Find ways to thank and reward staff
Peter Smyth, director, Swansway Group
Find a reason to reward your staff, Smyth told delegates.
“Where we are a little bit different is if someone has been seen to make a massive effort to reach their target, but doesn’t, we still reward them with something, because we are in touch with our people.”
He said Swansway asked Andrew McMillan, formerly customer service manager at John Lewis, to help come up with a company ethos.
Peter Smyth - Find ways to thank and reward staff
Steve Nash - Recruit the right people first time
What ‘people experts’ say the industry needs
Prof Jim Saker - How educators can improve at selling automotive retail as a career
Dr William Holden - Change the culture of your business to succeed
Nahara Hanson - Case study: Greenhous Group, HR manager, Greenhous Group
“He came back with ‘a family driven by passion where people love to work and customers are delighted to return; our values unite us: caring, honest and proud,’ which dovetailed where we as a family wanted to be.”
Smyth quoted Jack Welch, the former chairman of GE, who said great leaders possess “the generosity gene”.
“We have a yearly day out for everyone within the organisation.
“Anyone who has worked for the organisation for 12 months gets their birthday off on the company.
“Staff that have worked for us for five years and over are invited to an annual Swansway dinner where we present people who have reached five years of service a ‘caring, honest, and proud’ solid silver pin. Those that have served 10 years get a solid gold pin – “one year we celebrated 140 people reaching 10 years, at a cost of £30,000” Smyth said.
However, he said it was also important to give things money can’t buy.
“Last year, we were incredibly successful and we needed to reward an awful lot of people, so we wrote to them saying we have experienced incredible success so please accept two extra days holiday, on us.”
Swansway has a training academy, however Smyth believes you can train people to do their jobs, “but you can’t train them to smile and genuinely care”.
“Our human resources department has a very tough brief because their brief is to employ people who genuinely care. We’re not looking to create jobs; we are trying to create careers.
“Say thank you and say it a lot. Don’t just send an email, pick up the phone. We really do appreciate it as a family, and it costs nothing.”
Login to comment
Comments
No comments have been made yet.