Good Employees Understand the Art of Service

Good employees serve. Service is the action of helping or doing work for someone.

Organizations serve other organizations and people in some capacity. In a 2016 Gartner CEO survey, CEOs rated customer service, after growth,  as their most important priority. It has been said that in today's knowledge sharing and hyper connected society customer service is marketing. The dissatisfaction of products or service is known throughout the local industry in lightning speed and can kill your business. Attention to service is paramount and is the responsibility of each employee, not just the management. We need to master the art of service.

BR: "Good to Great by Jim CollinsDisip

The sub-title of "Good to Great," Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't, reveals the purpose of this book. Collins determined to find out why some companies made the leap from good companies to great companies and others did not.

To find how companies go from good to great, he first needed to identify great companies. He looked for companies that had 15-year cumulative stock market returns at or below the general market with a transition point followed by a period of returns above the market over a 15-year period. The companies needed to exhibit a "good-to-great" pattern. All companies were compared to the other to ultimately determine what distinguished good-to-great companies from the others. Eleven good-to-great companies were identified: Abbott, Fannie Mae, Kimberly-Clark, Nucor, Pitney Bowes, Wells Fargo, Circuit City, Gillette, Kroger, Philip Morris, and Walgreens. Collins found numerous celebrated factors. I found that "Good to Great" is one of the most referred to books in leadership study.

Keys for Balancing Work and Life

We have all had the experience of working to finish an important assignment when the phone rings and the school nurse says that we must pick up our child from school. You are lucky if you can get your spouse to pick them up or have a relative that can stop what they are doing to help, but many of us are not fortunate enough to have that kind of support system. Thus we struggle with balancing work responsibilities with family responsibilities.

Recently, I read a story about Alan. Alan was told that he was going to be taking over his boss's job who had recently quit because of health reasons. They kept promising him that they would come down from the corporate office to meet regarding the job. In the mean time, he was doing his job as well as his boss's job hoping for the reward of the promotion and possible bonus pay. He was working late and on weekends and sacrificing family responsibilities just to keep the office running. He even started avoiding his wife at home because he did not want to listen to her complain about his long hours. Remarkably, he kept this up for eighteen months before the corporate office finally met with him, but not before the stress nearly led him to attempt suicide and drove him to drugs to help keep up the pace. Most Life Work Imbalances are not this extreme, but it can lead to similar results.

Good Employees Are Driven

The number one quality that employers want in an employee is DRIVE--whether they know it or not.

I recently read an article that stated that "drive" was the number one characteristic that companies look for in employees. This caused me to look back over my work experience. I realized that I was driven in some jobs, but not so driven in others. Analyzing why, I decided that personal interest in the work and confidence in my ability to do the job were my two determining factors for being driven at work. I can see from my own experience that when I showed drive, I was more successful and more satisfied with my job. Employers desire to see their employees driven to advance themselves and the company. If you are not satisfied at work or are not advancing in the job, examine your drive--you may need to step it up.

Good Employees Keep Developing

Employee Development is defined as a process where the employee, usually with the support of the employer, undertakes in training programs and procedures to enhance existing skills and to acquire new knowledge and skills.

In the competitive marketplace, employers are searching for the most talented employees. Knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced workers are "gold" to companies. It is not enough for a person to get a job, they must keep the job. Employee development is one of the most important aspects of Employeeship.