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Thanking Employees for Giving

11/21/2021

12 Comments

 
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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
​author of 
Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing 

Even during a pandemic, there’s much for which to be thankful.  Most organizations are grateful they’ve weathered the economic turmoil; at the same time, they also should be showing gratitude to the stakeholder group that has become increasingly important to them:  their employees.
 
Help wanted signs in store windows and job listings on websites abound.  Most of us can't recall so many organizations, in all kinds of industries, competing for such a wide range of talent.
 
A few months ago, I offered some suggestions for how organizations might better market themselves to a shrinking pool of prospective employees.  Such successful onboarding is very important; however, it’s probably not as important as another tactic, which an old adage from personal selling mirrors:
 
It’s easier to keep current customers than it is to acquire new ones.
 
From a personnel perspective:
 
It’s better to keep existing employees than it is to hire new ones.
 
Those of us who have served on search committees, conducted job interviews, and participated in training, know the significant time, effort, and expense it takes to make successful hires.
 
Yes, every organization needs to bring new employees ‘onto the bus,’ but if good, veteran employees are getting off faster than new ones are getting on, the company really needs to shift its focus, for economic and other reasons, from acquisition to retention.
 
Keeping employees satisfied and wanting to stay in their jobs has been the focus of HR practitioners and management theorists, such as Frederick Herzberg, for over half a century.  Marketers also have offered input through the specialization known as internal marketing, which treats employees as a unique target market and strives to meet their needs.
 
If you’ve ever left a job or thought of leaving one, you know many considerations impact the decision, some tangible like pay and benefits, others more intangible like respect and recognition.  In many ways, all these factors coalesce into one desire that practically everyone, employed or not, has each day: to feel appreciated.  We all like to know that others—family, friends, and employers—are thankful for us.
 
So, how exactly should employers show that they’re thankful for the people that work for them?  Of course, there’s no one way.  Also, different people might appreciate certain approaches more than others, similar to the way individuals have different “love languages,” or ways in which they’d like others to show love to them.
 
To help me understand best practices for showing gratitude, I reached out to three business professionals whose work prioritizes employee satisfaction.  Some ideas they shared were familiar, but many included a ‘creative twist,’ and still others were completely new.  Here are several of their responses to my question: How can organizations show their employees they’re thankful for them?
 
1. Anthony Hahn, president and CEO of Conestoga Wood Specialties

Manufacturing some of the nation’s highest-quality custom cabinets and wood components undoubtedly takes a skilled work force that is challenging to recruit and retain, especially in a tight labor market.  Hahn shared that new measures such as higher starting wages, improved vacation opportunities, and attendance bonuses have helped offset those challenges.
 
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However, Conestoga have gone much further to communicate to its employees that they’re appreciated.  The company has given workers more flexibility in attending to personal needs, instituted employee recognition events with catered lunches, improved training of front-line supervisors, and enhanced corporate communication.
 
During the holidays, there are still more expressions of gratitude that Conestoga offers its 1,000+ employees, spread across several states, but two of the most significant things Hahn does throughout the year are to send each employee a birthday card and to seek opportunities to interact with individual employees and personally thank them for their work.

2. Stephanie Lehman, marketing coordinator for Martin’s Famous Potato Rolls and Bread
 
It’s unlikely that Martins would be the nation’s #1 potato roll and the bun of choice for Shake Shack if it didn’t have happy employees.  However, because of its workers’ exceptional response throughout the pandemic, the company felt it needed to do more to express its appreciation for them.
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Lehman shared that one thing the firm has done is increase written communication to employees, sending a “Martin’s Management Minute” during the summer months—the  busiest time of year for a bun maker—in order to recognize employees’ exceptional contributions to the company’s success.
 
This past summer, Martin’s extended its gratitude a step further by videoing members of its executive team as they personally thanked employees for their contributions.  The firm played the videos on digital signs throughout buildings at its headquarters and in satellite locations.
 
In addition, every three years the company unfurls a full-out celebration of its workers by hosting employee picnics at each of its bakery locations.  With free food, games, and entertainment, the events are more like large carnivals or fairs, but they’re just for Martin’s families.
 
3. Jessica Walter, senior consultant for culture and employee engagement at Kincentric

Much of Walter’s career has involved helping all kinds of organizations communicate more effectively with their employees.  As such, she’s seen examples on either end of the efficacy continuum, as well as all points in between.
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Above all, Walter emphasizes that organizational leaders need to examine their communication and “make it personal”:
 
“Today's most effective leaders are focused on the human side of leadership – the heart side of leadership. Employees are craving connection, care, and compassion more than ever before, so a sincere expression of gratitude from a leader has a powerful impact.”  
 
She describes how that personal communication can happen, saying:
 
“Whether it's a heartfelt email to the entire company, hand-written thank-you notes to your immediate team, or walking the floor and personally thanking each person you see, the act of appreciating and acknowledging [people] fosters trust and deepens the relationship.” 
 
I’m not sure if Walter has ever consulted with Conestoga or Martin’s, but it seems like she could have, as each of those companies’ expressions of gratitude to its employees are excellent reflections of her advice.
 
I’ve long been a believer that the customer comes first.  Although I still affirm that marketing mandate, I’m increasingly of the mind that treating one’s own personnel well is a critical, moral prerequisite.  Moreover, companies that regularly communicate thankfulness to their employees are engaged in some of the most “Mindful Marketing.”
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12 Comments

Will the Metaverse be Meta-Worse?

11/7/2021

6 Comments

 
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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
​author of 
Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing 

A name change is seldom a small thing.  It’s especially significant when one of the world’s most valuable companies decides to rebrand.  Facebook’s move to “Meta” offers an important signal about the firm’s future focus, which promises to impact billions of people who regularly sign onto its social media platforms.  The idea of a ‘metaverse’ sounds exciting, but will it really be a better place?
 
The recent decision of the planet’s most widely used social media platform to rename itself Meta surprised many; yet, it’s a move we’ve witnessed before, one of the most notable happening in 2015 when Google grew into Alphabet.
 
Like Google, Facebook would never do something as rash as discard one of the world’s most valuable  brands.  Rather, the company recognized that by retaining the Facebook name for just the specific social media platform and renaming the umbrella corporation Meta, the company’s expansion would be much more free from perceptual constraints.
 
Moreover, Meta might stimulate a whole new world of virtual possibilities.  According to the New York Times, the move encapsulates CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to “refocus his Silicon Valley company on what he sees as the next digital frontier, which is the unification of disparate digital worlds into something called the metaverse.”
 
Wasn’t ‘unifying disparate digital worlds’ what Facebook did when it allowed users to link the platform to their Instagram accounts?  In a manner of speaking it was, but the metaverse purports to be much, much more.

So, what exactly is the metaverse?
 
Despite its sudden popularity, the concept is not one that’s easy to define, mainly because “it doesn’t necessarily exist”; rather, it’s “a dream for the future.”  It’s also hard to get a handle on the metaverse because, like the Internet, it’s not a singular product that Facebook or any one company can build alone.
 
Crypto game developer Andrei Shulgach, who spends several hours each day in the meta-space doing research for metaverse-related projects, affirms the concept’s evolving and evasive meaning:
 
“For the past four years, the term metaverse has mainly been a buzzword without a defined meaning, and even now it is often used ambiguously. For instance, there's a distinction between the gaming metaverse and the metaverse as a whole.”
 
To the end of reducing the ambiguity, here’s how some have described the metaverse:
  • “a variety of virtual experiences, environments, and assets”
  • “a framework for an extremely connected life”
  • “a 3D virtual world inhabited by avatars of real people”
  • “a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space as you”
  • “a multiverse which interoperates more with the real world, incorporating things like augmented reality overlays, VR dressing rooms for real stores, and even apps like Google Maps.”
  • “a future digital world that feels more tangibly connected to our real lives and bodies.” 
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If it’s challenging just to understand what the metaverse is, it’s even more difficult to estimate its moral impact.  As Facebook and a slew of other organizations aim to engage us in their own region of the new ream, it’s important to ask:
 
To what extent will the metaverse be a force for good?
 
For those who don’t now frequent the metaverse, cynicism may be the understandable reaction, especially when some of the companies spearheading the change regularly make headlines for moral lapses like profiting from divisive content, playing fast and loose with data privacy, and allowing people to pummel others’ self-concepts.
 
There are undoubtedly more, but here are four main moral concerns related to the metaverse:
 
1. Time sink:  Whether it’s watching hours of TikTok videos or compulsively checking one’s Facebook feed, social media has already become a time waster for many, so one can only imagine how an even more immersive virtual experience might consume each waking hour.
 
2. Distraction:  In keeping with the first point, virtual worlds and avatars might also draw people’s attention away from what’s happening in the physical world around them, including relationships with flesh-and-blood people and resources that should be spent on real physical needs like food, clothing, and housing.
 
3. Safety:  Internet safety is already a perennial concern, especially for children.  Will even more complex and blended interaction, e.g., augmented reality, present new ways for predators to deceive and disadvantage vulnerable populations?
 
4. Accessibility:  As technology serves increasingly important functions in many of our lives, it’s easy to forget that not everyone has the same access, which can be because of limitations that are financial (affording hardware and related services), physical (seeing or hearing), cognitive (distinguishing the virtual form the physical).
 
These and other moral issues may be further complicated by what Shulgach has observed: “many companies jumping into the space, trying to ride the wave and catch an audience when they really have no experience or know what it takes to launch a successful metaverse project.” 
 
Yes, its cynical, but it’s also realistic to expect that at least some of these firms that are willing to overleverage their experience and expertise will also be inclined to undervalue ethical concerns.  We see some of that ambivalence now with the Internet--Why would the metaverse be any different?
 
However, that rhetorical question can also have a favorable frame:  Despite its flaws, the Internet has been a tremendously positive force for communication, work productivity, relationship-building, entertainment, and more--Why should the metaverse be any different?
 
As the metaverse continues to evolve, we’ll likely witness increasingly positive outcomes such as:
  • Organizations using the metaverse to train employees and serve customers, all while saving time and conserving other resources
  • Individuals finding even more interesting and engaging opportunities for information, education, and entertainment
  • People forming meaningful relationships with others who they otherwise would have never known.

Shulgach, who actively works within the game industry metaverse with others, has a vision for a metaverse that makes such a positive impact:
 
“
The idea of connecting users through virtual worlds, and digital economies powered by crypto and NFTs with real-world effects, is crucial for what the metaverse will be defined as in the future. This is an incredible opportunity to re-define and innovate the way we interact with each other moving forward.”
 
Like many things in life, the metaverse is a kind of tool.  Whether a tool is something as simple as a hammer or as complex as a car, most can be used for either good or bad—the outcomes depend on the motivation of the user.
 
The metaverse is a collection of tools that together form a mechanism unlike any other.  It’s wishful thinking to believe that every user of the tool will actively consider its moral impact, but hopefully many will, if not most.  There’s no reason that metaverse marketing can’t be “Mindful Marketing.”


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    David Hagenbuch,
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