Employee Engagement, Athletic Attitude, and Breakfast Sandwiches

BREAKFAST SANDWICHES
“I gotcha.”

Those words started my day today. When I go to Cosi, which is a premium convenience restaurant, I’m happy.

“I gotcha” is what the man who makes the breakfast sandwiches says when I walk in. I’ve been going there for a while, and he remembers that I like — egg and swiss on a toasted sesame seed bagel. I know that might not seem like a lot, but this is at a restaurant in a major city with hundreds — if not thousands — of people streaming through daily. I’m just one of the huddled masses. But not there. I feel welcome.

I’m sure that guy doesn’t get paid any more money for saying “I gotcha” than if he just ignored me for five minutes like what happens at a lot of big city convenience restaurants. (That includes Starbucks, by the way, which used to be more personal, but is now more about running people through the line.) So what makes him say, “I gotcha”?

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Engagement. (Yes, I think that word is stupid, but it’s shorthand and you all know what I’m talking about.) They guy cares about his job. My guess is that he’s earning an hourly wage, which in this service economy era with horrible customer service, it’s a rarity. But not at my Cosi. Several people there pay attention. I drink decaffeinated coffee — a little room for cream, please — and I get it every time. Same with the egg bagel. Every time.

I won’t go anywhere else.

What would it take to get employee engagement like that at your shop? Here’s my take: We hire too much based on resume and academic credentials. But I tell you, as a small business owner, I’d rather have one person who cares than 10 people who have great paperwork and an I-don’t-care attitude.

ATHLETIC ATTITUDE
Would you ever take a chance on a guy who says “I gotcha” to do a professional job? I know that’s tough, but would you? Would you ever consider that you can teach technical skills, but you can never teach desire? In sports it’s a known issue: Get good athletes with a great work ethic and you can teach them the subtle skills. Get a great athlete with a bad attitude and what do you end up with? Nothing but problems.

I don’t think you can “make” lackadaisical employees be more engaged. Sure, you can do things to get people to be more motivated to work for the organization. You can set up teams and get people to cooperate. But it’s a bit hollow to take bad and disaffected talent and think that you can make them “engaged.” Give me a team full of “I gotcha” people and I’ll make a winner.

I GOTCHA
Think about the best team you were ever on. What was it that made it that way? Was it because you got paid the most? Was it because you had the resources? Was it about how the team was structured? Or was it because you worked among a group of people who had desire and talent? People who you could count on every morning to say, “I gotcha.”

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Slackers, and Proud of It

It’s funny with all the Getting Things Done focus and the push to be more efficient at work that slacking off has become an art form. Workers slack off something to the tune of a quarter of every day. Here’s a summary of recent research in Inc.com:

The 2007 Wasting Time Survey by Salary.com, which asked 2,000 employees across all job levels about how they spend their working hours, found employees waste an average of 1.7 hours of an 8.5-hour workday.

So, what’s slacking off to one is creative time to another. I come from the generation where you work hard and do what your manager asks you to do. I know others who use the “broken dishes” approach: If they do something poorly enough, break dishes, then pretty soon they don’t get asked to do that task anymore.

HR’s role in all this is setting up expectations early. Making sure that employees don’t get put on double secret probation for slacking off when that just might be part of the culture. Best Buy’s Results-Oriented Work Environment focuses on output, so there really isn’t any slacking there.

Is slacking off okay if all the work gets done to a high standard?

The. Best. Order. Update. Ever.

Getting a “thank you” for a purchase is always nice. Scott at Blankbaby had a great buying experience with a premier Philadelphia clothing store recently. But when I saw this post on Mere Cat it just blew me away. What would it take to motivate your people to be that creative with a “thank you” note. I’m going to buy something from CD Baby just because of Tony’s story. Here’s a little taste of what they said:

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Read the whole thing on Mere Cat. It’s an excellent snapshot into real motivation.There’s employee engagement, the theory, and there’s employee engagement, the practice. I’d go with a little less talking about engagement and “discretionary effort” and a helluva lot more of the kind of creativity that CD Baby used. Wow.

NB: If I had a job in a big HR organization, I’d be thinking about forwarding that CD baby note to your chief customer officer and the heads of marketing and operations right away. The price of a dull thank you and a dazzling thank you is the same.

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