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The Power of Personalized Service in Business

Sponsored by Social Flowers

When was the last time you received flowers? If you’re like me, a fresh bouquet always makes a memorable impact, especially if it’s filled with your favorite flowers in colors you love. That’s just one example of personalized service in action — but the possibilities are endless.

Personalization: The Popular Choice

Over the years, we’ve come to expect more than one-size-fits-all in our personal and professional lives. We want products and services that meet our unique needs and desires.

In fact, according to research by Deloitte, more than 50% of consumers say they’re interested in customized products — and more than 20% are willing to pay more for those products. No wonder so many organizations are stepping up to this challenge in innovative ways!

But exactly when do personalized solutions make sense? Today, we’re shining a light on one example, with a guest who uses high tech to provide a very cool high-touch customer experience. And if you want to give it a try, he’s happy to help…

Meet Our Guest: Brian Gomes

Brian Gomes is the CEO of Social Flowers and Florist One. He began his career as an engineer, working as an e-commerce developer at the company he would eventually lead. He is passionate about using creative technology to improve lives, and he believes in the importance of giving back.

Since it was founded in 1999, Florist One has delivered more than 1.5 million flower orders. Impressive! So, why are these companies thriving under Brian’s leadership? Personalization is only part of the story.

For highlights from our conversation, read on…

Not Your Father’s Floral Delivery

Welcome, Brian. Tell us about the service your company offers. Why is it so special?

Social Flowers is a different way of sending flowers. Normally, you need a delivery address. But with us, you don’t. All you need is an email address, a mobile number or a social media account.

This makes the process so much easier. Just think about all the people in your life. You know them, but you don’t necessarily know where they live.

We keep all the information private and we deliver anywhere in the U.S. or Canada, through local florists.

Top Flower Delivery Trends

Nice! I’m curious. What trends are you seeing in terms of who’s sending flowers these days?

Our most popular niche is dating. That makes sense because, in the early stages of a relationship, you’re not likely to have someone’s address, but you probably have their email address, or know where to find them on social media.

That’s all you need to send flowers while respecting and maintaining someone’s privacy.

We also see more business-related interest. For example, it’s an easy way to thank people, or celebrate an accomplishment, or even express sympathy in a professional context.

Next-Level Personalized Service

And now you’re adding even more personalization? Tell us about that…

Yes. Now we offer “sender’s choice” and “recipient’s choice” options. In other words, when you order, you can decide what kind of flowers to send.

However, if you aren’t sure what the recipient wants, you can set the price, but let the recipient choose the colors, flower types, and container they prefer.

Why a Personalized Approach Matters

Why do you think personalization is so important in business? 

It’s important because it means customers get what they really want. In our case, people can express themselves and be creative, so they can take pride in what they’re giving. Also, people feel special when giving or receiving something unique.

And for business, a personalized approach helps you build brand awareness and stand out from competitors. You can gain loyalty from that and be perceived as a company that listens….

 


Want to Try Personalized Flower Delivery?

Reach out to employees, customers, or others in your sphere and get $30 off your first order:
Create a Social Flowers account and get started now!

 


Learn More…

Listen to this full #WorkTrends episode on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or wherever you tune in to podcasts. And while you’re there, be sure to subscribe so you won’t miss future episodes.

Want to continue this conversation on social media? Follow TalentCulture or use our #WorkTrends hashtag anytime on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Let’s talk!

(Also, don’t forget to create an account at Social Flowers and receive a $30 credit on your first order!)

Three Ways Health Coaches Can Jumpstart Corporate Wellness

Amazon. Netflix. Zappos. Today’s consumer culture is increasingly dominated by brands that thrive on facilitating a personalized experience. So, when it comes to your corporate wellness program, why should your employees expect anything different?

They shouldn’t, and in reality, they don’t. In fact, according to recent research, almost 75 percent of wellness program participants say a personal touch is important in their health, wellness and fitness program.

In our industry, health coaches help put this personalized experience into practice. Coaches guide employees on their journey to help them reach their health goals, providing expertise, structure, encouragement, accountability and human connection along the way. In many of our client programs, health coaches are available to meet with participants at their choosing, allowing employees to select the mode, pace, duration and frequency of their coaching sessions. This helps employees feel like a person, not an appointment, and gives them peace-of-mind knowing they have the flexibility and freedom to access support when they need it most.

Coaches deliver benefits far beyond fulfilling employees’ desires for personalized wellness. Here are three ways personal health coaches can jumpstart and significantly impact corporate wellness programs: 

  1. Coaches can help facilitate healthy behaviors

In a survey among our own clients, we found that coached participants gained 70 percent less weight than non-coached participants. Nearly 20 percent of coached participants lost around 8 pounds each year (versus just 2 pounds per year for non-coached participants). Coached participants were also 29 percent more likely to quit using tobacco versus non-coached participants. Across the board, coaches made a significant difference when it came to encouraging those essential, healthy behaviors.

  1. Coaches can help improve employee productivity

Accountability gets results: Employees who were supported by a coach completed more sessions and stayed enrolled in corporate wellness programs longer. Seventy-one percent of coached employees remained in their program past three months, while only 35 percent of those who were self-directed achieved the same. The results aren’t limited to health benefits either: 84 percent of employees who worked with a coach reported improved productivity.

  1. Coaches can help employers save bottom-line health care dollars

When it comes to cost savings and health coaching, I’ve found the 70:30 rule usually applies. In other words, 70 percent of employers’ medical and pharmacy cost savings are coming from the 30 percent of their wellness program participants who enroll in coaching. Employees who participate in company wellness programs save an average of $261 in medical costs per year. However, those who work directly with a personal health coach save an average of $586 annually—more than double the savings!

Personal health coaches provide far-reaching benefits to employees and employers alike. Coaches help employees gain momentum on their wellness journeys and provide support in achieving their health goals, while realizing greater program engagement, productivity and health care cost savings for employers. When combined with the right technology and resources, a coach-driven approach can create new levels of improvement and program results for all.

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Technology as Enabler of 2016 HR Trends: Personalized Learning and Transparency

Recently, I published an article on some of the major disruptions happening in the workplace and the role that technology has played (is playing) in enabling or inspiring innovative HR programs. This article serves as an extension (or “Part Two”) to that piece: Technology: The Enabling Force Awakening HR as a Strategic Partner In 2016. After publishing that post, a healthy conversation ensued on Twitter about whether I was advocating that technology is what will enable HR to become more strategic. While I could see how one might come away with that interpretation, I want to make it clear that I see technology always as an “enabler,” never the answer to a solution or problem.

Let’s take continuous feedback as an example. Continuous feedback is feedback given to an employee by his/her manager (or peers) on their performance on a regular, and frequent basis. This feedback is used to provide continuous coaching and development of employees rather than waiting until the end of the year. Now let’s say a manager has 12 direct reports one can easily imagine that providing real-time, meaningful feedback to each of those reports could become quite difficult and time-consuming without the aid of technology.

The point I was trying to make was that innovations in HR technology have “enabled” these processes to exist that might never have been possible through manual intervention and definitely NOT with the rigid HR systems so many organizations have been saddled with for far too long.

Here are the remaining two concepts/trends in HR I believe HR technology will have a considerable hand in supporting in 2016: personalized learning and development, transparency as the new norm.

Personalized learning and development

Personalization is fast becoming a must-have in today’s workplace. No longer can employers afford to roll out cookie-cutter programs to meet the needs of every generation or type of employee. From creating benefits programs that are flexible providing employees with choices, to career development and learning, personalization is the name of the game.

We’ve all heard about the needs of today’s learners. They want a learning experience that fits their personal needs, learning speed, preferred learning style and, most importantly, their learning pathway – learning personalized for them. But what most people don’t know is that this approach to learning is not new. In fact, noted adult learning theorist, Eduard Lindeman, laid out five key assumptions about adult learners that may sound very familiar to many of us (excerpted from Lindeman’s 1926 book, The Meaning of Education):

  1. Adults are motivated to learn as the experience needs and interests that learning will satisfy
  2. Adults orientation to learning is life centered
  3. Experience is the richest source for adults learning
  4. Adults have a deep need to be self-directing
  5. Individual differences among people increase with age – therefore, provision should be made for differences in style, time, place, and pace of learning.

As adults, we have always craved a different style of learning. In fact, learning theories have existed for quite some time now that classify learning into two approaches: pedagogical and andragogical. Pedagogy is the discipline that study and practice of how best to teach. Andragogy, on the other hand, is the method and practice of teaching adult learners. Andragogy works best in practice when learning is adapted to fit the uniqueness of the learners and the learning situation. Somehow modern day trainers and training departments have either forgotten this or never been made aware that as adults we have a different style of learning that requires different approaches.

Learning has moved beyond the classroom, and experience – one of the three components of the 70:20:10 model – should no longer be seen simply as what occurs within the four walls of the traditional workspace. Learning is social and is the result of interactions with others and also with content. That content may be formally generated by the organization and disseminated to employees; it can be employee generated and shared through peer networks or it may be content that an employee interacts with online and off hours. The point being we are all in a continuous state of learning and traditional learning management systems (at least not yet) are not capable of capturing the multitude of learning experiences that each and every employee encounters on a weekly or even daily basis.

This is where vendors like Degreed have stepped up to the plate. Capitalizing on xAPI, Degreed’s platform can capture meaningful information relating to a wide range of learning experiences and behaviors. This type of technology plays an important part in creating a more personalized learning environment; empowering learners to achieve their goals and creating self-awareness of the micro-learning moments that might otherwise go unnoticed (think meta-cognitive).

Transparency as the New Norm

We have entered a millennium where workplaces are filled with four generations of workers (or five if you ask Bill Kutik). We live in a global environment where businesses continually have to adjust to keep up with the accelerating pace of change that is fueled by technology. Technology is considered by many to be one of the primary drivers behind the globalization of economies, and its power to accelerate change of all kinds cannot be ignored. Social, mobile, video and self-service capabilities provide opportunities for greater visibility into the behavior of individuals or groups making how work gets done more transparent to the masses.

Goal planning

Openly communicating goals within an organization is a step in the direction of driving efficiencies through information transparency. A benefit of transparent goals and the linkage between them within an organization is to drive collaboration between employees directly, and not exclusively through direct managers. Another potential benefit from this is to drive efficiency through reducing redundant work efforts that might not otherwise be known. With greater transparency, individual performance and contributions to the organization become more evident. Transparent goals are critical for an employee to understand how his or her goals and performance relate to those of other employees. Here are a few vendors making goal transparency possible:

  • iDoneThis – productivity software that allows employees to stop and reflect at the end of each day on what they have accomplished. The next morning, an email digest is distributed showing everyone’s accomplishments from the previous day and employees can share thanks and celebrate the achievements, helping create a culture of openness (transparency) and gratitude.
  • Betterworks – enterprise goal software platform that utilizes OKRs to create and align goals beyond the traditional horizontal approach seen in most MBO and other goal management approaches. Their software facilitates the collaboration of goal creation and goal tracking across the enterprise and encourages open, frequent monitoring and cross-functional alignment of goals.
  • Atiim – (pronounced A-team) – a goal (OKR) and team performance management platform offers a continuous, real-time and closed-loop feedback process to improve alignment and transparency for managers and their teams.

Enterprise social networks (ESNs)

Transparency also means encouraging open communication across the organization, and soliciting feedback from and involving employees (and even customers) in making decisions. Being transparent in communications builds trust ‒ an essential component in building a strong culture. But even more importantly, transparency requires trust. Trust is the foundation for building a strong culture—trust in leadership, trust in teams and trust in individuals.

Being transparent in communications builds trust, which influences both employee support and acceptance of change, and also provides a sense of safety for employees to allow creativity and innovation to be stimulated, accepted and promoted.

Blogs delivered on enterprise social networks (ESNs) are a natural way for leaders to openly communicate with their followers and are a great forum for leaders to share their thinking around business decisions, as well as a means to build trust.

Platforms like Jive, Tibbr and Facebook at Work, whose aim is to create a connected workplace that is more productive, are prime examples of ESNs that can be used to encourage leaders and employees to share ideas, collaborate on projects and create opportunities for greater visibility across the enterprise.

[Clarification, xAPI, is not the primary method by which the Degreed platform captures data. Currently, it is designed explicitly to drive progress and build expertise over time with plans to capture more of the experiences and accomplishments too.]

Additional Resources:

Cross, R., Borgatti, S. P., & Parker, A. (2002). Making invisible work visible: Using social network analysis to support strategic collaboration. California management review, 44(2), 25-46. Chicago

Knowles, M. S., Holton III, E. F., & Swanson, R. A. (2014). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development. Routledge.

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Put the Employee Back in Employee Engagement

Last check, engagement was still the hottest buzz word in the HCM world. Ask ten different HCM professionals what “employee engagement” means, and you will likely get answers that include words or phrases such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, happiness, discretionary effort, or “likely to recommend us as a good place to work.” Unfortunately, all too many organizations have strayed from the path. A look at just the twelve most popular engagement survey providers reveals wide and varied definitions of engagement – no wonder we are all so confused.

The fact of the matter is that most “engagement” surveys either do not measure engagement at all, or lump so many unrelated things in that the final engagement score that is tabulated no longer is a measure of “engagement” at all. Given this scenario, maybe organizations should revert back to calling them “climate” or “employee” surveys.

“Engaged” employees know what is expected of them in their roles, are provided opportunities for growth and development, feel supported by their colleagues (managers and supervisors) and are given autonomy to perform tasks. An engaged employee finds their work to be psychologically meaningful, feel a sense of purpose, and have a belief that the work they do makes a difference.

At Aberdeen, we believe that engagement initiatives should be about aligning individuals with the mission and priorities of the organization in order to drive business results. This strategy, however, requires an intimate understanding of your employees, what motivates them, what skills they possess, and what roles they fill, all in an effort to help identify the human drivers of business results which are most critical to your organization. Engagement is not about what drives your aggregate engagement scores; rather it is about each and every employee and how their collective efforts make or break the success of your organization.

No matter what definition or approach is taken, it is imperative to look at engagement at all levels in an organization: organizational (macro), segment/sector level (meso), and at the department/individual level (micro). While measurement at the micro level is not always feasible or reliable due to sample size or the lack of resources, organizations still need to direct their efforts to increase engagement to each and every individual in the organization.

Business results are impacted not only by increases in revenue, but also by reductions in expenses. People-related expenses are typically only thought of as costs for salary, benefits and training, but if we look at this through an engagement lens, companies have an opportunity to save on people-related expenses such as the cost of turnover, the impact of knowledge loss on achieving strategic goals, and even stress and mental health related medical claims. Leaders and managers have to do a better job at making sure their employees know that they truly see them as our most valuable asset not just in their words but in their actions too.

Here are a few recommendations for employee engagement that we should all keep our eyes on:

  • Measure why people stay, what motivates them to perform, what they value
  • Personalization of engagement action plans
  • Employees owning their engagement
  • Measuring engagement over the employee lifecycle – hire engaged workers
  • Focus on more than just the drivers but a shift to focus on the outcomes – track and monitor employee engagement in conjunction with other outcomes such as customer satisfaction levels or turnover

These days, employee engagement isn’t just a “nice to have;” it’s critical to organizational success. How else can you help your employees connect meaningfully with their work and with the company as a whole?

Resources: “The Age of Employee Engagement

This post was first published on HCMEssentials.com on September 17, 2014.

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