Treat employees like customers

Without satisfied employees, there will be no satisfied customers. In this sense, employees are the internal customers of the enterprise. Marketing is dedicated to external customer satisfaction. How can companies ensure internal customer satisfaction? Looking at employees in the way of treating customers, human resource management is actually the internal customer relationship management of the enterprise, and the policies and measures of human resource management are the internal marketing strategy of the enterprise.

Currently domestic enterprises, including the best ones such as Huawei, ZTE, TCL, Haier, etc., still have human resource management based on "enterprise-oriented". Enterprises under "people-oriented" are equal, voluntary, harmonious, reciprocal and win-win enterprises. Only by looking at employees in the way of treating customers can the human resources work of an enterprise be truly "people-oriented", and the satisfaction of internal customers of an enterprise can be truly realized.

So, who is managing the company's internal customers? Many companies have such a misunderstanding: the company's human resources work is the responsibility of the human resources department, and many bosses also think that as long as the human resources department is established, the company's human resources problems can be solved. If an employee has a problem, they go to the human resources department instead of their direct supervisor. This is the same as losing an important customer of the company. What is the difference between going directly to the responsibility of other departments without first looking for the responsible business personnel to understand the situation and analyze the reasons? In terms of treating customers, the human resources department should be the planning department and customer service department of the internal marketing strategy of the enterprise, and the supervisors at all levels who manage employees are directly responsible for the human resources management work.

The first P of human resource management: product

Enterprises provide work to employees, and work is the product we can provide to employees. How to make the products we provide attractive and competitive is the first consideration for human resource management. The problem. Just as the product concept in the general sense includes core products and additional products, work also includes the connotations of the work itself and added value.

In order to provide attractive jobs, companies must conduct SWOT analysis as they do with the external market, determine the company's strategy, design work processes and organizational structures according to the needs of the strategy, and plan departments according to the principles of division and collaboration. Position, design job - the core product, and at the same time clarify what kind of employee needs what kind of job - target customer, competency analysis and competency model help us to clearly define the target customer of the work. The company has a professional human resources department, but without the joint participation of decision-makers and the company's middle and senior management personnel, it is difficult for the human resources department to complete these tasks independently. Human resources function people design attractive jobs for employees.

But many companies ignore this, resulting in the following two problems:

First, the work provided to employees is unclear and unclear. The employees of many companies are not very clear about the work they are engaged in: the responsibilities are not clear, the process is unreasonable, the information communication is not smooth, they do not know how qualified their work is, they do not know who to report to when there is something, and they do not know if they encounter problems. Knowing who to turn to... Employees feel lost or overwhelmed and end up either leaving or hanging out. In such a situation, how can we expect employees and enterprises to have high performance?

The second is that the company does not know what kind of employees are qualified for what kind of jobs. The result is that there are many employees in the company but few people do suitable jobs, or the company blindly seeks high-end talents in the talent market.

In 2001, a private paint company in Shenzhen with less than 1,000 employees held a large-scale on-site job fair at Wuzhou Hotel. At the same time, it recruited nearly 100 returnees and MBAs from Tsinghua University and Peking University for the company. The average monthly salary was more than 20,000 yuan, and a lot of investment was made. resources, and hope that the company will have rapid development. But what the boss didn't expect was that in less than half a year, almost all of these high-end talents left. Moreover, a large number of old employees - important ministers and loyal ministers also left the company one after another, bringing the company back to the level of development five years ago.

The reasons for this result are: First, the company does not have a large enough stage to carry so many high-end talents. What an enterprise needs should be a few down-to-earth management talents who can promote the successful transformation of the company; the enterprise also does not have a good digestion ability to absorb new concepts and cultures, resulting in severe personnel conflicts and internal friction.

The second is improper selection. The selection of talents focuses on the international background of talents and the high education of famous universities, while ignoring the status quo of enterprises and the ability of talents to solve practical problems.

Third, the differential treatment broke the hearts of the old employees. Newcomers have nothing to contribute to the company. They only have a good background and have high weights and generous pay. In the eyes of old employees, many newcomers are not as good as most of the old employees, but they say what the boss listens to. What the boss wants for what, such a huge contrast makes many capable old employees reconsider their personal future in the company, a group of people are squeezed out, and a group of people are heartbroken and refuse to stay. When the boss paid a lot of money to invite a large number of people to make the company distracted, when he realized this, there were only a few people left in the company who had no better way out.

In addition to the work itself, employees also value the added value of their work. Different types of employees have different needs. Employee surveys help us understand the needs of employees. The added value of work generally includes two aspects: hardware and software: hardware such as company address, surrounding environment, office facilities, office conditions, etc. Software such as communication methods, management methods of managers, corporate culture, company atmosphere, personal growth and development, etc.

Senior executives are the main bearers of the company's communication methods, management atmosphere, and corporate culture construction. They build the company's management system and make decisions. Their words and deeds influence the atmosphere of the entire company. A word that employees often say when they are looking for a job is: big companies look at the culture, small companies look at the boss, what kind of boss or culture determines what kind of atmosphere in the company, and also determines the future development space of employees in the company.

The blind spot of many companies' corporate culture construction lies in ignoring the role of managers, blindly introducing advanced company culture, and blindly engaging in cultural and publicity activities. The author went to a pen-making company in Zhejiang for consultation. The company’s cultural and propaganda activities and board newspapers were colorful and colorful, but the employees told us: those are all for you people from outside to see, it’s not like that in the company at all matter.

In the process of promoting the construction of corporate culture, a high-tech private enterprise in Shenzhen organized employees to watch CDs to learn Haier, but the general manager led a group of executives to watch the World Cup. The employees asked: Are the managers uneducated or the employees uneducated? Who should learn corporate culture the most? If the behavior of managers does not reflect the core values of the company, employees will not feel the existence of the culture promoted by the company.

So, who is responsible for employee growth and development? Many companies say it's the human resources department. The human resources department should undertake this responsibility, but the human resources department can only do overall planning and conduct some general skills training. The real development responsibility must be undertaken by the line management personnel.

Executives are responsible for the construction of the company's entire management team, and the development of managerial capabilities must be undertaken by senior executives. Jack Welch turned GE into a nimble "growth machine." At GE, the primary responsibility of managers is to find and develop their own successors. "Managers are responsible for the personnel responsibility of employees, and we are responsible for their growth, harvest and progress. We run a human resources factory", "We want to The thing to do is personnel development, and use the same control methods as product development. The coachee is the company's 'product', and the company's leaders are obliged to develop these products."

The second P of Human Resource Management: Price

Many people think that the price of work is salary. This is true for employees themselves, but not for companies. We provide work to employees, what do we hope to get? What we hope to obtain is the high performance of the enterprise and the realization of business objectives. In this sense, the performance of the enterprise is the price of work as the product itself, which is actually the residual value of Marx.

What is the company's performance target (pricing principle, price) strategy? What is the realization of the situation? These are all questions that executives must consider. Enterprises must formulate strategic objectives according to the needs of the environment and development, and performance objectives are the specifics of strategic objectives. In order to ensure the achievement of performance goals, we need to make necessary human resource reserves through recruitment and development, and implement the overall goals to every employee through goal decomposition and action plans. Carry out the necessary monitoring of the process through performance management, regularly summarize and evaluate (performance appraisal), find space and strategies for performance improvement, and formulate new performance target (price) strategies. This is the performance management cycle of human resources. Executives and human resources are the main bearers of the company's performance management.

How are the company's performance goals set? Performance goals are the specifics of the company's mid- and long-term goals. Determine the key result areas (KRAs) according to the strategic objectives, then decompose them by department and stage, determine the specific goals and performance responsibilities of the department and personnel at all levels, and form a performance target system. By identifying goals from the top down, goals and strategies are clearly and directly linked, and it also ensures that the behavior of individuals and teams in the enterprise is highly aligned with the strategy. The setting of performance goals generally follows the SMART principle, which should be specific, measurable, mutually agreed, achievable and time-limited.

The idea of the "Balanced Scorecard" plays an important role in the setting of performance goals. Traditional financial metrics can only measure what happened in the past, and businesses must gain momentum for continued growth through investments in customers, suppliers, employees, organizational processes, technology, and innovation. Therefore, companies should at least examine their performance from four dimensions: customers, operations management, learning and growth, and finance.

"Balanced Scorecard" overcomes the short-term behavior of financial evaluation methods, is conducive to employees' communication and understanding of organizational goals and strategies, and is conducive to the learning and growth of organizations and employees and the cultivation of core competencies, enabling enterprises to operate in the short-term. A balance has been found between goals and long-term development goals.

The process of setting and decomposing performance goals determines the key indicators KPIs that affect performance, and combines other factors that affect performance to form an indicator evaluation system for performance management.

The Third P of Human Resource Management: Channels

How is work as a product handed over to employees?

All the work of the enterprise is decomposed into various departments and positions. The work is gradually decomposed through the first-level management units. The supervisors of each department are responsible for managing the work of their own departments. Recruitment by Human Resources. Therefore, the channel of human resource management is the line manager team. Then, the construction of the channel is the construction of the management team according to the professional division of labor and hierarchical levels.

The level of the channel represents the level of management, the coverage area of the channel represents the range of management, and the channel structure is the management structure. The channel should adapt to the large environment, and the appropriate range and level should ensure the effectiveness of management and ensure the lowest channel cost. Many levels, small range, easy to check and balance the decision-making process, but involve more managers in the decision-making process; few levels, large range, decentralization, giving employees more autonomy and less supervision, but the Managers are more demanding. Customer focus competition and rapid decision-making require organizations to have a flatter management structure. A flat organizational structure is the organizational channel structure for modern enterprises to adapt to rapid market changes.

The fewer the layers, the faster the information is transmitted, and the higher the requirements for channel management. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the conditions and responsibilities of channel members (managers' competencies and management responsibilities), and carefully select channel members. It is necessary to set phased goals for them and conduct regular assessments; to improve the ability and quality of managers through training and development and a reasonable exit mechanism; to better match the needs of channels through internal personnel flow, and to motivate them to make them more productive. High performance and better channel value.

The internal channel objective is the level of service output to employees. Therefore, enterprises should pay attention to the needs of employees and analyze the level of service output required by employees. Only when the channels play a role can the company's salary incentive policies be effectively implemented, the needs of employees can be effectively met, the enthusiasm for work can be mobilized, the company's business goals can be effectively implemented, and the company can have satisfied external customers. The performance output can be effectively guaranteed.

Looking at the management team of the enterprise in the same way as the channel, we found that the management team of many enterprises is not very competent for the channel work. Many managers keep their eyes on the superiors of the channel and do not care about the needs of employees (customers) at all; many managers still stay at the level of business stars or technical backbones, ignoring the team and their own management work; many managers process information And processing ability needs to be improved, they not only did not become the messenger of information communication, but become the bottleneck of information communication. The author's many years of business practice and consulting experience have come to the conclusion that many enterprises with problems in their operation are caused by the channel - the management team.

The fourth P of human resource management: promotion, that is, integrated communication

Enterprise human resource management, what can be spread? Yes, and there is a lot to do. The company's human resources policy, the company's employment strategy, the company's policy of attracting outstanding talents, the company's performance culture... Yes, it's culture. All aspects of the company's human resources management can rise to corporate culture, become a creed, become a concept, become a code of conduct, become a management atmosphere... become a value standard recognized by each employee. All of these need to be disseminated, and managers, especially senior executives, need to promote, publicize, implement and implement with words, actions and hearts.

The process of dissemination is the process of information exchange between enterprises and employees. This information exchange is a two-way dialogue, not simply top-down instructions and orders. Enterprises need to issue performance goals, tasks and work instructions to employees through managers. The company's policies, products, guidelines, management ideas, requirements, goals, and the company's views on employees need to be passed on to employees. The company also needs to understand the work of employees. Feedback, opinions, expectations for the company, expectations for work, personal career goals, etc.; employees should also receive objective evaluation and commitment from the company or superiors. Adequate information communication is the basis for forming a high-performance team.

Enterprises should continuously develop effective communication: identify target audience, determine communication objectives, design information, select communication channels, evaluate information communication budgets i.e. communication costs, make marketing communication mix decisions, manage promotion tools and coordinate integrated marketing communication, i.e. Effective management of communication channels and means of communication. Mesh communication and informal communication have become more and more important ways of internal communication in enterprises.

A very typical way of communicating information in an enterprise is meeting communication. However, it is generally impossible to communicate at a meeting with all staff. Only a certain range of relevant personnel representing relevant business departments participate in the meeting communication. These people represent a business unit rather than an individual, but they often become an obstacle to information communication.

In the course of interviews with some managers of Foshan Midea, the author heard some complaints, saying that the company's information communication scope is too narrow, and a lot of information should be understood by grassroots employees, but there are no corresponding channels and measures. Do I ask them if they have information about the company's policies? They said they understood because they often participated in the company's middle and senior management meetings. "But grassroots employees don't have the opportunity to participate in such meetings," stressed one department head. I asked them if the company asked the managers who participated in the meeting to convey the spirit of the meeting to the people in the department. They said no, but they sometimes took the initiative to convey some, "but this is the company's business and should not be our business." The supervisor is eloquent and righteous.

This situation should not be a common phenomenon in the United States, but the author's consulting practice for many years has learned that this phenomenon exists in many enterprises, whether it is a large state-owned enterprise or a private enterprise with a certain scale and good development momentum. Some managers are not messengers of information communication, but blockers and blockers of information communication.

Many companies have unreasonable communication channels and inappropriate communication methods, resulting in poor communication, poor feedback, and increased communication costs, ultimately resulting in low operational efficiency and reduced ability to respond to the market. The most typical problem is the information sharing between the marketing department and the sales department; the problems of delivery time and internal efficiency caused by poor information communication and untimely feedback in manufacturing sales, production, procurement and other links are common in domestic enterprises.

However, using the method of integrated communication to build an internal information communication platform of the enterprise, and using the concept of integrated communication to promote the exchange of information within the enterprise can break down the barriers between departments and people, promote information sharing and feedback, and the overall Operational efficiency will be improved, and there will be better market adaptability.

Customer relationship management of human resources: HR-CRM

CRM is to establish contact with each customer to meet the special needs of each customer, to understand the different needs of customers through the contact with customers, and based on this "One-to-one" personalized service. Carrying out customer relationship management can make full use of customer resources, and obtain a large amount of targeted, specific and valuable market information through customer communication, building customer files and cooperating with customers, which is an important basis for business decision-making. Second, the more companies and customers understand and trust each other, the easier the transaction will be, thus saving transaction costs. From the long-term interests of the company, the company should maintain and develop long-term relationships with customers.

Employees are the internal customers of the enterprise. In order to improve the satisfaction of external customers, we need to carry out CRM management of human resources for employees to improve employee satisfaction.

First, companies need to analyze their employees. Understanding the needs of employees is the basis for employee relationship management. Only by understanding the characteristics and needs of different types of employees can we take targeted management measures.

Secondly, companies must make the necessary commitments to their employees. These commitments include commitment to working conditions, benefits, employee performance, employee development and job stability, and fair treatment of employees. The goal of commitment is to gain employee trust and promote employee satisfaction. Commitment is the basis for establishing a positive relationship between the company and its employees.

Third, communication with employees. This is a two-way information exchange, and its main function is to achieve mutual connection and mutual influence between the two parties. In essence, the process of employee management is the process of exchanging information with employees, and effective information exchange is a necessary means to establish and maintain a good relationship between enterprises and employees.

Fourth, keep employees. The development of an enterprise must have a stable workforce. In order to maintain a long-term and stable relationship with employees, the enterprise must fulfill its commitments and constantly make new commitments according to the characteristics of different employee relationships and the needs of different stages. Fulfilling promises is the fundamental means of corporate integrity and winning the long-term trust and dedication of employees.

Finally, employee feedback management. Employee feedback plays an important role in measuring the degree to which an enterprise fulfills its commitments and discovering problems in the relationship between the enterprise and its employees in a timely manner. Correctly handling employees' opinions and complaints is very important to eliminate employee dissatisfaction, safeguard employees' interests, and win employees' trust.

Treat employees with an equal attitude towards customers and carry out human resource management with the concept of internal marketing. We will win customers more effectively while winning employees.

Businesses will never win.

This article is a contribution from the author. The author is the general manager of South China Region of Taihe Consulting Company.

Treat employees like customers

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