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Why Your Hourly Employees Can Make or Break You

September 11, 2008 RSS Feed Print

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Suzanne Lucas

How important is your hourly workforce? Not very, right? Turnover is high and morale is low—and why shouldn't it be? It's a thankless, unimportant job. Right?

I hate this attitude. Your front line can make or break your business. Sure, your highly paid senior people deal with strategy and design and complex financial issues. But, if you don't have any customers, those things won't matter. And who does the customer deal with? Let me tell you, it's not the VP of Marketing. It's the person with the thankless job. Do you want your business to increase? Value your front line.

Let me give you two examples.

Monday evening, my family attended a carnival. My daughter and I were standing in line for a ride behind a group of—well, let's just say that one of the males wore a T-shirt that read: "I Smoke So $%#! Off." In addition to the profane T-shirt, they were obnoxious, rude, and violated the safety precautions of the ride. (On a side note, the females looked like they had wandered off a set of an '80s Cyndi Lauper video. I so don't understand that.)

The ride operator (a front-line employee) handled these people with such class that I kept thinking about how I could possibly hire this person to work for me. He kicked them off the ride and told them not to come back (which was absolutely necessary for the safety of all concerned), and he did it well. He also made sure that the rest of us were taken care of. I honestly felt like this man cared about my safety.

On the other hand, a few weeks ago, my family went on vacation and rented a car. We were on the last flight of the night, and the car rental guy was anxious to go. So anxious, in fact, that he left without giving us the necessary paperwork to exit the garage. We called the company's national number, and a front-line person said, "Well, I guess you'll just have to wait until morning."

Ummm, yes, I'll just sit with my family in a rental car garage all night. Thanks. Fortunately, another company's front-line employee was able to help us out.

Now, I probably won't be running a carnival any time soon, but if I do, I know I'm going to go straight to the company that ran this one. I told all my friends about this guy. They were impressed. They have positive feelings. And, quite frankly, it's not unlikely that one of them will be on a committee (church, fire station, county fair) that is responsible for hiring a company to provide carnival rides.

I also told all my friends about my car rental nightmare. I won't ever rent from this company again, and neither will they. Everyone was horrified at the carelessness exhibited by the car rental's front line.

Still think your hourly workforce isn't important to your company's success? Think again.

Suzanne Lucas has nine years of human resources experience, most of which has been in a Fortune 500-company setting. She holds a Professional in Human Resources Certificate from the Society for Human Resource Management. She blogs at Evil HR Lady.

Tags:: employment,; management

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The reason those who work front lines and make less-than-ideal wages ought to go the extra mile is because they care about their jobs and do what they are paid whatever wage to do.
I think most of us have worked retail at some point. Long hours, people trying to get the most product for the least money, compounded by the season or however many people there are in the store that day. If you want to be at all successful and make a decent commission on top of your wage, you put on a smile and helpful attitude knowing without those customers you don't have a job.
We make our buying decisions based on how we're treated. Would I go back to a rental place that left me stranded in a parking deck for whatever reason? Of course not. Would I go back in a store with employees who acted as though I was interrupting their time by asking them to do the job for which they're being paid (out of the proceeds of my own purchase)? Of course not.
The reason you care, even when it seems like you shouldn't care, is because you want someone to have a good day. You want them to be pleased with their purchase/experience/etc. and tell their friends. Word of mouth brings more business. If Suzanne shared the name of this rental care company with her friends, and in the future they decide to go elsewhere with their business, that company has lost even more money. More than that, it loses its reputation as a good entity with which to conduct business.
Quite frankly I'm shocked by the people who seem to think it's okay to not care, or immediately start taking the position that the rental car person had worked late, or some other way of justifying the acceptableness of the bad attitude. When you work the late shift, you take the risk of being later than expected. You always run that risk. Personally I'd rather stay a little late and perhaps have a letter in my boss' inbox about a customer who got fabulous service even though it was way after hours, it was a hassle for me, etc.
The truly successful people in life are the ones who care at whatever level of an organization they find themselves. They'll find organizations that share their beliefs, and that is when they shine.

Kelly O of AL 7:40PM September 16, 2008

I think this argument should be about "Front-line Wages". With everyone being ridiculously underpaid these days, who can blame them for being ridiculously careless? We are humans, and our number one need is to be appreciated and valued. I am a business graduate from a top tier school currently making $8 an hour. Why should I go the extra mile when nobody cares about me anyway...and I barely have enough to take care of myself.

Gina of FL 1:37PM September 16, 2008

Um, Really, did you not read the article that stated that Suzanne could not leave the garage without the paperwork. Many car rental places at airports require certain paperwork to be able to leave the garage. Maybe, the car rental employee did work late, that doesn't mean s/he gets a free pass on doing his/her job.

john of UT 8:09PM September 14, 2008