Revitalising high streets and shopping centres
Thursday 29 July 2010
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http://davidbarrie.typepad.com/david_barrie/2010/07/wiring-the-big-society.html#tpe-action-posted-6a00d834519d9469e2013485d3eaa7970c
Workforce Management – are you a “legacy motivator”?
Monday 12 July 2010
Human resource is any high street or shopping centre’s most valuable asset and seems to me to be consistently undervalued. By nurturing and developing it, it can become a valuable asset and competitive differentiator.
Highly motivated staff perform well, enjoy their jobs, and go the extra mile for you and stick around. But what actually motivates them?
How important is money?
Daniel Pink, the Washington-based author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us says “You have to pay people enough money, if you don’t it is a demotivator. But once you pay them enough – the market rate or slightly above – each extra unit of pay has very little effect.” Bonuses have “short term euphoric effect” but do little to impact on the bottom line particularly when they become the norm.
What really motivates people?
I believe that the key is to let people get on with their jobs. “Good managers give people compasses, not maps. Give them a level of discretion and they’ll make discretionary effort for you” says Phil Merrell, a director of the human resources consultancy Penna. Being listened to and creating a sense of belonging and purpose also motivates which is why people should feel like they’re making a contribution to something important.
How does motivation differ in the high street and shopping centre environment?
Motivating assembly line work (like making widgets) is different to motivating people whose job it is to serve people. Schemes that allow staff to spend a bit of their work time pursuing projects that interest them become hugely motivating (Google allows it’s staff 20%), but most businesses find this difficult. A lot of mechanisms inside “legacy” organisations are about ensuring compliance but what I believe we need isn’t compliance, it’s engagement. Freeing people up to become engaged in their own way will make them happier and more productive.
What about my role as a manager?
It is worth remembering that the number one reason people cite for leaving their jobs is their boss. As well as being understanding, I believe you should take a genuine interest in staff. As a boss, you’ve got to give some of yourself back.
Feel free to comment.
Mike.
Customer Centricity
This is not a new term. Of course everyone thinks about their customers but are we as an industry thinking of them in terms of OUR product or service, though? Odds are the answer is yes.
But to keep hold of customers I believe we must design products, experiences and process differently than the current inside-out way of doing things. The customer is not interested in….
• What we think would be a cool new feature
• What Janet the store or centre manager feels needs to be done at 11 am each day.
• Whether Jack and Jill enjoyed their visit to your centre.
Our customers want to be wowed by an experience that at least, meets their expectations. Most customers just want to make a purchase, so we must make it happen as friction free as possible. Sometimes they need help, so as an industry we must design our service around that need, and not one that is made up and driven by our own business needs. As the supermarkets have proved, customers don’t want to do business with thousands of suppliers so I believe we must work harder to discover what our customers really need, not in our product, but in the jobs being performed around it so we can offer solutions that no one else has thought of. Time to innovate therefore.
This is why I believe the industry (shopping centres and retail) must display some leadership around the transformation that’s needed around the customer’s experience. It might mean conflict for some legacy business thinkers, but we must focus on the bigger picture – and the customer – so that these issues begin to pale in comparison to the successful customer experiences we can create.
Designing a customer centric outcome isn’t easy, but here are some things to start the conversation off.
1. Business Process – can technology be employed to simultaneously improve effectiveness, efficiency and customer service?
2. Customer Needs – do we ask our customers what they need and what they want well enough? Do we ask them what we can do to help them? Can the answers help us open up new markets that serve customers better?
3. Customer Experience – Should this be more than the service we offer? If we truly understand what job our customers are doing when they visit our high street and shopping centres, then we can design new tools that help them do it easier. Working together as stakeholders would be a good place to start.
4. Customer Metrics – If it’s all about the customer, why do we measure footfall and revenues? It’s easy and it’s what we’ve always done. But have we ever asked ourselves “do my customers stay with me longer than they do in the supermarket or on-line?” Do we have any metrics for tracking customer disengagement instead of simply focusing on opening the doors and turning the sign to ‘open’? Customer retention is so important and these questions need answering with metrics that measure number and quality of customer relationships.
Feel free to comment.
Mike.