Tap Employee Passion For Business Success

Meriwether Lewis set the stage for the Corps of Discovery's success before one single "employee" had been hired. From the outset Lewis and Clark engendered a communications culture that brought in the right prospects, then kept morale high and increased the productivity of those eventually hired.

More important, Lewis' communication culture not only outlined the day-to-day duties of Corps member, it imbued "employees" with a sense of mission and meaning.

He ruthlessly searched for just the right recruits. Lewis sought the strong, skilled and eager, rejecting the weak, ignorant, and unmanageable. And through properly communicating his needs, he was able to get the people who could learn and live his "brand" to apply.

Prospects were told openly and honestly about working conditions: you will be in hostile territory, surrounded by hostile people. You must rely on your own devices for food and shelter, and you could die.

They learned about benefits: "great personal rewards will be bestowed upon you by a grateful government," if you are selected.

Lewis took his "employees" one step farther: you will go, he told them, where no non-natives have gone before. You will help find the Northwest Passage. You will aid in the advancement of science, discovering new places, new species and new peoples. The mission is one of critical importance to the security of the new nation.

It was this open, honest communication of the emotional aspects, the meaning of the job that unleashed the potential of the Corps of Discovery as "brand emissaries."

Why Bother Communicating With Employees?

Sure, you're saying, when it's a matter of life and death, and you must depend on the person next to you for your survival, it makes sense. But, we're just talking about business here.

The same goes for business. Employees are your most important audience, and that they hold the keys to your organization's success. Let's examine the facts to find out why this assertion is true.

Companies spend millions of dollars each year developing mission and vision statements, identifying their brand, and then communicating their brand promise through various media.

Employees are the primary "media" in the majority of brand contacts. In most companies, employees don't understand the brand promise well enough to communicate it, let alone live it and articulate it clearly.

Gallup research of 300,000 businesses indicates that 75% to 80% of your people are achieving much less and feeling far less enthusiastic about their work than they could be. If all your employees were "fully engaged", Gallup says, your customers would be 70% more loyal, your turnover would drop by 70%, and your profits would jump 40%.

The research also found that consumers who felt fast food restaurant employees did a great job were five to six times more likely to come back to that brand. At banks where employees stood out, the customer was six to 20 times more likely to continue the relationship.

Additionally, great employees also tend to engender "passionate" customers. For example, customers who praised store-level associates were 16 times more likely to be passionate about the retailer's brand.

Get employees on board from an emotional perspective and they carry their passion out to customers. Passionate customers carry it beyond to prospects through word-of-mouth.

Need an example? Let's look at SAS Institute, a company with a clear mission developed from today's new realities. In its mission, SAS embraces lifelong learning for employees and service that is focused on customers with improvements driven by those customers.

Employees want a company that understands they have a life outside of work, that they have a need for learning and development beyond the strictly job-related.

Recognizing this, the company built a 200-acre corporate campus, landscaped to encourage outdoor leisure. Thousands of acres adjacent to the SAS campus were bought and made available for employees to buy and build their homes. A private junior and senior high has been opened on campus so parents can have lunch with their kids.

Employees are treated like university faculty and are helped by the company to pursue their own intellectual interests, as well as their job-related ones.

As a result, instead of the typical 20 percent turnover of software companies, SAS has had turnover of less than four percent. SAS has a 95 percent annual renewal rate among its customers, and revenues increased from $653 million in 1996 to $1.13 billion in 2001.

So, take a lesson from Meriwether Lewis: communicate your brand position with your employees, tell them openly and honestly what's happening inside the company, and unleash some passionate results of your own.

About The Author: Harry Hoover is managing principal of Hoover ink PR, http://www.hoover-ink.com. He has 26 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like Brent Dees Financial Planning, Duke Energy, Levolor, North Carolina Tourism, Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, VELUX and Verbatim.

---

Six Sigma Training 101 ? Better Management Basics

What is Six Sigma?Six Sigma is a quality management program... Read More

Measuring Creativity, DIY style

Creativity measurement is often required in order to benchmark existing... Read More

Poly Bags and Pallet Shrouds - Just Get it Right

For many companies, procuring the right packaging, such as Poly... Read More

Steps to Build ISO 9001 Compliant Program

Implementing an ISO 9001 system represents a major effort. However,... Read More

The Higher You Go

The higher you go, the cooler it becomes. Really? Let... Read More

Improvements In A Large Public Electric Utility In South America

The company decided to develop and implement an improvement program.... Read More

Leadership Skills

Recent studies have shown that industrial supervisors are working at... Read More

Resistance - How to Handle It

Do you ever meet with resistance from other people -... Read More

Change Management: Avoid Havoc In Very Uncertain Times

Escalating gas prices...tensions and turmoil in the Middle East...a struggling... Read More

Why Employee Satisfaction Surveys And Employee Exit Surveys Make Good Sense

In a competitive world with the need for businesses to... Read More

The Key to Successful Performance Objectives

Have you ever tried to drive somewhere without proper directions?... Read More

Turbo Charge Your Career With The Most Powerful Leadership Tool Of All: The Leadership Talk: Part 2

In Part One, I described the Leadership Talk and how... Read More

Knowledge Mapping

This module focuses on the basics of Knowledge Mapping, its... Read More

Hiring Great People And How to Be One Yourself: Five Secrets

Bad news.Your senior vice-president, your marketing director or your accounting... Read More

Five Days to More Effective Inventory Management

The litany of headaches related to the implementation and on-going... Read More

Organisation Tips For The Mobile Executive

Despite the fact that everyone sighs "How glamorous!", the life... Read More

Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Human Resources at Work

This article relates to the Human Resource Functions competency, commonly... Read More

Got A Meeting Planned? Ask This Question

Meetings ? they are a fact of our business lives.... Read More

Running Successful Meetings - The Key Steps To Getting It Right

We all complain about meetings which are a waste of... Read More

Dont Let Your Measurements Mislead You

Don't Let Your Measurements Mislead You ... Read More

Understanding Every Aspect of Your Organization

GET TO KNOW YOUR ORGANIZATION: If you don't understand an... Read More

Controlling Your Cash Flow

IntroductionAre you looking for a way to gain control of... Read More

What Every Manager Should Know About How to Enhance the Motivational Climate of the Workplace

It has been well documented that employees' productivity and job... Read More

Feedback - Make it Descriptive

Have you ever heard yourself say to a team member... Read More

Importance of Just-In-Time Inventory System

In today's competitive world shorter product life cycles, customers rapid... Read More

Resolve Differences

Resolving conflict doesn't come easily to too many people. Most... Read More

Employee Retention: Its a Changing Game

As a management consultant, I have seen some poorly conceived... Read More

Knowledge Management - Leadership Behaviours Which Encourage Knowledge-Sharing

The concept of knowledge management or knowledge sharing makes intellectual... Read More

Knowledge Management - Creating a Sustainable Yellow Pages System

How can I "know who knows" None of us can... Read More

The Ins and Outs of Internal and External Relations

INTERNAL PUBLIC RELATIONS: Never overlook an opportunity to do internal... Read More

Knowledge Management - Lessons Learned and How To Identify Them

Many organisations use the term "lessons learned" to describe the... Read More

Towards Intercultural Understanding

An individual's ability to forge effective relationships across cultures is... Read More

Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Time for Problems that are Truly Important

Use your time for problems that are truly important.Hard as... Read More