Two Airlines Offer
Employee Relations Lessons for Utilities
By David Saxby
Utilities looking for examples of employee
relations to emulate need look no further than two well-known airlines.
JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines know how to properly treat their
people and they offer important lessons for utilities across the country.
They know success flows from their own people.
Following is the JetBlue approach to employee relations.
Make employees feel important. JetBlue CEO David Neeleman wants the
airline’s employees to feel that they’re on a mission together to put
humanity back into air travel. He wants them to think their JetBlue job is
the best they’ve ever had. He understands that if they like coming to work,
that feeling gets passed around the entire organization and all the way to
customers.
Here’s something you can do to make your employees feel important. Employees
often see things within your utility that could be improved. Why don’t they
say something? My belief is that many employees think nothing would change
or that nobody is really interested in their ideas. Before your next
management or companywide meeting, send an e-mail in advance. Identify one
area that needs improvement and ask for help in creating a solution. Ask
everyone to bring one idea. Send an e-mail to all the people who contributed
suggestions and thank them. Let them know which solution was used from the
ideas submitted. Explain how the idea will be implemented. If none of the
suggestions worked, explain why. It’s vital to respond to employees
immediately after they submit ideas. They need to know that their ideas are
welcome and that ongoing employee input is important to the utility’s
success.
Hire new employees carefully. JetBlue is inundated with job
applicants and hires only a fraction of them each year. They’re highly
selective. Neeleman wants employees who like people, not just certain
people.
Most utilities offer good benefits and pay. Who wouldn’t want to work
for a company that offers a secure future? Well, there’s more to it than
that. Many utilities spend time and money hiring and training a new employee
only to discover later that he or she doesn’t enjoying serving customers.
The new employee doesn’t want to deal with emotionally upset or frustrated
customers or customers who have a problem that needs a solution. How do you
reduce or eliminate bad hires? Use a personality profile tool to help you
identify the prospect’s work characteristics before you make a hiring
decision. A small investment in personality profiling can save you time and
money by reducing the number of bad hires.
Survey employees annually. JetBlue conducts an annual “Speak Up
Survey” of all employees in which they are asked how they feel about the
airline, what it’s like to work there and what they think can be improved.
When I do training sessions at utilities, it’s not unusual to learn that
lack of communication among all levels of the company is negatively
impacting external and internal customer service. Do you know how employees
truly perceive management and internal processes at your company? What do
they like and dislike? To find out, conduct a companywide survey to find out
what employees are really thinking. Identify actions that will be taken to
improve communication and internal processes. From my experience, it sends a
powerful message when a company really listens to its employees and takes
action.
Train employees to succeed. JetBlue expects its employees to show up
on time, have a good attitude and take care of each other and the customers.
Managers have a different set of expectations. As leaders, they are expected
to inspire greatness in their employees.
How much money is set aside in your budget this year to improve your
employees’ skills? For example, it takes consistent and continual training
to improve the customer service experience your customers receive. And if
you only train front-line employees on customer service, you can’t expect
the other departments to provide the same level of service internally.
Employee training is critical.
Southwest Airlines is a highly successful company, not only financially but
also in exceeding customer expectations. It is at the top of the airline
industry’s customer satisfaction scale and that goes straight to be bottom
line. Again, it all starts with the airline’s employees.
Here’s what Southwest does to create an
outstanding staff.
Hires people who have an ability to care and
communicate. Its philosophy is to hire for attitude and train for skills.
Based on the airline’s high level of customer satisfaction, this approach
must be working.
Southwest follows a rule often ignored by
other airlines – be nice and smile a lot. Thus, it trains everyone,
including back-office staff, to do just that.
Encourages and rewards employees for a job
well done.
Encourages employees to give good performance,
such as on-time departures.
Empowers employees to act in the customer’s
best interest.
Empowering employees makes sense for staff who
interact with external customers, but Southwest applies the same standard to
internal employees such as accountants and technology personnel. Their
philosophy is if you have a grouchy boss who doesn’t care about you, how are
you going to do a good job?
Utilities can learn much about employee relations from these two airlines.
What are you doing to be sure you are hiring the right people? What are you
doing to encourage them to do their best on the job every day? What are you
doing to create the kind of work environment that makes employees want to
come to work?
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David Saxby is president of Measure-X, a Phoenix,
Ariz.-based measurement, training and recognition company that specializes in
customer service and sales skill training for utility companies. He can be
reached at 888-644-5499 or via e-mail at
david@measure-x.com. Visit the Measure-X Web site at
www.measure-x.com.
