Have you noticed the emotion quotient is big these days? In marketing circles you hear lots of talk about getting consumers to “love” your brand … making an emotional connection with customers … and creating “passionate” brand evangelists, etc. (Can you feel the love?)
This is all well & good, as long as you start FIRST with your employees – because if they don’t feel valued, neither will your customers. And you can’t buy employee engagement with just a paycheck.
As Stan Slapp so aptly put it: “Don’t try to use money as a means to emotionally connect with your employees … Bribery won’t do it.”
So, what will? To connect with employees, you need to create:
- a sense of common purpose
- a sense of belonging, and
- a sense of being part of something special.
How? By constantly communicating and demonstrating that your employees are part of something meaningful.
[Note: I found Stan’s quote in the proceedings from the 2003 Compete through Service symposium hosted by Arizona State University’s Center for Services Leadership. The proceedings from the 2003 and other symposiums are available from Avnet, Inc.]