Daughter Amy as sketched by a Norwegian Cruise Line employee on the back of a bar ticket (circa 1996)

Customer service is an important issue in the Human Resources world.  As succinctly stated by China Gorman, former COO of SHRM, “As business leaders and HR professionals, we all know about the close relationship between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction.”  In the past week or so, China , Trish McFarlane, Mike VanDervort, and Deidre Honner – exceptional HR bloggers all -  have posted about customer service.

I recently returned from a vacation with a desire to write about the same issue, but from a slightly different perspective.  I want to tell you about genuinely helpful and friendly employees who bent over backwards to service my needs, and I am going to theorize why this type of service is so rare that one is surprised and delighted when it occurs.  Especially because it does not involve Zappos.

I went on a cruise.

For 10 days and nights I was aboard a floating hotel city, where my need for food, drink, sleep, recreation, and entertainment was in the hands of one company and their employees.  For those 10 days, I was surrounded by cruise employees with friendly faces and cheerful greetings.  It did not take the wait staff long to learn that I like iced tea a lot, so when I sat down at a table 3 or 4 glasses of iced tea would instantly appear.  My room steward had the sweetest smile and happiest voice ever.  Her “good morning!” always cheered me, even on the day I had a bad eye infection and was running a fever.  It amazes me that she could display such a consistently positive, upbeat demeanor after cleaning my toilet and shower.  I could bore you to death with other examples.

I have been on well over 20 cruises, so I am not a gushing newbie.  I have found that most cruise line employees try very hard to ensure the customer’s satisfaction, although Regent Seven Seas Cruises (RSSC) (my recent host), did a truly exceptional job in this area.

So why does the cruise industry, and RSSC in particular, excel in the customer service area when so many other companies fail?  The sad answer, in my opinion, is entitlement.  Many US workers feel that they are entitled to jobs, and many US companies feel they are entitled to customers.  That attitude of entitlement causes both employees and companies to forget that they exist to serve their customers, and leads to the online gripes and complaints that they earned.  Remember Dave Carroll and his broken guitar?

Most cruise ship workers come from economically depressed countries where earnings don’t come close to matching the US and other Western countries.  The workers on my recent cruise -and who I interviewed specifically for this blog – came from Romania, Indonesia, Phillipines, Serbia, and India.  They work for cruise ships because they can earn a lot more money than they can in their countries of origin.  They don’t feel the slightest bit entitled to any job.

Cruise companies aren’t entitled to passengers, either.  Only  20% of Americans have ever been on a cruise, and competition for passengers is fierce.  These companies can’t afford to let lousy customer service make them lose a competitive advantage.

I’m not going to talk about other issues with cruise workers – and yes, I know there are many – in this blog.    Whatever the other issues, I am grateful for the RSSC workers who tried so hard to give me a pleasant vacation experience, and wish more companies and their employees would follow that lead.

Weigh in!  Does an attitude of entitlement foster poor customer service?

Author’s Note: This will be my last blog post until sometime in early July.  I am going on vacation and will be too busy drinking in new cultural experiences to blog.  Be very jealous.

Author’s Second Note: This is the first of a series – hence the #1 in the title. At least that’s the plan.

No, I am not talking about the 1950 Otto Preminger film, or the 1974 Shel Silverstein book of children’s poetry.  I’ve never seen the film, and I understood the book quite well, thank you.  It was one of my daughters’  favorites and I’ve read it many, many times.  Repetition can help foster understanding.

I have looked at this several times now, though, and I still don’t understand:

I first noticed this sign while driving my dog to the chiropractor.   As smart as my dog is (he is a border collie, after all), he isn’t much of a conversationalist, so I was forced to deal with the dilemma of sidewalk-ends signage by myself.

Now, being a lawyer, I think I have a pretty good understanding of ludicrous warnings that the legal establishment has forced upon a public that can’t be trusted to know that hot coffee is actually hot.  Having a background in law enforcement to boot, I also understand that people do really, really stupid things sometimes, and have to be saved from themselves.

So, imagine an extremely drunk person walking – or staggering – down this sidewalk on a moonless night.  The street is devoid of lighting.  The drunk reaches the end of the sidewalk, and then . . . wait . . .S/HE WALKS INTO THE SIGN.  Instead of falling onto a reasonably soft bed of untended grass and wildflowers.  Knocks him or herself out cold and suffers heat stroke (or hypothermia, if a different season).  Isn’t that person suing the subdivision development company that put the sign there?

So I don’t understand “sidewalk ends” signs in general, and I really don’t understand some company lawyers. Can you help me out here?

This sidewalk end is about 50 yards away from the one with the sign.  Different development company. Do you think they build better houses? Or are they less likely to listen to their lawyers and therefor take more risks with their construction? Inquiring minds really want to know.

Author’s Note: As the title suggests, this entire blog is written as a response to Paul Smith’s  “Welcome To the Occupation” blog post entitled “I’m A Me”.  Paul argues that discussion about cultural generations in the workforce is “just a bunch of clatter . . .because it’s simply a battle over words and identity, and the strange need for us to place labels on ourselves in order to have a sense of belonging.”

Me, around 1978

I mentioned this before, but I will do so again: I started out my professional life as a police officer in suburban Detroit in the 1970’s.  When I began my police career, professional training and development for police officers was a fairly new concept, less than 20 years old.  Police officers of the time were treated to all manner of training programs, particularly programs which advocated a more thoughtful, knowledgeable approach to dealing with community citizens.

One program that I still remember was presented by a psychologist, and officers were shown a movie made about – you guessed it – cultural generations.  I’m pretty certain that the term “generations” was never used, but the message was clear: many of the citizens we (“we” being mostly baby boomers) were dealing with were members of what is now called the “Silent Generation” – those people born from approximately 1925-1945, whose formative years were hugely impacted by the Great Depression. The training psychologist argued that police officers could respond to our public – their family fights, abandoned cars, unlicensed pets, and all manner of things that police officers must deal with – in a more compassionate way if we actually understood them, as a group, a little better.

So when Paul argues in his blog that generations are “just a label” that we place on ourselves to foster a sense of belonging, and that individual identity is all that is relevant, I am going to respectfully disagree.

Sometimes circumstances don’t allow the employee or employer to know each individual and make a judgment.  Police officers, and anyone who performs public service, uses the tool of generational identity to help them be more understanding and responsive.  If I am an HR practitioner, I want my employees to be aware of and use those tools to be better performers. Isn’t helping identify and guide employee performance an important strategic HR function?

Sometimes, individual identity has to be ignored by the HR practitioner when they are making group decisions.  If I am charged with reducing benefit costs by eliminating some benefits, and my workforce is largely 60 and older, I might decide to reduce family medical coverage in order to maintain a 401(k) match.  I may have some individuals who will prefer a different approach, but I will choose what is best for the larger group of  boomers who likely are concerned far more with retirement funds than with dependent coverage. Sometimes the “me” has to be ignored or overlooked for the perceived good of a group. This isn’t “clatter’ – it’s concern and compromise, based on cultural generational differences.  Again, the knowledge and understanding of the culture of a generation is just one more tool that an HR practitioner might be able to use.

I’d love to hear what you think.

(PS – I know I used that picture of me the last time I wrote about police work and generations.  I only have 3 pictures of me when I was a cop, and I’m not showing you the other 2. )

Everyone in the greater Detroit area is buzzing about Kwame Kilpatrick.  In case you don’t know who he is – here’s a short introduction from his (really long) Wikipedia entry :

Kwame Kilpatrick (born June 8, 1970) is the former mayor of Detroit, Michigan. When elected at the age of 31, he was the youngest mayor in the history of Detroit. Kilpatrick’s mayorship was plagued by numerous scandals and rampant accusations of corruption, with the mayor eventually resigning after being charged with ten felony counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice.  Kilpatrick was sentenced to four months in jail after pleading guilty to reduced charges, but with good time awarded to county jail inmates in Michigan, he was released on probation after serving ninety-nine days. On May 25, 2010, he was sentenced to 18 months to 5 years in prison for violating his probation.

Detroiters are buzzing  because of that last sentence.  Going to prison for a probation violation is newsworthy when the prisoner is Kwame Kilpatrick, and whether prison is too harsh a sentence for a probation violator is the topic du jour.

But no one is talking about Compuware, who is an interesting player in this whole drama.  For the uninformed, here’s what happened: Almost immediately after being released from his original jail sentence, in February 2009, Kwame Kilpatrick landed a 6-figure “account executive”  job (allegedly selling medical software) with Covisint,  a subsidiary of Compuware.  He had no experience, and was a convicted felon – convicted of lying in court. Under oath.  Just the skills needed for a sales executive job, right?

The CEO of Compuware, Peter Karmanos, Jr., was a supporter of Kwame and a financial contributor, so everyone just dismissed that job, and the fact that it was handed to Kwame on a silver platter, as business as usual. But what message is sent about the culture and corporate responsibility of Compuware?  Why wasn’t the judgment of Karmanos questioned more by the media and other observers at the time? Or is cronyism and political back-scratching just a fact of business life?  I find Compuware’s actions to be particularly shameful, given the economic downturn at the time, and the fact that Compuware employees were being  simultaneously terminated. Perhaps Kwame and Compuware are perfectly matched – both being corrupt, greedy, arrogant, and impossible to shame.

In case you hadn’t heard, Compuware/Covisint fired Kwame on Tuesday, about an hour after he was led away from court in handcuffs.  Their statement?

“It’s an unfortunate situation, and we feel bad for his family, but our hands are tied.”

I guess that Compuware’s hands weren’t tied until Kwame actually lost the ability to show up in Dallas (where he was based) once in a while. They are paying him until the end of the month, though.

So what do you think?  Is Compuware a poor corporate citizen with a bad CEO to boot?  Did they enable Kwame to misbehave by handing him an undeserved job and income?  Does everyone deserve a chance to overcome their past, including people like Kwame?  Your comments, please!

Mark Stelzner as Donald Trump - sort of

Back in March I did a post following a SHRM conference called Rants and Raves.  Since I have no desire to re-invent the wheel, and I find that the title is the hardest part of my blog to write,  I am going to take the easy way out and offer this  HRevolution version.  This time, though, the rants and raves are not mine – at least not until the end.  These are comments made directly to me by some of the attendees, and not based on anyone’s blog post or tweet.

RANTS

NOT ENOUGH TIME BETWEEN SESSIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS/NETWORKING/CONVERSATIONS - This was by far the most prevalent and consistent comment I received.  People did not want to miss the sessions, but they wanted time to start and continue substantive conversations.  The tweet-ups, with a party-like atmosphere, were good for meeting and greeting, but they wanted quieter time for serious stuff, too.  When asked, people were willing to attend a 2-day session in order to rectify this.

NOT ENOUGH SPACE – Several people thought that Catalyst Ranch, while fun and funky, was not large enough for the attendees to find spots outside of the sessions to talk or even break out into a smaller group.  A related comment was that there were just too many people, making the sessions a little too large for comfortable discussion.

GENERAL SESSION/TRACK GRIPES – Some people wanted more topics lead by working HR practitioners and directly relevant to daily HR functions.  Some wanted fewer sponsor/consultant/non-practitioner speakers and facilitators. While many of the people I spoke with felt some uneasiness with the sessions, they did not articulate their feelings or dissatisfaction as well in this area (unlike the time and space rants).

RAVES

EVENT PLANNING AND LOGISTICS – As a member of the planning committee, it is almost embarrassing to admit that this was the number one rave I received. People were quick to recognize the work involved and seemed happy with the food, tweetups, transportation, information, and cupcakes.

CHICAGO – Even though there are rumblings on Twitter about having a future HRevolution in Hawaii or Las Vegas, many attendees commented to me how perfect the Chicago location was for them from a transportation and travel standpoint.  They liked Chicago and the choices it afforded them.

CONNECTIONS MADE – Many people came specifically for the opportunity and ability to meet others and extend connections with online friends and acquaintances.  While some wished they had been able to do more, many were enthusiastic about the connections they did make.

Now that I have reported on the most frequent rants and raves made by attendees (to me), I am going to indulge myself  just a little and give you a personal rant and rave (just one each!) because I can only shut up for so long.

PERSONAL RANT

There have been a lot of blog posts and tweets about HRevolution.  Some were positive, some were not. Fair enough.  I get the distinct impression, though, that many people made their feelings known only through a blog post or a tweet. No personal contact with, or email or phone call to, a planning committee member – even though contact information for every committee member was given to every participant. Was this you?  It makes me wonder if some people actually listened to some of the messages that were given about the value of connection and communication.  If you have something to say about HRevolution – good or bad – say it on your blog or on Twitter, but say it directly to the people who brought you HRevolution, too.  You can’t have influence and credibility in 140 characters,  so make a meaningful connection and help HRevolution – and yourself – move forward.

PERSONAL RAVE

I was a very small part of a talented and dedicated group of people who helped bring HRevolution to life.  I learned much about effective collaboration and valuable teamwork from this experience, and I have to thank Trish McFarlane, Ben Eubanks, Crystal Peterson, Steve Boese, Mark Stelzner, and Jason Seiden for allowing me to be a part of this team. I am raving about all of them!

IT’S YOUR CHANCE NOW

I chose not to personally comment on the rants and raves of the attendees, because I want to know what YOU think!  Were you there?  Do you agree with anything?  Nothing?  Do you have other experiences that could help make an event like this better for everyone?

Part of my immediate family

I have a pretty large family by most standards.  Between us, my husband and I have 6 children, each with a spouse or significant other.  We currently have 11 grandchildren – with potentially more to come from the youngest of our kids.   Add nieces, nephews, brother, or ex-wife (yes, we have hosted her – and her husband), and the numbers climb even higher.

So when major holidays – like Christmas – roll around, my house is usually the epicenter of a lot of chaos.  People need to be fed, gifts need to be distributed, pictures need to be taken, spills need to be cleaned, and dishes need to be done. Since I am basically anal, I like them done efficiently, thoroughly, and deliciously.  I like things done, and done right.

But all of that doing means that I don’t get to enjoy sitting still and holding the baby, or laughing over a glass of wine, or playing a board game with the older grandchildren.  I never get to connect with my family during hectic holidays – I am simply too busy trying to make sure everything is perfect for them.  After everyone goes home, I am extraordinarily sad and contented at the same time.  I am always pouting that I didn’t get to really talk to everyone, but so satisfied knowing  that I provided a comfortable home, good food, and a happy memory for my family.  It’s an internal conflict that I never resolve.

At the end of HRevolution, the unconference that was held in Chicago a few days ago and that I was proud and humbled to help organize, I felt exactly the same way. By the time the post-conference party was over and some of us were waiting to eat dinner, I was exhausted, hungry, and depressed.  I was depressed because I knew I had missed out on an opportunity to connect with so many intelligent, wonderful people.  I was too busy, as an organizer, to pay much attention to the individuals, in order to help create a good experience for the whole.

The attendees were highly grateful for the experience and most have thanked the conference planners profusely for their work.  The planners even received a standing O at the end of the conference day – an uplifting and thoughtful gesture. In no way was my depression due to a lack of gratitude, and I was extremely happy to have had a small part in creating the best attendee experience possible.

I went to bed, though, wondering if I would ever do it again.  Just like I do every Christmas.

Last week I went to a conference called the Institute for Continuing Legal Education’s 35th Annual Labor and Employment Law Institute. Given that exasperatingly long name, I don’t think I have to tell you any more about what material the conference covered.  Hundreds of Michigan attorneys and HR pros descend on this conference every year to receive updates, information, and training related to employment and labor law developments.

Even though I have attended this conference several times in the past, this year I paid attention to something totally new.  Something that I either ignored, or, even worse, scoffed at during previous conferences.  This year I paid special attention to THE SPONSORS.

In conferences past, I paid no mind to sponsors.  I always thought that sponsors were money-hungry vultures, looking to make a buck from a captive audience that probably didn’t have a choice about whether or not they really wanted to hear the sponsor’s name or message. Look the other way and walk by fast – that was my motto.

I had a change of heart this year.  Several months ago I was asked to be a part of the planning committee for HRevolution, an unconference of cutting edge, forward-thinking HR topics.  I had been an attendee at the very first HRevolution last November, and I was thoroughly delighted by the experience.  I was humbled when asked to participate, and more than happy to help.

During these past few months of planning, I learned something very critical -  a conference, or even an unconference, costs a lot of money.  There is the facility cost, food costs, programming, signage, badges, perks or prizes (swag), and lots of little things that attendees have come to expect and that good planners want to provide.  The downside is that you can’t charge the full cost to the attendee, or they never would be able to afford to participate.  What can be done?  Ask a sponsor for donations to help defray your costs.

This is why I paid special attention to the sponsors at my employment law seminar last week- they gave money so that I could learn something new.  And this is why I am profusely thanking and loving the HRevolution sponsors.   They are giving money or items or food so that the attendees can gain knowledge and professional development.  They certainly hope for more business, but are not assured in any way of receiving it.  They are believers in the message and goals of HRevolution, and they are opening their hearts and pocket books to prove it.

Sponsors, I have learned, are the angels of the conference world.  The sponsors of HRevolution, shown below, are special angels.   If I ever need the kind of service they provide, I’m calling them first, because I already know they “get it.”   Join me if you can.

Unbridled Talent, LLC

Gypsy, the pit bull-lab-rottweiler-who know what else-mix

Yesterday I took all four – yes, four – of my dogs to the vet for routine care, like vaccines and wellness exams. They each weigh around 40 pounds and the bill was enormous.  During the exam, the vet asked the same kind of questions your doctor does during a routine physical, trying to determine if there are any issues or problems that need to be addressed.

During the exam of Gypsy, who was rescued from an abandoned crack house in an ugly part of the city of Detroit, it occurred to me that she has never had any physical problems at all.  She has never thrown up on my carpet or floor, never had kennel cough (despite plenty of exposure in closed quarters to other dogs), and never has ugly gunk running out of an eye.  I will admit that she had a genetic defect (luxating patella) when she was very young, which had to be surgically repaired, but that knee has never given her, or me, a stitch of trouble since. Even her teeth looked the best of the pack, per the vet, even though she is the second-oldest.

My other dogs are Border Collies.  BCs, as we are fond of calling them, are premier athletes.  They play silly dog games like agility, disc dog, and flyball (my game of choice).  They are considered the smartest breed of dog in the world.  They are rock stars of the doggie world.

These rock stars can have health issues, though.  Vomit, kennel cough, eye infections, torn or ripped pads and toenails – my dogs have had or done them all.  One dog has a mysterious arthritic condition in his spine that required two MRI tests and means monthly visits to the chiropractor.  Don’t even ask about the costs.

Gypsy doesn’t play flyball or any other silly doggie sport, but she is loving, energetic, and devoted – the perfect companion dog.

So, to the recruiters and HR pros of the world who might read this, I ask a favor:  The next time you need to hire an employee, think about whether you REALLY need to hire a rock star.  I know the market is buyer friendly right now, so you can get big talent for less money.    Rock stars can do amazing things, but at what cost – particularly in the long term – to you and your organization?

Non-rock stars need and deserve good jobs, too. They may come from humble circumstances without a fancy degree, and they may need a little coaching or patience in the beginning as they find their way in your organization.  The long term return on investment will be substantial, though, and you will find yourself with a rock-solid, devoted employee.

Or would you rather have an employee that burns more brightly for a shorter period of time, with substantial upkeep costs thrown in?

Ike the Border Collie playing flyball

I walked out of my hotel room in Madison, Wisconsin, suitcase in tow, preparing to check out and leave town.  I walked about 30 feet to the elevators and abruptly stopped.  I turned around, walked back to the door, and fumbled for my key card.  I found it and went back into the room, set my suitcase by the door, and stopped.

Why did I come back to the room?  Truthfully, I. had. no. clue.

“I must have forgotten something”, I thought to myself.  So I looked in the bathroom, in the closet, opened all of the drawers.  Nothing.

Just when I grabbed the handle of the suitcase, preparing to leave again and kicking myself in my not-insubstantial- butt for being a dotty old woman, I saw it.  My light grey (or gray) blazer, its color washed out by the bright Wisconsin sunshine streaming into the room, lying on the unmade bed sheets.  I picked it up and left the room again, complete.

Losing this blazer wouldn’t have meant the end of my world, or hugely impacted my life,  and I don’t know if it was luck, fate or the divine. I am glad for it anyway, although  I do wish it would help me find my primary set of car keys, which have been missing for 3 weeks now.

Which do you think it is? Do you have a story of luck, or fate, or divine intervention?  Let’s hear it.

This past weekend I played in a flyball tournament with one of my dogs.  Flyball is a sport or game in which teams of four dogs compete against each other for speed and accuracy in a combination relay/drag race.

During a flyball tournament, or at a practice/training session, or even at a flyball club Christmas party, I often hear the human handlers say (in a snobbish or haughty voice), “I don’t care about competition.  I only play flyball to have fun with my dog.”  These people speak as if the idea of engaging in a competition with a dog was somehow negative, and “having fun with a dog” the only lofty goal.

Who are these people kidding?  If they only want to have fun with their pet, why don’t they take him/her to a park or an open field somewhere and play fetch or frisbee flying disc?  Alone – without anyone counting wins and losses?

I think you know why.  The people that claim they don’t care generally do so right after their team has lost a race, or they have made a human handling error, or their dog isn’t properly trained and has made an error (or consistently makes errors).  Instead of admitting, building on, and learning from their mistakes, though,  these people choose to ignore them, pretending that  the “competition” is somehow beneath them or irrelevant.

But if you are not going to try your best and work hard to succeed, why compete in the first place?

This is not my flyball club, but it’s a cool video, and at least I did compete at this tournament.  Just in case you don’t have a clue (like most of the world), what flyball is.