Seth has raised a really interesting point about whether you would be missed in the workplace if you were to leave. (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/would-we-miss-y.html)
There is a growing propensity to de-skill some jobs so that if you do leave, you’re easily replacable. T
he big question is what effect this can have on customer service? Do you work harder if you feel valued? Can you feel valued as a cog in a machine? It’s really important for managers to get the balance right here – if there is too much resting on the employee’s shoulders then you are putting your customer service at risk if an employee leaves. So the organisation needs to keep a certain amount of knowledge and standardisation.
However, what opportunities can you give your employees to better serve each individual customer and meet their individual needs? How much better does that make the individual employee feel? Some people are not comfortable with a large amount of flexibility, but others are, so you need to know the limits of each employee and where they are in their career evolution.
Other factors can make a play here too. Some cultures are a lot more flexible than others – some require quite tight rules otherwise employees are working outside where they’re happy to be. What’s the background of your people?
Practically, you need to decide:
- What processes/rules/data are business critical for treating customers well?
- What is the comfort zone for each employee?
- Where would I like the comfort zone for each employee to be (what training & is needed to get them there)?
