WHAT ARE THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS ?
Organizations are changing from “Customer First ! All others Next” to “Employees first! They are our Asset”
Both Employees and Customers are first. They have a lot in common. Failure to realize this can result in failure of business for any organization
Pl see the ppt and you will find it extremely valuable.
Kindly give your feedbak.
K.Sambasivam
From India, Madras
30Organizations are changing from “Customer First ! All others Next” to “Employees first! They are our Asset”
Both Employees and Customers are first. They have a lot in common. Failure to realize this can result in failure of business for any organization
Pl see the ppt and you will find it extremely valuable.
Kindly give your feedbak.
K.Sambasivam
From India, Madras
Mr.Ksambasivam i totally agree with your concept..... and now a days i think employers are recognizing the fact regards vamsigyandev.s
From India, Hyderabad
From India, Hyderabad
Hi Buddy, I saw ur PPt and completely agree with you. It is something we all know but fail to take it seriously that employees are equally important.
From India, Delhi
From India, Delhi
Thank you for your feedback.
Last week, someone asked me the question "Are the customers first and important or the employees?". I gave my views.
Later I made this ppt with some more inputs and posted for Cite.HR members. Hope it is useful.
I am sure that there are many more commonalities and I request you to post your ideas here.
Thanks again.
K.Sambasivam
From India, Madras
Last week, someone asked me the question "Are the customers first and important or the employees?". I gave my views.
Later I made this ppt with some more inputs and posted for Cite.HR members. Hope it is useful.
I am sure that there are many more commonalities and I request you to post your ideas here.
Thanks again.
K.Sambasivam
From India, Madras
Excellet Post Mr. Sambasivam,
Employees First, Customers Second by Vineet Nayar the CEO of HCL, is a must read book on this subject.
From India, Hyderabad
Employees First, Customers Second by Vineet Nayar the CEO of HCL, is a must read book on this subject.
The people doing the work are the ones who create value for
the customers.From India, Hyderabad
Dear Sambasivam,
Your individual thought perception is right and I appreciate this feeling, if you have the feeling that employee and customer should get equal care or treatment by the organization. In that case, I hope that your team members may be happy with you also.
But my thinking is tilted more towards employees, as in my views, if your employee is satisfied and happy, the customer would definitely go satisfied and happy with the goods and services of the organization.Contrarily, if your employee is not happy/ satisfied, definitely productivity of the employee would get retarded affecting the quality of goods and services of the organization. He would not be able to deliver goods and services properly to the customer on behalf of the organization. In that case both employee and the customer would be unhappy.
About your main point of the thread, "organizations are changing from "customer first, all others next TO employees first," to be frank, I differ with your views. In fact I found rarest organizations which think "employees first" OR even "customers and employees equal". Even in the rarest of the organizations, which may be believing "employees first", not only the individual managers, but also the top management is mostly unable to digest the theme. They still believe in the policy "must fire the employee to please the customers."
This very fact cannot be denied that you can fire the employee, even if he is right, on the other hand customer can fire or get you fired, even if he is wrong. The employee feels helpless when the question comes about the pleasing of some customer. In one company, I saw the plight of even a senior manager when, even as per the existing written rules of the organization, his subordinate manager had to snap services of a consumer on account of her default of payment of past dues the CMD called his boss to his chamber, fired him and directed him not only to get the services restored to her, but also personally beg for her pardon. Not even that he further directed him to invite the lady to join the CMD for a cup of tea. You can imagine, what embarrassing position would have been of that senior manager?
Another instance happened with me also during my service period, when working even in a separate entity, the same CMD telephoned my boss to get favor to some other customer and told him, if some rule of our organization hindered in the way, he would get even the rules modified from the HQ of my organization. I had to tell my boss frankly that he should not have expected me to direct my men to work unethically and if he wants some specific action to be done by me or my subordinates, let him intimate in writing and the same would appropriately be referred to the HQ for taking orders of the competent authority.
Thus, since the mentality of most of the manager is anti-employee, the dream of employee-customer on equal footing can never become true, what to say of employee first.
From India, Delhi
Your individual thought perception is right and I appreciate this feeling, if you have the feeling that employee and customer should get equal care or treatment by the organization. In that case, I hope that your team members may be happy with you also.
But my thinking is tilted more towards employees, as in my views, if your employee is satisfied and happy, the customer would definitely go satisfied and happy with the goods and services of the organization.Contrarily, if your employee is not happy/ satisfied, definitely productivity of the employee would get retarded affecting the quality of goods and services of the organization. He would not be able to deliver goods and services properly to the customer on behalf of the organization. In that case both employee and the customer would be unhappy.
About your main point of the thread, "organizations are changing from "customer first, all others next TO employees first," to be frank, I differ with your views. In fact I found rarest organizations which think "employees first" OR even "customers and employees equal". Even in the rarest of the organizations, which may be believing "employees first", not only the individual managers, but also the top management is mostly unable to digest the theme. They still believe in the policy "must fire the employee to please the customers."
This very fact cannot be denied that you can fire the employee, even if he is right, on the other hand customer can fire or get you fired, even if he is wrong. The employee feels helpless when the question comes about the pleasing of some customer. In one company, I saw the plight of even a senior manager when, even as per the existing written rules of the organization, his subordinate manager had to snap services of a consumer on account of her default of payment of past dues the CMD called his boss to his chamber, fired him and directed him not only to get the services restored to her, but also personally beg for her pardon. Not even that he further directed him to invite the lady to join the CMD for a cup of tea. You can imagine, what embarrassing position would have been of that senior manager?
Another instance happened with me also during my service period, when working even in a separate entity, the same CMD telephoned my boss to get favor to some other customer and told him, if some rule of our organization hindered in the way, he would get even the rules modified from the HQ of my organization. I had to tell my boss frankly that he should not have expected me to direct my men to work unethically and if he wants some specific action to be done by me or my subordinates, let him intimate in writing and the same would appropriately be referred to the HQ for taking orders of the competent authority.
Thus, since the mentality of most of the manager is anti-employee, the dream of employee-customer on equal footing can never become true, what to say of employee first.
From India, Delhi
Dear Mr.Sambasivam,
Very nice ppt. Also very valid comments by Mr. Dhingra.
There is one thing I once heard at a seminar which went as follows:
"When an employee is busy showing his face to his boss he shows his behind to the customers and when an HR resource is busy showing his face to his boss he shows his behind to the employees."
Your comments/which one do you prescribe?
Thanks and regards,
UG
From India, Bangalore
Very nice ppt. Also very valid comments by Mr. Dhingra.
There is one thing I once heard at a seminar which went as follows:
"When an employee is busy showing his face to his boss he shows his behind to the customers and when an HR resource is busy showing his face to his boss he shows his behind to the employees."
Your comments/which one do you prescribe?
Thanks and regards,
UG
From India, Bangalore
Thank you all for your response.
Thank you, Mr. Dhingra. I truly appreciate your Leadership, Courage and Conviction you had shown and stood firmly on the incidence you had mentioned (and many such instances which I can imagine). On seeing your comments, I had some thoughts, which. I wanted to share here.
The business-owners believe that the customers are the sole contributors to the bottom line of their business.
The ''happy employees’’ not only make the customers happy but also improve the bottom-line considerably by optimizing the process, improving the efficiency and above all reducing waste, scrap, repair and re-work. This is being recognised but not openly admitted by some big bosses. ("You are doing your duty and get paid for that'' attitude)
It is ultimately a ''One Man Show’’ whether it is a family owned concern or even a professional organization. In the case of professional organization, the ''One Man’’ is that each person who occupies the slots at every level of the hierarchy. If he is a true leader, he runs the show fearlessly and fairly. If he is a boss, his actions and decisions are driven by ego and fear (of being knocked down). The organization and the employees suffer. Depending on which functional area he is heading,
*A bad customer can manipulate this boss to fire a good marketing person.
*Or a black-listed supplier, can make a honest QC person suffer for rejecting the supplies for quality reasons
*Or a misbehaved worker can make a supervisor pay heavily for initiating disciplinary action against that worker and so on..
A “customer-contact employee’’ in a hospitality industry is worst affected by a bad customer followed by a service industry employee due to their visibility to customers; unfortunately in many of these industries, “the customer is always right’’ attitude prevails.
I am seeing that the “customer – centric'' mind set of top management of the clients with whom I am associated, is changing to '' customer and employee – centric’’, especially in last 5-6 years.
Thanks,
K.Sambasivam
From India, Madras
Thank you, Mr. Dhingra. I truly appreciate your Leadership, Courage and Conviction you had shown and stood firmly on the incidence you had mentioned (and many such instances which I can imagine). On seeing your comments, I had some thoughts, which. I wanted to share here.
The business-owners believe that the customers are the sole contributors to the bottom line of their business.
The ''happy employees’’ not only make the customers happy but also improve the bottom-line considerably by optimizing the process, improving the efficiency and above all reducing waste, scrap, repair and re-work. This is being recognised but not openly admitted by some big bosses. ("You are doing your duty and get paid for that'' attitude)
It is ultimately a ''One Man Show’’ whether it is a family owned concern or even a professional organization. In the case of professional organization, the ''One Man’’ is that each person who occupies the slots at every level of the hierarchy. If he is a true leader, he runs the show fearlessly and fairly. If he is a boss, his actions and decisions are driven by ego and fear (of being knocked down). The organization and the employees suffer. Depending on which functional area he is heading,
*A bad customer can manipulate this boss to fire a good marketing person.
*Or a black-listed supplier, can make a honest QC person suffer for rejecting the supplies for quality reasons
*Or a misbehaved worker can make a supervisor pay heavily for initiating disciplinary action against that worker and so on..
A “customer-contact employee’’ in a hospitality industry is worst affected by a bad customer followed by a service industry employee due to their visibility to customers; unfortunately in many of these industries, “the customer is always right’’ attitude prevails.
I am seeing that the “customer – centric'' mind set of top management of the clients with whom I am associated, is changing to '' customer and employee – centric’’, especially in last 5-6 years.
Thanks,
K.Sambasivam
From India, Madras
Dear Mr. UG.
Your statement "When an employee is busy showing his face to his boss he shows his behind to the customers and when an HR resource is busy showing his face to his boss he shows his behind to the employees." is intriguing
I interpret that the
''employee himself is showing his behind to the customer''
or ''the HR resource himself is showing his behind to the employee'',
when they approach their bosses.
It this is correct,both of them are not seeing beyond (deliberately or unknowingly); but the boss must see beyond.
Kindly throw more light on those statements.
Thanks,
K.Sambasivam
From India, Madras
Your statement "When an employee is busy showing his face to his boss he shows his behind to the customers and when an HR resource is busy showing his face to his boss he shows his behind to the employees." is intriguing
I interpret that the
''employee himself is showing his behind to the customer''
or ''the HR resource himself is showing his behind to the employee'',
when they approach their bosses.
It this is correct,both of them are not seeing beyond (deliberately or unknowingly); but the boss must see beyond.
Kindly throw more light on those statements.
Thanks,
K.Sambasivam
From India, Madras
Lack of employee development will eventually bring a company down. Employees are the support and backbone of any successful company. Unfortunately many employees forget the hard work that they did once they move into corporate or management positions. This is why employee training and employee development is essential to a successful company. When the employees become more successful, the company becomes successful.
From India, Ahmadabad
From India, Ahmadabad
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