It’s one thing for employees to follow policies of your brand culture. It’s another for them to understand why the policy and culture exists, and to make it an authentic part of their job.
A friend of mine called me about an experience he had at Chick-Fil-A today. When the Chick-Fil-A employee handed him his food, my friend was his polite self and said “thank you.” The employee responded, “it’s my pleasure.” He remembered the blog post I had written about this and asked the employee why they respond that way. She simply said, “you’re the customer and we’re here to serve you.”
That’s powerful. The Chick-Fil-A culture helps the employees to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. When people get it they can do it.
Do your employees know why you do what you do?
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice post, David,
I blogged about the Domino’s fiasco and talked about how, in this day of social media, you’re minimum wage employee can have more impact on your brand than your CMO. And when I did, I mentioned Chic-Fil-A as a counter-example: they put enough time and effort into their front-line workers that they can sleep easy at night. I can’t think of any other fast food restaurant that could say that.
- Jeff
Great insight, Jeff. It’s sad that more companies don’t focus on this very simple concept.