Better Manager 7th prelims:Better Manager 7th edition

(Ron) #1

The reason why the company wants to inspire staff is because it
believes that the difference between doing something and doing
it well comes down to the amount of effort people will put into
their work. While an individual cannot be blamed for not taking
an initiative or only working to their job description, their will-
ingness to do that little bit extra is the difference between a good
experience for customers and a poor one.
Lands’ End staff are willing to make that extra effort because
of their sense of pride in what the organization stands for:
quality, service and value. Management believes that every
employee wants to do a good job, and is motivated by doing so,
but that being able to do this depends on the ‘amount of space’,
in the sense of not being frantically busy the whole time, and the
degree of responsibility that you give them. So, Lands’ End
ensures that staffing levels are such that employees have the time
to offer a good level of service, which in turn creates greater
pride and so on in a self-fulfilling cycle. The company takes a
pride in its history of good service and publishes a book of ‘great
service stories’ to help people understand how far they can go to
help a customer.
Lands’ End says that what front-line staff do has a far greater
impact on customers than what the executive team does, which
is why every staff member, including the managing director,
works in a front-line job for four hours a week for the busy six
weeks before Christmas. This reminds everyone of the import-
ance of the front-line jobs and demonstrates to front-line staff
that everyone else understands and values what they do.
Where jobs are repetitive or less challenging, it is particularly
important to provide some challenge and fun, Lands’ End
believes. And if it isn’t possible to give people a choice as to the
type of work they do, they can be given a choice as to how they
do it. So, for example, in the Lands’ End call centre, unlike many
others, good performance is not primarily measured by the
number of calls, call duration or the amount of time a person is
available to take a call. If a customer wants a service assistant to
go to the distribution centre, pick the item they want to buy, call
them back and describe the feel of the garment then that is what
they should do. The company invests more heavily in staff
training and giving people more responsibility than in putting in
controls.


70 How to be an Even Better Manager

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