Employees Are Where It's At

An inspirational small business owner is creating an outstanding employee experience.

Like many other entrepreneurs, she overcame several obstacles before being able to get her business off the ground and have it flourish.

If only for that reason, this New York Times interview is worth reading. However, there’s more. Most notably, these two statements: “…I knew how to treat people.” and “I knew I wanted everyone in my company to know everything that was going on.”

The first statement was in response to feedback. The now-successful business owner was told that she didn’t know about business.

She said, “They were right… But I knew how to treat people.” That was in reference to customers and employees.

Beautiful.

The second statement, (“I knew I wanted everyone in my company to know everything that was going on.”) was in response to a question about the emphasis on culture. It sounds like from the start, she recognized that effective communication was the foundational piece. She then chose to further build empowerment and engagement in a variety of ways such as giving each employee an equal share of the profits every month. Nice.

I don’t mind saying that as I read the interview, I was dancing in my chair. I like knowing that more and more companies – especially small and mid-sized ones – are able to turn intention into action. They want employees to be engaged and productive. So, they commit to creating a positive overall experience for the people who work for them. Many things contribute to an employee’s experience with the company-as-employer. How decisions are made, compensation and rewards, what news and information is shared and how, the physical environment, the level of trust and, of course, effective internal communication to name a few. None will do the trick alone and some are more difficult than others. All are worth it.

The point is, momentum is building for the employee experience to be given more value so that it feeds the customer experience and a healthy bottom line. The success of LetterLogic demonstrates that taking this approach works.