Stop. Take a look around. What’s the sound of your workplace? Does your workplace help or hurt employees? Help or hurt customers? Recent customer experiences raise this question of helping or hurting.
Several payers share billing and payment information electronically on phone apps – which is a surprise. Check your electronic settings to ensure you are protecting – or sharing – your payment information as you wish. Some will think this sharing is hurtful, which others find it playful and even helpful. (One person’s junk is another’s treasure and all that.)
Some providers send bill receipts directly to email, which maintains privacy and is a help. Other providers send mailed copies of bill receipts to a spouse – even though each spouse is their own person, making their own purchases. This hurtful and disrespectful practice is antiquated – think 1950s and prior eras.
Helpful business practices include:
- sending customers thank you notes;
- clearly posting where first aid supplies can be found;
- ensuring that exits are clearly marked;
- safety training for all employees;
- producing products that are helpful and useful, safe and sane for customer purchase and use.
Hurtful business practices include:
- non-profits failing to send a thank you for a donation of any size (we made a $500 donation in December of 2020 and still have not received a thank you – not in email form and certainly not in written form);
- making dangerous products that do not carry proper use instructions or warnings;
- salespeople who initiate talk about illegal drugs with customers (yes, had this happen at a furniture store, we were shocked);
- sharing private information of any kind – purchases, doctor’s office visits (yes, an insurance company is doing this against federal law), or frequency of shopping, or anything private;
- producing products or providing services that cause damage, harm, or unrecoverable loss or hurt.
Again. Stop. Take a look around: What helpful practices can your team celebrate this week?
What hurtful practices need to be addressed and discontinued by your team this week?
Time to review your business practices? To document plans, goals, actions, and decisions? Contact Jana: 208-367-1701
As the author of seven books, in seven languages, Jana has been interviewed by U.S., Canadian, and European programs, and magazines. Her presentations have been seen in the United States and India by international audience members.
Workplace – the Blog: Managing the moments of our day-to-day business lives takes work. Together, let’s explore what issues and activities affect us every day (or some days) that we go to work. Together we can find working solutions.