We’ve all heard and experienced a lot of claptrap about customer service. Which company doesn’t put their customer first? Or rather which company really does? Of course there is good theory (e.g. ‘the Customer value chain’ showing that higher customer service leads to higher profits₁)
I’ve been working recently with two companies which really do go that extra mile and see customer service as major competitive advantage. They’re both in very different markets – one high end luxury consumer brand, the other a commodity supplier, essentially business-to-business. Both are in ‘challenger’ market positions, with some much bigger and more powerful brands
7 ways to bring meaningful engagement to your business
Mar 16th
It’s a big ask. Chief executives are suddenly recognising that ‘effective engagement of our employees’ is the key to increased productivity, to profitability, to the successful implementation of strategy, the retention of key talent and thus the key to competitive advantage. They instinctively know it’s important to ensure employees want to follow through on delivering the strategic intent, yet there is much confusion about what it is, how you create it, whose job it is to make it happen and how you measure it.
In reality it’s about getting people involved and inspired about something important and then contracting with each
We’re delighted to announce that our client, The London Borough of Lewisham, has recently scooped an HR Excellence Award. They have just been announced as the winners of the 2010 Outstanding Employee Engagement Strategy award.
We have worked hard with Lewisham on developing the ‘Lewisham Way’ to help engage their people and promote employee participation and breaking down barriers. So we’re thrilled to see all the hard work recognised by the HR annual awards.
The judges said Lewisham showed “genuine involvement from employees at every level – proper engagement, not just for the sake of it”.
Recently I was honoured to be asked to take the role of independent chair and skilled facilitator for an exciting new initiative from the Ministry of Justice.
In response to the issue of religious marriages not being legally recognised, the Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, supported face-to-face meetings to discuss these issues directly with Imams, given their influence in the community and role in officiating over religious marriages.
Having a religious marriage that is not recognised under civil law, often means people can encounter difficulties with division of assets should the marriage break down, and with inheritance and pension issues
The old adage goes: leadership development is a tough, laborious and lengthy process, and usually happens one person at a time. When tackling it, the industry norm is to plump straight for 1:1 coaching or small group leadership courses, which are more often than not costly ventures. But are they really impactful enough, how about challenging the norm and trying something different?
What do you do if you only have one hour to work with a leadership issue, and an audience of 1,000 people? You book a big theatre in the West End, work with actors to bring the leadership issue
Two Stanton Marris clients have recently been nominated for awards for our work with them.
London Borough of Lewisham and Birmingham City Council have beaten tough competition to be nominated for the Employee Engagement award by Local Government Chronicle. The nominations highlighted ‘cutting edge corporate work’ which displayed councils’ ambition and imagination.
Lewisham LBC has been nominated for the ‘Lewisham Way’, an innovative service transformation programme developed with HR by Stanton Marris to engage teams across the council in service improvement.
Birmingham City Council’s BEST programme, which has already won four major awards for the combined BCC BEST team and Stanton Marris,
About 25% of the population are introverts. This is a minority, but a significant one, especially since there seems to be a greater concentration of introverts amongst intellectually gifted people.
Myers Briggs defines introversion in terms of the source of energy which a person draws on in order to function in the world. Introverts get their energy from within. Extroverts need external stimulation (a bit like lizards in the sun). Jung says that we all prefer to behave as introverts or extroverts – one or the other. We are born with this preference, and it remains with us throughout our lives.
I read with interest the recent MacLeod Review by David Macleod and Nita Clarke, in essence a comprehensive review of employee engagement. At its heart is a simple, clear message. Employee engagement does make a difference to business performance. There’s nothing new in that, but the real import of the review is the rallying cry it makes for a national awareness campaign.
That provides a real test for Peter Mandelson’s Department for Business Innovation & Skills. Can government show the imagination and skill to galvanise employers and leaders to put the lessons of this report to work? For if employee engagement
