Mind your margin

I used to have an annoying tendency to agree to anything that’s far enough in advance.

My bad habit would kick in whenever I looked at my planner and found a blank space during the requested time. Nothing there? Looks like we’re good to go!

Then the future would show up, and I’d discover that once again I’d overbooked my time, attention and energy—to my physical, mental and spiritual detriment.

You’d think I would have caught on quicker, but it took me several decades to learn to reserve the necessary margin I need in my life.

I’ve finally come to view such demands differently, even when my calendar is open, because I can honestly answer that I already have another commitment at that time—to myself!

May is Mental Health month. Do yourself a favor. Give yourself a break.

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Internal Customer Service Challenge

It’s funny when I know there is a blog post coming up about Customer Service, the Universe seems to present me with a variety of examples.

Rather than tell you about the extremely rude behavior that I experienced at a big box store regarding curbside options, which drove me to a store where I paid more just to get good service and ask a few simple questions, I’ll tell you instead a story from a colleague.

The setting of this story is a library, but it could be anywhere. A staff person had a difficult interaction with a customer and was angry and upset about what happened. And it became a problem. The staff person said “I don’t like that woman at all. Every time she comes in here, when I’m working at the desk, I give her the stink-eye. I make sure that she knows she is not welcome here and she’s not going to get any service from me! I will not help her and I don’t want her here.”

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Um… ouch. (I know that is not very eloquent, but it’s the best I can do while my mouth is hanging open.) Where should we start with this one?

Let’s put ourselves in this staff person’s shoes first… we’ve ALL had bad customers. Mean ones, rude ones, sharp ones, forgetful ones, angry ones, odd ones… along with all the wonderful customers. Most of us have never had the luxury (or even considered that it was possible?) to give a customer the “stink-eye” and refuse to wait on her. But this staff person decided that was her prerogative and this was her course of action.

Let’s put ourselves in a Management role. First, we may not know this is even happening, unless the staff person, the customer, or other staff tell us. But once we know… how would you handle this? Imagine that this is happening at the front desk of your Recreation Center and a staff person is glaring at a person coming in for yoga class… or refusing to assist a parent bringing a child for summer camp registration. Imagine this is happening at your swimming pool desk or the service area at the State Park.

Now, the missing puzzle piece is, we do not know what this customer did to make the staff person so upset. But either way, we cannot have our staff behaving this way. How do we convey and train – and enforce – that every customer must be treated fairly and with respect – even when they do not return it to us. Staff on the front line are there to serve whoever needs service to the best of their ability. They are being paid for that job, they are expected to perform it, and are not ethically or personally allowed to decide who they choose to help or not help.

Likewise, this type of behavior trickles to other customers and can affect funding – especially if you’re a tax based entity. Unless the customer is breaking the code of conduct or behavior policy and management has to get involved, that person is still to be served.

Tricky? Absolutely. Especially if you do not have a Code of Conduct (or Customer Service Standards, Civility Standards, etc) that explain behavior for both customers and staff. What levels of respect and courtesy are expected – from both staff and patrons?  Can you ask a customer to leave your facility if they break these standards – yes – and can you discipline a staff person if they break the standards – yes.

Without them, it is much harder to illustrate expected behaviors, outline consequences, administer these guidelines, and get everyone on the same page.

Back to the staff person… while she is on the clock and working in your facility, this is not acceptable behavior. The fact that she thinks it’s her choice to behave this way – and she has the nerve to do so – speaks to her character and may mean this is not someone you wish to have on your staff. No one wants customers to be rude or have conflict with a staff person, and we must support and train our staff on how to successfully work through those interactions. This one, for me, crosses a line. I hope you’ll use this as a thought provoking exercise for yourself and give it some thought. How would you handle this? Or toss it to your managers at your staff next meeting and ask for open dialogue. What needs to be brought out into the open, discussed, explained, written or trained to help everyone have a positive work environment and not let a situation like this occur? It’s a step in the right direction!

 

Talkin’ Bout My Generation!

What is Age Diversity?

Age Diversity is defined as the ability of an organization to accept people of various age categories within the organizations’ business environment. The ability to manage both the group of people and merge them in a single working environment. Age Diversity is a hot topic in today’s business environment as we currently have more generations in the workplace than ever before. However, age diversity tends to be less focused on than gender and race diversity. While age and gender diversity are important, age diversity is another equally important piece of the puzzle.

As many as 5 generations represent today’s workforce.

Silent/Greatest Generation: Born between 1925 to 1945

Baby Boomers: Born between 1946 to 1964

Generation X: Born between 1965 to 1980

Generation Y (Millennials): 1981 to 1995

Generation Z (IGen): 1996 and later

Various trends lead to why today’s workforce is represented by so many generations. 1.) People are working longer since they are healthier and living longer. 2.) Many Silent Generation or Baby Boomers are choosing to work because they want to or are not financially in a position to retire. 3.) Some Baby Boomers are supporting Millennial children still living at home in their 20’s and 30’s.

What are Advantages of Age Diversity?

Age diversity improves performance and production. Productivity in both older and younger workers is higher in companies with mixed-age work teams. Age diversity within work teams is positively related to performance when groups are involved in complex decision-making tasks.

Age diversity can help prevent employee turnover. Workers who are 55 and over contribute to lower turnover, as they are loyal workers who typically stay in their jobs longer than younger employees. Employers gain lower turnover costs and more skilled, experienced employees.

Age diversity drives innovation. Workers bring different experiences, styles, expectations, and perspectives. These differences become a source of strength and innovation when addressed and managed the right way. The bottom line is that the most diverse organizations are usually the most innovative.

What are Disadvantages or Challenges of Age Diversity?

Lack of mutual interests, lack of communication, and egoistic approach because of the age difference. For example, a single issue may have different ways of approaching a solution. The problem rises when people stick to their decision and are not willing to communicate and work together to compromise their ideas for a solution. In many cases these problems arise due to ego and less teamwork. People of different age groups have a mindset of why they have to bend for people who are of not up to their standards. When a manager is younger in age due to his education, senior employees might react due to level of experience. Another miscommunication is language and slang. Whereas one generation may understand a certain slang, another generation may not.

Resistance of adopting a new culture. There are employees who do not want to change their working style even in a new environment. Some refuse to accept that technology is taking over, especially when a new system is taught by a younger generation.

Forming groups within teams. Employees of the same team may be more comfortable with people of the same age due to language, religion, or social status.

Not very comfortable with each others attitudes or behavior. It is common human nature that people will go along with people of their beliefs, opinions or nature. We also see this with same gender.

Employees attach themselves to a particular style and there is no social mingling. We tend to see this with employees of different departments. Due to this employees might miss out on educational experiences with exposure to different parts of the business.

Conclusion

A diverse workforce is a reflection of a changing world and marketplace. Diverse work teams bring high value to organizations. Respecting individual differences will benefit the workplace by creating a competitive edge and increasing work productivity. Diversity management benefits associates by creating a fair and safe environment where everyone has access to opportunities and challenges. Management tools in a diverse workforce should be used to educate everyone about diversity and its issues, including laws and regulations. Most workplaces are made up of diverse cultures, so organizations need to learn how to adapt to be successful. But not all companies focus on inclusion as well as diversity. Inclusion goes beyond the identification of differences by encouraging a work environment that allows people to be who they are and to feel safe and respected. Employees will thrive only if they feel truly valued and included in the long-term strategy and day-to-day operations of their organization. Diversity and inclusion are essential to the health of any enterprise because they lead to greater engagement, teamwork, performance and innovation by workers.

Tool Shed Update: Mythbusting Your To Do List

Everyone has a busy season. The retail community is approaching their busy season, CPAs are swamped during tax time, and a majority of those in the Recreation Profession feel the crush during the summer months. This is a generalization and there’s no doubt that ones busy season can vary depending on your branch and/or project load. However with regards to the Rec Professional, this spring/ summer was no different for this humble public servant.

Last summer I wrote about the figurative tools in our tool shed, and how having the correct tool makes all the difference. I’ve always been big on using lists to help organize and keep my due dates and tasks in the forefront. However, my tried and true list system was failing me. I needed an upgrade! The number of tasks I was adding to my list kept growing and items were getting buried as new additions were creeping into the margins. I found myself scanning my lists repeatedly to make sure I wasn’t overlooking something. Not efficient. Not productive.

Fortunately for me, I stumbled across an update that would enable me to glance at my sheet and have a cleaner grasp at the days work ahead. Adam Savage of “Mythbusters” fame was discussing a listing method he uses to keep track of his projects. This is the part of the blog where you may be asking, “Is this guy comparing, not forgetting to order port-a-johns to the certified smarty pants that built a working Iron Man suit?” Guilty as charged. I can get pretty dorky about my lists, so this may be more impactful for me than others. On the plus side, it’s incredibly simple to implement!

The system in a nutshell is as follows:

(i.e. get ready for some hot list talk)

Instead of numbering or making a dash or dot beside the items in your To Do List, draw a little box to the left of each task. Use that box to then illustrate the completion process of that task. For instance, if you’re half way done with a project, shade that box in half way. If you’ve only just begun a task, shade the box a quarter of the way.

I fell in love with the clean look of this easy-to-grasp method.  Where in the past, when I completed a task, I was sloppily crossing out the task and my lists became muddled and not reader friendly. With the box method, when a task is complete, the box will be completely shaded in and I still have complete visibility of what the task was.  See Wired article for more details.

At the time of this discovery, I was working on special event prep, writing a grant, working with consultants on a pool feasibility study, and trying not to lose track of my everyday responsibilities.  I ended up making an 11 x 17 mega list with four quadrants and then implemented the box listing to those quadrants depending on the topic.  Top left was Fun Food Fest, bottom left was my grant, top right was the feasibility study, and bottom right was everything else.

My pride and joy.

This solution clearly tickled me, as I’ve now written a 500 word love letter illustrating the virtues of a To Do List. (Sorry ladies, I’m off the market!)  Not only did the boxes help keep me on task and organized, I felt the satisfaction of seeing those boxes fill up as tasks were closed out. The wired article listed above also discusses the momentum building that occurs when you mentally see yourself completing task after task.

I know there are more organized individuals out there than myself, and there surely are tweaks that can be made to this. (Shout out to the four-color pen club and your color coding ways!) I like to joke, but I sincerely hope this silly simple solution may increase your productivity. Share your favorite organization tips in the comments, and let’s keep our professional tool shed growing!

The Importance of Internal Customer Service

You’re committed to Customer Service with your team and yet things are still not going smoothly…

You’re doing things like investing funds in training, modeling for staff, and encouraging staff to always take care of the customer. And yet… the staff is getting burned out and frustrated, customers still call to complain, and the cycle goes on.

What is happening?

Let’s take a look at Internal Customer Service, which is the facet of providing exceptional customer service that is often missed.

How staff interacts with each other, support each other, and do their jobs in ways that make others jobs go smoothly, is vital to the whole customer service cycle.

Here is a definition I really liked, from Micah Solomon in his Forbes.com article:

Internal customer service is when we provide customer service to the people we work with, helping them to do their best to serve external customers and promote the interests of our company.

Let me walk you through some things to consider:

A staff person working at the front desk of a recreation office works hard to provide excellent customer service to a repeat customer who can be difficult, asks for extras, and has had complaints in the past. They carefully take down the rental request details – let’s say it’s for a picnic pavilion – noting for co-workers on the crew at that park all the important details this customer has outlined.

When the parks crew leader gets the information via electronic form, they are instantly irritated by the list of special requests and extra details that were promised to this customer, partly because the front desk staff doesn’t want to “be the bad guy” and say no. The policy states no extra customized set up – you take the pavilion as you find it – so the parks crew is very aware that their co-workers are making extra work for them and setting the customer up for complaints if they refuse to do it.

The customer, happily walking away after making the reservation, will either be:

1. 1. a) very unhappy when she arrives at the pavilion and finds it not set up to her specifications and yell at the first parks crew member she can find – and/or call the front desk the next day, or
   2. b) be extremely pleased to see her requests were fulfilled and return with even more special requests next time.

The parks crew leader is going to have a few choice words to say to the person in the front office, and there is now a cycle of conflict where co-workers cannot rely on each other, trust each other to do what’s best for all, or generally work together. The front office cannot call and say “hey, I need a really special favor this time” because there is no cohesive feeling or emotional capital in the bank.

Some other examples:

• • • • Someone uses the last pool pass form and doesn’t copy more
      • Someone leaves a mess in the staff lounge and doesn’t clean it up
      • Someone doesn’t put the kayaks away properly, making extra work for the next day’s crew

Another way of looking at Internal Customer Service: Working with a team of IT staff, we asked them to define their jobs. Since they knew they were sitting in customer service training, their answers very carefully included “the customer.”

• • • • Keep the website up-to-date and running so the customer can get information
      • Maintain the database and registration system so the customer can register for programs and passes
      • Monitor and maintain the wireless internet system so customers can have Wi-Fi during meetings and activities

Great! Yes… and, what if we ask these folks to re-word their job definitions based on their work with their co-workers?

• • • Keep the website up-to-date and running so fellow staff members can access information and assist customers
    • Maintain the database and registration system so staff can efficiently do their jobs and provide excellent service to customers
    • Monitor and maintain the wireless internet system so staff do not have to troubleshoot and try to fix at the last minute when it goes down during a customer’s activity

Other examples might include:

• • • Set up the projector and laptop system in the conference room so the Director can smoothly and professionally make the budget presentation to elected officials
    • Have an efficient system to onboard new staff members with email addresses and system access so new hire employees can be trained and welcomed smoothly

The bottom line is this: we need to treat our co-workers with the same respect, courtesy, kindness, promptness, and thoughtfulness that we provide to customers outside our organization.

When you call a boating outfitter, you expect to have a pleasant phone greeting, a variety of options, and a helpful person to guide you through getting the equipment you need. When you call your own boathouse at the park you work for, do you get the same thing?

This is a much more challenging training situation and requires open conversation, time for team bonding within the staff, training and communication about civility expectations, and consequences if new internal customer service protocols are not respected.

It is well worth the time invested to work through this with your team!

Customer Service Training and Trends

Does your staff groan and complain when you announce Customer Service training? Do they dread it, think they are already doing a great job, or just dislike sitting in training? Do we still need Customer Service Training?

Here’s the thing… Yes, your organization needs it. For all the reasons you already know, including improving your Customer Service or improving parts of it, but also because you need to keep up with changing trends, most of them driven by the online environment. The “customer” is changing in a Google and Amazon “on demand” world. You can get pet food delivered to your door almost instantly. Don’t think that people will wait days to hear back from you on their question about their pool pass.

And – for your staff – do it for them. Give them the tools they need to navigate the sometimes challenging path that includes unhappy customers. Help them not feel beat up at the end of a tough encounter, empower them with the tools they need to say “I can help you with that”, and help them be in control when policies and procedures need to be followed.

Here are some business trends you should know about with Customer Service. Some impact the Recreation sector as much as the business sector:

• Chat: Use of instant chat is on the rise. What does that look like on the back end? When does a person take over from the auto-responses that get the conversation started? (I also wonder how many chats is that person juggling at once? And where in the world they actually are).
• Artificial Intelligence: Forbes.com says that 80% of companies will use AI by 2020. That is just around the corner now, after using the statistic for a few years, so I wonder how that will hold up.
• Social Media Service: This is a big one for Recreation. People have a question, first they Google it. If they cannot find it quickly, they click on Facebook or Twitter and they message either your organization or the universe at large. The Universe does not always provide an accurate answer while they are waiting for your answer. If your answer doesn’t come until four days later or after the weekend, you have a 35 message feed waiting for you to now navigate. But how realistic is it to have someone (the exhausted Director?) checking social media all weekend?
• Google: People with a question go to Google first, and then they want a human. It’s that simple. The trends are showing less time and patience in seeking out the answer themselves.
• Remote Customer Service: It’s much more likely now that your Customer Service agent is stateside rather than overseas, depending on the international level of the company you’re dealing with and very likely that person is working from home/remotely. So, within recreation, is there an opportunity to have a designated customer service team who is not actually on site?

Only you can know how busy your organization is and what level of customer service you need to start providing. But keeping an eye on the trends is important.

If you’re not sure where to start, start with social media. Be sure you are posting updates and precise easy to find information to prevent as much confusion as possible from the start. Consider a banner on your website for important things like pool closings, weather related info, holiday event updates, etc. Also, take a look at the back side of your website and what people are most navigating toward.

There is a word that pops up often in the Customer Service field: Customer-centric. That means your processes and navigations and available options need to be tailored for exactly what works best for your customer. The flip side is sometimes that it’s not always what is best or easiest for you and your staff.

This a great exercise during that staff training that you’ve been putting off having! Be aware of what is challenging or what customers are complaining about, what is the customer-centric solution, and then how can you actually make it work on the back end?

This is all important work that will pay off in the long run and it’s important to keep up with the rapidly changing times.

Civility in the workplace

Ever meet someone that you wish you could pull aside and have a little chat with them about their civility or lack thereof?

If they are on your staff, the good news is – you can. And you should…

Let me clarify… in our workplaces, we train on computer skills, how to balance the cash drawer, how to add proper pool chemicals, how to take a summer camp registration at the front desk – but we very rarely train on the proper etiquette and expected behaviors for how staff treat other staff.

This beautiful concept goes hand in hand with how we (our team) then treat the customers.

So, when I get a request for customer service training, I always first suggest we take a look at the civility expectations and training that staff receive.

If you work for a municipal entity, they sometimes have “Codes of Conduct.” This is often a  “gem” of a document (excuse the implied sarcasm) that includes a harsh list of “Do Not” statements, such as “Employees will refrain from using harsh language” or “Do not disturb, annoy, or interfere with any other person.”

Instead, what if employees come together to talk about the impact that lack of civility in the workplace has on them (step 1) and discuss the standards for behavior that are appropriate and reasonable for their workplace (step 2). Then, by sharing these, employees at all levels are aware and part of this culture. It also becomes easier to welcome new staff into the culture as well. Then, we extend these standards on to our users and patrons.

How does incivility impact the workplace? Big ways, like two employees squabbling or name calling or worse. But small ways: tiny jabs at one another, gossip that undermines the moral of all or deeply hurts an employee, employees who quit unexpectedly and you do not learn until later why, staff who call in sick to avoid confrontational situations, loss of productivity related to workplace influences. And so many more…

Another key perk to this process is that bullies or aggressive staff or “hey, I was only kidding, can’t you take a joke” jokers start to feel uncomfortable in the new civil workplace and will begin to be managed by the influence and feedback (even non-verbal social cues) of their peers.

For those that are not, Managers now have a way to discipline and council troublemakers. Sometimes it’s a “hey, can we talk about the last staff meeting? Your comment to Donna putting down her work on the event is not the kind of tone we like to set around here.” on to a full counseling session about language, harassment, or bullying.

Here are some interesting statistics:

• In 2011, 50% of employees surveyed said they are treated rudely at least once a week at work. (In 1998, it was 25%) I’m anxiously awaiting updated numbers because I bet it’s even higher in 2018.
• Out of 800 managers and employees surveyed in 17 industries:
  • 48% of employees intentionally decreased their work efforts due to incivility
  • 47% intentionally decreased their time spent at work
  • 80% lost work time worrying about an incident
  • 66% said their work declined
  • 25% admitted taking their frustrations out on a customer
    • From C. Pearson and C. Porath research

It’s time to make training and conversations and workplace civility a priority, regardless of what sector you’re in. I strongly encourage you to hire a consultant or trainer to help you with this, because sometimes employees receive the message better from an outsider versus their management. Look for someone who can be frank and candid but includes humor – Civility training can be fun!

However you approach this, educating yourself and the management of your workplace about the impacts of incivility and the importance of creating a civil workplace is an important first step, then move to a process that allows staff to be heard and be part of creating their own culture. You’ll see wonderful results!