Back in the day, I went to a college that overlooked a pretty major state highway. 4-lanes across, chain linked fence dividing the two sides so you couldn’t cross, major overpass directing traffic over, onto, and off of said highway. Major stuff.
There were reasonably busy side streets running on either side of the highway – one surrounded by shops, the other was the road leading to the college. And linking those to sides of the highway was a pedestrian bridge.
This campus had gone through some major expansion projects during the early 1970’s, right about the time of the passage of the Rehabilitation Act, so I figure this bridge must’ve been built in that era. On the side closest the shops was a fully articulated wheelchair ramp. It dutifully snaked around to give those in wheelchairs safe access to the shops from the bridge.
A most remarkable feature.
HOWEVER, in classic state project fashion, the college side of the ramp ended with on step and a drop right onto the roadway – a drop of 12” or so. Can you imagine? What is the thought process here? Can you imagine the poor soul who carefully made his or her way up the ramp and across the highway to come to the other side and find no possible way of getting off that bridge without falling flat on one’s face into on coming traffic? I simply cannot fathom the decision making process that made this a reality.
Note the absence of any Braille on the sign
In walking around, it’s not hard to see similar examples: cross walk lights designed to trigger not only a “Walk” light, but also an audible tone to announce the walk light is on without any Braille indicating what the button may be. Perhaps the thought was that the people who would be using the cross walks would be local and would therefore know the button is there. More than likely, though, there was no thought put into it at all.
Catching these examples along the way got me thinking about the Americans With Disabilities Act. It was designed to force a more thoughtful approach to those with disabilities and in the end; it has probably done as much for the Human Resources profession as it has done for the disabled. It was, in my opinion, the critical mass toward HR having a seat at the table with decision makers and moving from the old school “personnel” function to that of “human capital” in a way that just hadn’t been forced before.
The primary means by which accommodations are made in the workplace is through job analysis – knowing what the job exists to do, what knowledge, skills and abilities are required to meet the end goal of the job. In other words, it forces a focus on results and less on the how. It forces us to know what our jobs look like and what it takes to do them. It forces an interactive conversation with employees and applicants – a communication process that cannot be overstated in importance; either you communicate with your employees or a union will be more than happy to.
To be sure, this does not always lead to a satisfactory conclusion on an individual basis, but it does have the tendency to create best practices and force thoughtful implementation – unlike a half-baked bridge – will lead to a more productive, and perhaps even innovative, workplace.
Sometimes forced remedies, such as the ADA, will lead to such examples as Braille instruction on a drive up ATM, but if adopted in the workplace – not just complied with – these same processes can be used to more effectively run a workplace. Better yet, most accommodations aren’t overly burdensome and the process, if done properly, really can lead to a more positive workplace. Which has its economic benefits as well.
My bet is that a lot better business decisions are being made now than when it apparently made sense to build bridge with a ramp that goes unused because of lack of access or risk of certain death if used. It benefits everyone if everyone is included in the work place. It benefits everyone if we stop thinking about why someone can’t do something and instead think about how someone CAN do something, which is what the ADA forces employers to do. The ADA has focused our attention on what a job exists to do.
As an HR practitioner, it’s not hard to look at that ramp as an example of how not to accomplish something.
I was by the campus recently and noticed that somewhere along the way a less carefully articulated ramp had now been added to the side which previously had none – doubtlessly due to an ADA audit revealed this non-compliance. As late as 2001, when last worked near campus, that ramp was not there.
The thoughtless, half-conceived efforts to convey compliance with the mandate of inclusion without truly having to be inclusive leads to a remedy that requires such things as Drive Up ATM’s with Braille instructions. Good implementation guided by good HR practice also leads to the realization that most accommodations are not only not-overly burdensome, but are often times good business practice. It’s just sad that it took government intervention to force the issue. How many other problems in the workplace have remedies that we all know should happen and would ultimately lead to better practice, but will wait until we’re forced to comply?
I am absolutely beside myself. No sooner had I read an entry on bad customer service at Punk Rock HR, I had my own encounters.
Not one but two. As in plural.
I’m so absolutely confounded by both examples of poor customer service, that I had to sit down and write my own entry on the matter. By way of explanation, the title of this entry is based on the title of the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, a super read if you’re into such things.
INCIDENT #1 – The No Roses Flower Shop. So, here I am, trying to create a little bit of domestic tranquility in the Morrissey household. No reason, just because. I’m not in the doghouse or anything, it’s just a Monday afternoon. I went to the local flower shop to pick up a dozen red roses. After all, where else would one go to pick up a dozen red roses but a flower shop.
It’s a small shop, with one whole refrigerated section walled off in glass. So, as I walk in the woman behind the counter instructs me that I can simply walk into the cooler – and I do. Seeing nothing of interest, I immediately walk out. “Can I find what you’re looking for?” I want a dozen red roses, but I only see 9 of them in a bucket marked “$2.99 each”. “Oh” says she, and she then walks into the cooler. My first thought is that I clearly must be an idiot because I only see those 9.
She walks over to the bucket an dutifully counts them out. “There are 9 here. You want?” [No, I don’t want 9, I want a dozen] “Uh, well, I really wanted a dozen roses.”
“Oh!,” she exclaims, “we have a dozen yellow ones.” [OMG, we’re in a cooler and these yellow things look like they came off the bottom of someone’s shoe…no way in hell I’m paying anything for that skanky looking crap bouquet] “Um, I was kind of looking for red roses.” Now, from the back room, I hear, “There’s a dozen right in the corner here.”
Immediately my thought was, “thank God, someone who knows what they’re talking about.” Which then turned to, “Oh God, doesn’t ANYONE know what they’re talking about.” There was a reason they were in the corner. They were cut and in a vase – and $50. Mind you, this isn’t Valentine’s Day, it’s August 25. I don’t need a vase, I just need, strike that, WANT flowers. That’s it. “Well, I’m not really interested in a vase…”
Okay, here’s where I have a problem. Several items have all been presented me, none of which were acceptable. It was clear that I wanted 12 of the item of which they had but 9. Yellow wasn’t going to cut it, and the ONE dozen of red roses this store had in stock (which STILL astounds me now more than when this actually happened – a flower shop with a grand total of 21 red roses within its walls) were in a vase the customer has just stated he doesn’t want. All the puzzle pieces are in place now for a sale to be made - the Whale has been hooked, so to speak. All you have to do is pull that final trigger.
It seems to me that the next line should have been easy – “Would you like it without the vase?” This solves everyone’s issue: I gets the flowers I want, the store gets some money for some flowers they’re probably going to have to throw away because they had clearly been around for a while, AND they keep the vase to sell to some other sucker.
Instead, I hear crickets chirping.
Okay then, pretty clear you have a pretty good business in here (I was the only person not working in the story to actually be in the store), you apparently don’t need mine. “Thanks…anyway.”
What really blows my mind is that the woman in the back who correctly noted the existence of the dozen roses in a vase, I know to be the owner from other encounters I’ve had with her. How do you not have that instinct to make the sale? To think outside that which is presented?
At this point you’re asking, “Okay, smart guy, why didn’t YOU ask.” Here’s my answer: I was there for convenience sake, and it wasn’t my job to try to make the sale. This was already inconvenient for me – time already spent out of my life to buy flowers that were vastly over priced. It was now worth the few extra minutes to go to the Supermarket down the street from my house and pay $8 for a dozen roses that are now likely days old instead of paying $30 for essentially the same flowers.
It completely astounds me that a monolithic Supermarket could have not 9 roses, not 21 roses, but literally dozens of roses for the choosing while a flower store, which ostensibly exists on the back of guys like me, has 9 single roses. 9. But there it was. I had fed the parking meter for nothing…except plain bemusement.
I walk back to my car, drive to my local Stop & Shop, pick out a dozen red roses – no less a quality product than that which Ka Bloom had and perhaps better, based on appearance - and paid $8.99.
INCIDENT #2 – The Talk Live Customer Service window. Now, what got me going on this rant to begin with was my internet service. It has been going out periodically – never more than for a minute or so – for about a week and at a rate of several times an hour. But it has the effect of freaking out my wireless router such that I have to periodically restart the dang blasted thing.
So, given it’s 11PM, I go to the cable company website to find some contact information so I can do what I do best – bitch. Even better, I see they have a “talk to customer service live” button. So I click.
While I’m waiting for my CSR to appear, I click the “Specials” button and find to my grave irritation that they’re offering to new customers $70 the package for which I’m paying $125/month.
When he finally appears I tell my CSR I’ve got two issues: 1) the service goes out intermittently and 2) I want one of the specials. This is where I get very angry.
“That’s only for new customers.”
Huh?
So, if I were to cancel my service now I could come back and get that package price? “Well, you have to be gone for 90 days before you could sign up again.” So, the cable company is willing to let me walk and take the chance that I’ll come back? What you’re telling me is that your company doesn’t value my patronage. “I only said the price was for new customers.” Clearly, the person with whom I was chatting was not a native speaker of English, else he would have understood the meta-message that was just sent to me.
All of this leads to the following statement from my now erstwhile CSR: “Well, as they say in the marketing portion of our business, the grass isn’t always greener.”
“Right, but it’s no less green and frankly it’s cheaper. It might also serve you well to water your own grass on occasion.” Then I did the equivalent of the old school slam-the-phone-down thing: I closed my browser window. With prejudice. That’ll teach him. I thought the immediacy of customer service at a click was supposed to keep customers happy. A great concept in theory, but you kind of have to train your people a little better.
Two foul tasting customer service issues in one day. I was kind of asking for a confrontation with the Cable Customer service – I hate the company as it is, their product is terrible, probably because there really is little to no competition for their products. The flower shop, I just don’t get.
I found a little news tidbit on the Boston Globe website about a Burger King employee who had been fired for taking a bath in a sink. How was he discovered? Of course, the rocket scientist posted the video on his MySpace page.
I have to believe that with the proliferation of information in today’s society, that people know that doing things, like taking a bath in a restaurant sink, is a terminable offense. Yet things like this happen all the time.
It’s pretty clear that it wasn’t a case of a destitute, low-wage employee trying to wash up – he had someone videotape it for him. Rather, this is someone who got more from the entertainment value of the gag than from his employment. Worse, his co-workers – one of whom was a shift manager – valued the entertainment more than their employment as well.
For sure, this speaks to a whole host of issues - for instance, how well does the franchisee train employees and prepare supervisors – but it speaks loudly about the importance of creating an environment where employees will value their employment and to the recruiting, hiring and retaining those employees, particularly in – but certainly by no means exclusively in - a highly price-competitive service sector where the majority of positions are highly routinized and are low-wage.
Most people aren’t going to bathe in the employer’s sink, but enough think it’s okay to give away product or to otherwise act against their employer to make this a huge concern. Think about it: this individual restaurant has now received such negative publicity on news reports, health department investigations, et cetera that one has to believe there has been a substantial cost.
Think it doesn’t matter to your company? To your workplace? The same way this guy was discovered – on his MySpace page – is the way information hunters and hackers will gather information about people and armed with scant information can gain access past corporate security. If your security people are as disengaged from their jobs as our sink-bather is/was, your company has deep problems.
Reference checks, past employment verification, and drug screening won’t eliminate these behaviors. These are behaviors related to values. Skilled behavioral interviewers may screen some of these out – but what of the people who slowly begin to devalue their employment?
Communication with employees is key. I wonder if our sink bather knew the actual dollar cost of his health insurance to the company – the first time he needs a prescription filled, he’ll place some value on that bath. In the meantime, the job is to align employment policies and values with the goals and values of the organization, to communicate those goals and values, and implement them consistently. It does no good to the organization to offer benefits of which no one knows the value and it does actual harm when employees find more value in taking advantage of their employer than in working to their employer’s benefit.
This was the failure of this one employee and his cadre of co-conspirators – no question – and ultimate responsibility rests with them. However, I wonder how well this franchisee company actually tried to keep their message to their employees on their corporate values and tried to keep their employees engaged.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled on “Brian David Sanderson d/b/a ABS Heating and Cooling and Local 7, Sheet Metal Workers International Association, AFL-CIO” on April 7, 2008. The decision can be found at the NLRB website.
On April 2, NLRB Chairman Schaumber, testified to a congressional subcommittee that 15% of the NLRB’s cases are being turned away because of unfilled vacancies on the board, and that those vacancies are limiting decisions to opinions on which he and the only other board member, Wilma Liebman, agree.
How many times have I sat in an interview with a candidate or sat in an automobile sales office, or in some other meeting on a sensitive topic where the person with whom I’m speaking says, “To be honest with you…”?
Now, I’m sure the expression is mean to address the idea that what has been asked or that which has been otherwise addressed, is somehow sensitive or somehow difficult to answer – particularly for a sales representative trying to sell me an automobile who wants to recenter the conversation away from potential issues or additional costs. In the case of an interviewee telling me that he or she is going to be “honest with me” though, I immediately note that something other than the complete truth is about to come my way.
Being a member of Generation X myself, I remember the early- to mid-1990’s Baby Boomer discussions of how to handle those “Gen X Slackers.” Now that Gen Xers are in management positions, no longer is Gen X a group of slackers; we have come to be seen as a generation which demands a “work/life balance.”
History may be written by the victors; perspective is all in the hands of who is running the show. I once had my boss – the CEO of the organization – tell me in the same conversation that she found me uncommunicative and not 5-minutes later she told me that I sent her more email than anyone else in the organization. Missing here? You cannot be simultaneously uncommunicative AND send more email than anyone else.
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