Engage your Staff as if they were Customers

As a leader, how do you engage your staff?

The same techniques for earning stakeholder loyalty also work when engaging members of your staff. After all, both efforts depend on treating people with respect. Here are two ways to use 'customer service' approaches to improve relationships with all of your staff.

• Get real-time feedback. Don't wait for the annual staff member survey - or whatever other tool you use to gather feedback - to ask people what they think. Conduct regular and anonymous surveys that respect the time of your staff members and only ask the few questions that yield the most important insights. This will generate a steady stream of ideas for improvement.
• Make staff engagement a priority. If 'customer service' is a top priority in your school/organization, employee loyalty should be as well. Don't delegate the effort to HR - or worse yet, ignore it. Instead, ask those who closely interact with staff members to make sure they're engaged.  Ultimately, it's the school/organization and those it serves that win.

Adapted from "Engage Employees Using Customer Service Tactics" by Rob Markey.