Employee engagement in action

As a business owner for 13 years, I learned, firsthand, the importance of genuinely caring for employees and  creating an environment for employees where they understood the link between what they did every day and the satisfaction of our customers and the success of the business.  After selling the company to a Fortune 500 company, employee engagement and creating and sustaining an intentional culture became my primary focus.

As I continue in my travels, it is clear that business success is based on creating strong relationships with employees and customers.  As a customer or consumer, it is amazing how the behaviors of employees make me feel about the company or business I am interacting with.    It is interesting,  the connection between customer engagement  and profitability in companies is well documented;however, there is little documentation on the critical component that influences customer engagement everyday – and that is the frontline employees that determine the success or failure of companies with every interaction and communication.   In order to achieve business and customer goals, there needs to be an awareness of  the behavior of employees.

The purpose of Engagement in Action is a place to share the positive interactions we have with employees of the businesses we interact with.  My hope is to create more positive stories and experiences to show leaders the importance of their role in how their employees feel about their job and the company.

I travel every week and am in airports, hotels, airlines and as you can imagine there are many indifferent and bad service stories; however, I want to focus on the positive stories ....last week I was on a United flight from L.A.  Before we took off, the captain walked the aisle of the entire plane and said hello to the passengers.  I actually tweeted about it and @United responded within 5 minutes!   Halfway through the flight, the captain announced it was Coffee Time and we could dial in to channel 9 for coffee chat.  Now that is engagement in action!