carina said:
HOWMAR, I agree. And I do believe Lesley makes a point when she writes this is not about money and costs vv income balace. This is about the society and the mentality of people as well as in the social culture, and many/most changes towards an encreased customer services can be done at more or less no cost.
Even such as, the examples I mentioned in my first post.
But it is complicated, as many employees are not motivated, due to long hours, low payment, hard life outside work and on and on.
In my opinion,
The problem with many managers here is that they don't take into account employee satisfaction and as a consequence, customer service is dismal, generally.
Even though higher pay would probably motivate employees to do their job better, it will increase cost on the employer and that cost will be passed to the consumer, not a good thing.
However, how often does an employee gets recognized for being his/her birthday?
How often does managers here in this country say "thank you" or starts asking with a "please"?
How often does a manager smiles to his employees?
Being sincere and nice to people goes a long way, trust me when I say that most managers are not like this.
You can also increase production by making employees feel proud of their job and their company.
A manager can accomplish such thing by combating boredom by using special assignments, recognition, rewards, activities, or other treatments to pump things up and add some fun and excitement to the workplace.
A manager who reminds his employees how much he appreciate thems (afterall, without employees there is no business) truly goes a long way.
Saying something nice but sincere about everyone always help. Giving positive feedback before success, not after and recognizing sustained effort, etc.
There is plenty that can be done to increase productivity, make employees happier, and maintain a good level of customer service without increasing one's cost by much, if anything.
These are things that work, regardless what the person is going through in his/her personal life (with few exceptions) and/or his/her habits and unproductive cultural traits.
Most managers here don't know how to be managers because they let the power issue get to their head (ie. I'm the boss and the employee must do what I say, period) attitude.
-NAL
BTW, for the managers reading this, get into the habit of preparing a "joke of the day" for your employees. Try it, the results will be noticeable, especially when coupled with what I have presented here. You will notice a change in the general attitude of your employees and a drop in firings and disatisfaction.