heard, so let your customers talk, and don’t interrupt them.

“Let the client vent about the situation if at all possible,” advises Carrie Thompson, Facility Manager at Affordable Mini Storage. “Don’t allow physical violence or threats (time to call the police!). Allowing a client to fully verbalize their complaint or anger is valuable. Many issues arise or escalate because the client didn’t feel like they’d been heard.”

Here are a few things to keep in mind when listening to customers:

Practice active listening

At this stage, it’s important to engage in active listening, which is the practice of consciously assimilating what the other party has to say, instead of just standing silently in front of them.

This will help make a good impression and it’ll allow you to really take in what the customer is saying, so you can (if possible) resolve their issue efficiently.

Active listening also entails that you listen with your whole body. This means using positive body language such as having an open stance and nodding along to show the other person that you’re listening.

Make them feel that they’re taken seriously

Gary Johnson, a Senior Consultant at Prevention Advisors, recommends that you show customers that you’re taking their concerns seriously. According to him, this can be done by maintaining eye contact and exhibiting the right non-verbal behaviors (like not smiling, excessively nodding, or rolling your eyes — more on this below).

“Call your customer by name, if possible,” he adds. It makes people feel that they’re being heard and could help calm them.

Respond with empathy

“When someone yells at us, our natural response is usually to respond with either anger or go into defense mode. Avoid these at all costs,” says Fiona Adler, Founder at Actioned.com.

“Whether or not you think there’s a real problem, it’s real from the customer’s perspective, so the appropriate emotion for you to respond with is ‘empathy’. Say things like; ‘I can see why you’re disappointed’ or ‘Oh dear, that’s not what you would have expected’ or ‘I can understand why you’re upset.’”

3. Be mindful of your verbal and non-verbal cues

The things you say — and don’t say — can significantly affect the outcome of any customer interaction. Signs of boredom, impatience, or aggression will only escalate the situation. So, be very mindful of your words and the body language you project.

Here are a few tips to help you do just that:

Verbal

Use “phrases of courtesy.” According to Renée Evenson, author of Powerful Phrases for Effective Customer Service, “Customers appreciate being treated courteously, so when you interject words and phrases of courtesy appropriately throughout your conversations, you show your customers how you respect them.”

Evenson provides a handy list of phrases of courtesy that you can refer to. Check them out below and make it a point to incorporate them into your customer service vocabulary:

• “I apologize. I didn’t hear/understand what you said.”

• “Will you?” rather than “You will.”

• “Yes,” rather than “Yeah.”

• “Sir.”

• “Ma’am.”

• “I’ll check and be right back.”

• “Will you hold for a moment while I check on that?”

• “Thanks for waiting.”

• “Mr./Mrs./Ms. _____.” (Address by the first name only if you know that’s appropriate)

To see the full list and learn about how to incorporate phrases of courtesy into your customer service, check out the book here.

Non-verbal

Your body language should show customers that you’re open to what they have to say, so be careful with the non-verbal cues that you give off.

Make eye contact (but don’t stare), nod along to what the customer is saying, and maintain an open stance to demonstrate that you’re listening. Avoid defensive or hostile gestures such as closed fists or folded arms as they could aggravate the customer.

For your reference, here’s a table you can refer to when it comes to the dos and don’ts of body language in retail:

4. Be discreet

Being tactful and discreet is crucial when dealing with difficult customers.Remember, other people are watching, and some may even whip out their smartphones to record the conflict. The last thing you want is for the incident to hit social media.

Johnson recommends that managers and associates speak in a slow and lowered voice. Strong emotions are infectious, so control your feelings and avoid doing anything that could further aggravate the situation.

5. Communicate what you can and can’t to about their situation

Once you’ve heard what the customer has to say, you’ll need to talk to them about what you can and can’t do. Anne Miner of The Dunvegan Group recommends that you start by clarifying and apologizing.

“Once you have heard the story, ask questions to clarify where necessary. Then, apologize — tell the customer you are sorry they have had this experience, feel this way or whatever is appropriate.”

From there, proceed by communicating what you can and can’t do about their problem.

“Tell the customer what you CAN do for them — issue a refund, a credit, or connect them to the manufacturer,” says Miner. “Ask the customer if this will be acceptable to them. If not, ask what it would take for the customer to feel better about the situation.”

Now, what happens when you can’t bend to your customer’s wishes?

The best thing is to be upfront. Miner recommends saying something like: I wish I could do that for you. At this moment, that is beyond my authority but I will ask ______. May I have your phone number so I can get back to you?

Here’s an additional tip: if possible, let the customer know about the changes that you’ll make as a result of their complaint.

“Make the customer feel like they’ve made a difference,” advises Adler. “The last thing customers want is to feel like their feedback is going nowhere. Make sure that you let them know that you’re very grateful they alerted you to this problem. Then let them know the steps that will be taken to ensure the same thing won’t happen to other customers.”

6. Act quickly

If you can resolve the customer’s problem immediately, then, by all means, do so. This has several benefits:

For one, being able to quickly address a customer’s concerns may just turn their negative experience into a positive one. If you can get on top of things and satisfy the shopper, they might just end up as a loyal customer who buys from you regularly and tells their friends.

Resolving a customer’s issue ASAP also prevents a situation from escalating. This is especially true if someone is complaining loudly inside your store.

As Nicole Reyhle wrote in her Forbes column, “when a customer is creating a scene in front of other customers, you should aim to resolve it as fast and quietly as possible… One of the main reasons for this is that any customer who becomes upset and loud about it in your business is likely the same type of person to talk about this experience with friends, family and other potential customers.”

7. Compensate for their discomfort (if necessary)

Taking this step isn’t always necessary and depends on the situation. For instance, if the issue is due to an error on your part, it may behoove you to do something extra for the customer.

Jason Perkins of San Diego SEO Firm suggests providing additional compensation to make up for any mistakes or issues.

“Give them something to compensate for the discomfort. When customers complain about something, either it has to do with your service or with the people who are working for you. If they feel that they are not being serviced properly, you have to give them something to make up for the mistake,” he says.

“Since I was a manager, I made it a point to give these customers a coupon, discount or maybe give them their item for free or give them a replacement.”

8. Make a judgment call: Will you tolerate someone who’s being downright obnoxious or unfair?

If the situation reaches a point where the customer crosses the line and becomes downright rude and unfair, you’ll need to make a judgment call on giving them what they want versus “firing” them.

Yes, choosing the latter would mean that they’ll never shop with you again, but keeping a problematic customer can be just as bad.

As customer service and speaker Shep Hyken puts it, “if the customer crosses the line, it may be time to fire the customer, politely sending them on their way to the competition. A bad customer can hurt morale and make the working environment uncomfortable. Just as bad, a manager that won’t stand up to the customer and support his/her employees can have a negative impact as well.”

Here are some steps you could take when asking customers to leave:

1. First is to give them a chance to calm down. Tel them in a calm but firm voice that they need to tone down the foul language or actions and that you won’t be able to help them if their behavior persists.
2. If they refuse to calm down, politely ask them to leave. According to Johnson, you can say things like:

• Mr. Jones, I have not been rude to you, so there is no need to be rude to me. If you calm down, I will be able to assist you, but if you continue to threaten me I must notify the authorities
• I apologize, but if you continue to use this language, I will be forced to ask you to leave the store.

3. If things escalate, call the authorities. Depending on your store’s procedures, you could notify mall security (if applicable) or get the police involved.

9. Practice diffusing anger

Staying calm and empathizing with frustrated and emotional shoppers can be difficult, but it’s entirely doable if you practice. That’s why Johnson advises retailers to routinely conduct training sessions on diffusing anger.

“To better prepare your staff, a good strategy is to use interactive role-playing. Set up training sessions so that team members can practice dealing with angry and upset customers,” he says.

Johnson, who personally facilitated such sessions, shares that staff members always feel more empowered and comfortable after role-playing different scenarios. “It’s one thing to think – in your head — what you would do or say, but it’s a whole other thing when you actually have to articulate it out loud and practice what you need to do.”

Reminder: it’s still best to try and prevent issues from arising in the first place

The best way to deal with difficult customer situations? Prevent them from happening in the first place. Here’s how:

Keep your store neat and adequately stocked

Keeping your store organized makes it easier for shoppers to navigate your location and get their hands on the things they need. This gives them a faster and more convenient in-store experience and decreases the likelihood that they’ll ask (or demand) for assistance.

Also, ensure that your shelves and fixtures are adequately stocked. Instruct your staff to routinely check your shelves for items that are running low so they can replenish immediately. Doing so helps customers find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, so they (and you) are less likely to feel inconvenienced.

Speed up customer service

Make sure your staff knows the importance of speed when serving customers. Many shoppers are extremely busy and have no time to wait around.

How you can you serve customers promptly without compromising quality? 

Hire additional employees – Having added help can keep your store running smoothly during the hectic Christmas season. See to it that you have a good staff-to-customer ratio so you’re not making anyone wait. Remember, slow customer service is a huge consumer pet peeve. You’ll prevent a lot of headaches simply by being prompt.

Do note that hiring more people is just the first step. Equally important is ensuring that your staff is well-trained. Devote extra time educating your employees (especially seasonal hires) about the ins and outs of your store. They should know your sales floor and stockroom like the back of their hand so they can easily find the right products for shoppers.

Retail tech know-how also goes a long way, so see to it that your employees know how to quickly operate your equipment and retail software.

Speed up checkout

Many customer issues may also arise in the checkout area. From long lines to less-than-perfect payment technology, retailers need to anticipate and prevent potential problems that can occur when it’s time to ring up sales. Here are a few steps you can take to improve the checkout experience during the holidays (and beyond):

Use quick keys – Most modern POS systems provide product shortcuts or on-screen buttons that speed up how items are added to a sale at checkout. If your system has this capability, be sure to enable it and add your most popular items. That way, when a customer buys a product that’s already included in your quick keys layout, you can ring them up with just a tap of a button, instead of having to search for the item.

Use integrated payments – Using a payment solution that integrates with your POS makes checkout a lot faster. Integrated payments allow sales to flow directly from your POS to your card reader. This means you won’t have to manually key in the transaction information into the card reader, so sales are processed much faster. Not only that, but integrated payments prevent human error and are more secure.

Talk to your POS vendor about the payment processors they integrate with and see if you can use them in your business. (Pssst… Using Vend? Check out this post for more information on integrated payments.)

Enable contactless payments – While contactless payments such as Apple Pay aren’t as widespread as credit cards, a growing number of consumers have adopted them.

If you cater to a lot of these shoppers, start accepting contactless payments in your store. That way, people won’t have to fumble with cards or cash. All they need is their phone, and they’ll be good to go.

Add registers and untether the checkout experience – Always be prepared to open new registers when it gets busy. For instance, if your POS can run on a laptop or iPad, you’ll want to have extra devices in your store so you can quickly open a register when the lines get too long.

That’s what homeware store Borough Kitchen does in their business. “At peak times… we can add a new till instantly by switching on another iPad,” shares founders David Caldana & Justin Kowbel.

Consider doing the same thing in your stores. Equip extra iPads or laptops with your POS so you can quickly bring them out when it gets crowded in your shops. And if you’re using a tablet, you could even untether the checkout experience and ring up sales from anywhere in the store instead of being stuck behind the cash wrap.

Bottom line

Dealing with difficult customers isn’t easy, but it comes with the territory of running a retail store. Also, remember that something positive can also arise from these situations.

As Adler puts it, “Angry customers are one of the most challenging parts of running a business, but handled correctly, you really can turn these people into some of your strongest advocates. I’ve seen many cases where a mistake has been corrected and the customer has gone on to be extremely loyal to the business and refer lots of their friends as well.”

Creating a highly-engaged workforce and a thriving workplace continues to be a major focus for all HR managers. And the reason is simple. Every business needs what employee engagement creates: Happier and more productive employees.

Moving into 2018, employee engagement is more important than ever. So, whether you work in an ambitious tech company, a growth-minded healthcare organisation, a fast-paced hospitality business, or somewhere else entirely, putting employees first needs to be your priority.

If you’re serious about putting employees first, here are four employee engagement trends you need to put into practice and master this year.

1. Employee experience

It’s all about placing a high value on your employees and ensuring they are happy. Rather than simply focusing on how you’re doing through the results of your employee engagement surveys, turn your attention to proactively developing the employee experience to produce better engagement from the get-go.

Employee experience is everything an employee experiences about your company. The journey begins even before they apply for a job, and it continues long after the employee leaves the business. It also includes the physical environment where your people work and your company’s culture.

By focusing on the employee experience, you can actively set employees up for success with the right tech tools, influence your company culture, and craft workplace policies that resonate with today’s workers.

So, while employee engagement and your employees’ commitment to your company and their jobs is the end goal, employee experience delivers the means to get there in the most direct way.

And just as customer experience professionals optimise customer journeys for better customer engagement, your role as HR manager is to create an optimal employee experience. And with it, happier and more productive employers, higher retention rates, and lower turnover follow suit.

Key take away: For companies in high-tech sectors where the war for talent rages on, or for those in industries such as healthcare or aged care services where jobs like nursing require specialised skills but do not offer overly attractive compensation, the employee experience has the potential to become a major competitive advantage.

Offering a superior employee experience can help you attract and retain the best talent. Just as optimising the customer journey leads to satisfied customers, a great employee experience produces satisfied employees.

2. Employee career pathing

It’s no secret that millennials crave opportunities to learn and grow. It’s one major factor that sets them apart from other generations. According to Gallup analytics, millennials rank opportunities to learn and grow in a job above everything else.

Millennial workers, in particular, won’t stick around if they don’t have a sense that they can grow in your business.

So, rather than tackling high millennial turnover as a fact of life, in 2018 put your employees’ career development aspirations first. The art of keeping millennial engaged at work is letting them know what opportunities exist within the company.

Invest in employee career development and build on the opportunities you provide to your employees to learn and grow. This is your chance as the HR manager to

make sure you (and your people managers) have developed career goals and pathways for each of your employees support them through their employee journey and career advancement.

Talk to your people about their aspirations, goals, and ambitions. Find out what your people want to become and then figure out how to align their personal passions with the business objectives.

Key take away: The goal of making career development opportunities a part of your company culture is to allow employees to see for themselves where they can go in their career with your company. Setting up continuous cycles of promotion and keeping your people in the loop about internal opportunities could keep them from seeking opportunities elsewhere.

3. Flexible working

From increased employee engagement to better performance, and company loyalty, the benefits of flexible working are now very well established. As a trend, flexible working arrangements are set to continue this year. So, if you still aren’t allowing your employees to have some say over how, where, or when they work, consider it a priority in 2018.

Whether this involves working from home, job sharing, part-time hours or something else entirely, it’s important that both you as the employer and your employee agree on the arrangements. Flexible working is only effective if it works for all parties. In addition, with more of a focus on wellbeing this year, offering a healthy work-life balance is more important than ever.

Key take away: Embedding a culture of flexibility by offering flexible working allows you to attract, retain, and develop the best possible talent, and ensure a positive work-life balance for employees. It’s also important to bear in mind that employees often value flexibility over other more traditional forms of compensation like pay rises.

4. Recognition

Receiving praise and recognition from managers has always been a strong motivator, it’s also the backbone of employee engagement. By embracing different ways to recognise employee performance you not only motivate individuals but help increase productivity and quality output from the entire team.

Most employees prefer real-time feedback over annual performance reviews simply because real-time feedback allows meaningful actions to be taken when it matters most. A culture of continuous feedback also leads to more transparent performance expectations. Experimenting with technology such as Pulse feedback tools will give you an immediate understanding of the employee experience and how you can improve it.

Key take away:Don’t wait for an annual review to focus on areas for improvement or opportunities for development. Start to make use of social recognition platforms and provide an appropriate platform for your employees to reward and recognise each other’s contributions.

Put your people first with the right HR tech tools

Ensuring your employees have the technology and the tools they need to be efficient and productive is an important baseline in employee engagement. It’s an investment in your people and the business. From an HR perspective, it’s also essential that you deploy the right HR tools and technology to reduce the amount of HR admin tasks that you and your employees need to handle.

Request a demo

Equipping employees with self-service tools and apps that streamline traditionally time-consuming tasks like onboarding, requesting paid time off, doing performance reviews, or making routine HR updates, like a change of address, deliver big wins.

Request a demo of Employment Hero today and see how using our modern HR processes, tools, and documents, you’ll better in a strong position to put employees first and develop your employee engagement strategy.