Do you know any of these businesses?
“Let’s go to that electronics store. I know you can’t get any help, but the sale looks pretty good.”
“I’m never eating there again! I don’t care how great the food was. The service was terrible!”
“Yeah, he seems like a good doctor, but that billing person! What a pill!”
No matter how great your sales, your food or your service, your front line employees can brand you in negative ways.
Branding has been described as establishing a mutually valuable relationship between customer and business. This can be established through a host of elements including product or service, advertising, public relations, marketing and employees. Branding is a way of differentiating one’s products and services from the competitors.
We will focus on one area in the branding equation: employees.
There are six steps in establishing your brand through your employees:
Effective hiring. Your brand is at stake. Observe details such as dress, posture and smile. Hopefully, one puts one’s best foot forward for an interview. If a person looks somewhat messy for the interview, you can be assured they will look worse on the job.
Take time to ask experiential, open-ended questions. Give the interviewee hypothetical questions and test his or her thinking skills. A few examples:
“A longtime patient is having financial problems and is falling behind on his bill. How would you handle this situation?”
“You are scheduled to work the 6 p.m.- 10 p.m. slot with another employee. This employee doesn’t show for work and you have a lot of customers. What would you do?”
“We handle a number of pro bono cases in this office. How have you handled pro bono cases in the past?”
Superior training. Take the time. If you are in an office, plan the whole first week for your new employee. Training should be a combination of orientation, introduction and content training:
Orientation – Where is everything? Where do they eat lunch? Where are the restrooms? Where should they park? What is the layout of the business? What are the rules?
Introduction – Assign someone to take your new staff member around to meet everyone. Set up “meet and greets” if you are in an office. These are 15-minute to one-hour meetings with other employees to introduce them to the company business and their co-workers. These meetings provide a nonthreatening way to educate the new staff member. Make sure someone takes your newbie to lunch on the first day!
Content training – Once your employee feels comfortable, start the training process. How soon that begins will depend on the complexity of the job. If time allows, have the new person “shadow” another employee to observe how things should be done. Make sure the training includes an interactive element, as we all learn from participation.
Constant evaluation. Set up the evaluation process when new staff come on board and stick to the schedule. You may wish to evaluate at one month, three months, six months and one year for the first year of employment. Yes, it is a lot of evaluation, but the time is well-spent. It forces you to observe or gather more information. The thought of these evaluations keeps the staff member on his or her toes. It allows both parties to correct and redirect. It also establishes a bond – if evaluations are done in a positive manner. After one year, you may wish to evaluate every six months.
Retraining. Plan retraining before you need it. Why lose potentially good employees to the ill effects of slipshod training? If you evaluate quite often in the first year, you will see areas for improvement. You may also wish to include the full staff in retraining efforts as a way to “re-up” or refresh.
Observation. One of my old bosses had a mantra, which has stuck with me: “Never assume.” Don’t assume that customers are being handled well. Be brave enough to ask them and put out evaluation cards. Don’t assume that a supervisor is treating his or her staff in a fair manner. Don’t assume that the phone is being answered in a friendly, positive way. Don’t assume that everyone is being courteous and respectful.
Walk the halls to listen and observe. Ask your customers. Leave your office. If there is a company lunch, attend. Observe and never assume.
Termination. It’s time to get tough! If an employee is hurting your brand in any way and does not respond to retraining and counseling, it is time to consider termination. No matter how much you like someone or feel sorry for him or her, you have to think of your business.
Before you terminate, evaluate. Could you transfer the person? Does he or she need further training, coaching or an outside refresher course? Have you gone through proper procedures for the termination including written warnings in the file, specific target dates for goals and a plan for the actual termination day?
Most importantly, you need to ask yourself this question over and over: Is this person adding to my business? If the answer is “no,” you need to act.
If you want to be the “go to” business in your industry, it’s time to brand your business through your employees. Are they just going through the motions on the job, or are they helping you establish your brand?
Sinara O’Donnell is the principal of SinaraSpeaks, based in Springfield. She speaks nationwide on customer service, communication and humor.
