What a year last week was!?!

The first full work week of 2021 began with the excitement of a new year, a clean slate. Sure, many of us were a bit tired and out of our routines after the holidays, but all-in-all, the energy was upbeat. Then Wednesday’s hostile takeover of the United States Capitol in Washington D.C. occurred.

The week changed. Our time management, conversations, focus, and energy in and out of work changed.

As leaders, you may have intended to kick off 2021 a certain way but had to adjust.

🔷 Did the way your company shows empathy change over the course of the week?
🔷 When you think about how the "company" shows empathy, who are you thinking about?
🔷 What have your leaders done to show empathy in the last week?
🔷 What have you done to show empathy for your coworkers? Yourself?

All of that, and more, was part of the #CultureMatters live conversation January 8th. We talk about issues and ideas that impact culture each month, and we bring them back to business.

As facilitators of the monthly Culture Matters forum, Kathy Holmes and I chose to start the year with empathy because it aligns with the values of our #culturematters friends.

When companies value empathy, it shows in how they treat people and goes further into how they make decisions, prioritize, innovate, and more.

A company that tells people to leave their emotions at home and just keep their mouths shut, for example, shows it does not care about its people. Back in the old days, that command-and-control style of leadership was rarely questioned. People did their jobs and went home.

Now, however, that company would struggle to stay alive. A company who treats people that way would struggle with collaboration needed for innovation, along with retention of employees and customers. Makes sense, right?

The research is clear: people want to work for companies and leaders who care about them. Companies who develop empathy gain a strategic advantage for retention of employees and customers.

Empathy is worth attention. Plus, it is a nice, basic value.

Join the Culture Matters conversations via Zoom each month and on LinkedIn. All are welcome!

The secret to retention in your company might be found in New York’s favorite restaurant

“Service is what you do, but hospitality is how you make people feel.” Whoa! When Danny Meyer, world-renowned restaurateur, said that, I had an aha moment.

Organization leaders spend a lot of time mapping out customer service in our companies, don’t we? Voyage Consulting Group, a small business, has a customer touchpoint list with more than 100 items on it. Bigger companies probably have double or maybe triple that number. We all list the touchpoints and spend hours every year on how to improve each one.

With a similar mindset, companies track employee interaction with customers. If an employee is on the phone too long with a complaining customer, for example, he gets dinged. If he gets three dings, he might be forced to undergo get invited to extra training. It doesn’t matter why the agent was on the phone so long; the time expectation rules.

If you think about Mr. Meyer’s quote, you see what’s insufficient about the touchpoint analysis and service analytics, right?

Deliberate attention to touchpoints is terrific, but it’s not the same thing as hospitality. Call time can be better influenced by hospitality than by forced time limits.

In this video, Mr. Meyer shares the difference between service and hospitality, along with how to hire for hospitality, and how to compete based on it.

Mr. Meyer says the secret is in becoming a favorite. Being a favorite requires something beyond service and checking the boxes of product quality. It’s about hospitality and how your company makes people feel. The best way to become a favorite is to give employees a high purpose than a paycheck and invite them to create a personalized experience for your customers. It turns out, that’s the secret to retaining employees and customers.

Enjoy the video. Let me know about any aha moments it brings for you.

Kelly