Today we have an employee engagement crisis. Employees are more frustrated and less productive than in any other time in recorded history. And, it’s getting worse. Maybe a lot worse!

Over the past year, most organizations have successfully decreased overhead expenses
and increased cost-savings. However, they’ve done this at the expense of increasing
the stress and burnout of their best people.

Has your company gone through a “reorg” or significant layoffs in the past year? Studies
show that 72 percent of companies have since the economic downturn began last year.

How has this affected employee engagement?

• Engagement has dropped nearly 10 percent from 2008 (where it was already at an all-time
  low).
• Engagement among top performers has dropped 23 percent.
• The number of top performers (A-players) who would recommend their company as a place
  to work has dropped 20 percent.
• Top performers are 14 percent less likely to want to stay with their company.*

So what does today’s employee engagement crisis mean for tomorrow?

Laura Sejen, global director of strategic rewards consulting at Watson Wyatt, had
this to say, “Having less engaged and committed workers is a major concern for employers.
This could have a long-lasting and detrimental impact on productivity, quality and
customer service, as well as increase the risk of companies losing their best employees.”

I predict a mass exodus of A-players is coming! It may have already started.

The best way to get and keep A-players is very similar to getting and keeping customers.
Your company needs to Achieve Brand Integrity, i.e., actually be who and what it says
it is. Engage employees with the company values/mission/objectives and then recognize them
when they do what is expected (or better yet, more than expected) to help the company
reach its stated goals. The number-one reason why employees stay loyal to a company
is because they feel appreciated for doing a good job. And employees who live the
brand every day know how to deliver the experiences customer’s want, which in turn
leads to increased customer loyalty and greater profitability.

What is your company doing to keep its A-players?

(*Statistics from: WorldatWork, “Economic Downturn Leading to Decline
in Employee Commitment, Morale, Watson Wyatt and WorldatWork Survey Finds,” news release,
September 21, 2009)

In our recent electronic newsletter, we asked the following question:
When purchasing a product or service, how often do you have an outstanding* customer
experience?
(*outstanding = a time when the experience had such an impact that you openly spoke
about it to others.)

Here are the results:

These results remind me of when I used to own Buckman’s Bakery & Ice Cream in
Rochester, NY.

In the early 1990s, Buckman’s was on the verge of bankruptcy but my business partner
and I saw an opportunity. We scouted out the business and were shocked to see 7,000+
square feet of pure filth. Even more alarming were the staff—lazy, unkempt, rude,
and careless—delivering bad experiences, one customer at a time.

However, having a good understanding of the power of perceptions, we knew that if
we could change the customer experience, we could take Buckman’s back to the days
when it was a special place in the hearts and minds of Rochesterians.

So we set to work to re-establish the Buckman’s Brand from the inside out. We defined
our vision and made it meaningful to our employees by providing visible, measurable
behaviors that everyone was accountable for doing (such as remembering a regular’s
name and what they ordered). We provided systems and approaches for delighting customers,
and employees and customers liked it. Employees enjoyed contributing to the success
of an organization they believed in. We also decreased our product assortment to the
core products we knew we could guarantee would always be good.

Over time, our strategy worked. The positive perceptions about Buckman’s started to
come alive again.

After some initial hiccups with the limited product selection, customers began to
focus on the clean store and energetic, friendly employees. Customers began to appreciate
consistent quality and being treated with care and respect. They loved being remembered
every time they came in. They loved the Buckman’s Experience!

My business partner and I ended up selling Buckman’s for ten times what we paid for
it after just three short years because of the three things we did really well:

1. We hired the best people.
2. We produced only products we could be great at (less was much more).
3. We established a performance-based work culture where minimum wage employees expected
   to be — and appreciated being — accountable for keeping the store clean and delighting
   customers at every point of interaction.

These three things ended up becoming the foundation for the Achieving Brand Integrity^® process.