by Paul Herbig

Created on: May 15, 2009   Last Updated: May 16, 2009

HE=HC

Want Happy Customers. First make your employees happy. Happy Employees equal Happy Customers (sic, HE=HC!). I recently read a letter to the editor from Fortune about a worker whose subordinate and boss both were fired and she was doing work of all three. You could just feel her frustration, her stress, her exhaustion, her brittleness. And you had to wonder: Just How happy can she be? With her being in the stressed-out position she was, just how happy can she make customers? And Does it show? You bettcha. A customer knows. They can sense it in your voice, your body language, your responses. No matter how much you try telling yourself you are happy and put on that artificial smiling face, it won't work: the customer knows.

At another company, the managers hand out T-shirts to all new hires that say, Not working on Sunday, don't bother showing up Monday. Not a particularly welcome message but at least they are being candid about their expectations for their employees. A note to all you managers out there: Life is not all work. Life does not begin and end with your company. Employees would prefer not to have dictatorial bosses who use such pressure tactics as 'You can't handle this additional duty? I will find someone that can'. (and then you too will be walking the unemployment line is the hidden message of encouragement and motivation). Managers reading this, take note: A well balanced employee is a happy employee who enjoys working and delighting customers as a part of his job. It is to your benefit as a manager to pursue working conditions beneficial to the mental health and attitude of your employees. Remember HE=HC.

I can just hear all you managers replying to me in unison: this is our chance to reassert ourselves and regain control. As a management tactic, perhaps now that the market is controlled by demand, you as a manager, have your employees just where you want them to be, begging to stay and thanking you for letting them have this job, no matter how much grief it is, no matter how much work, how hard, how demanding the job to be. As said earlier, If my employee does not want to do what I ask, no matter what I ask of her, there are quite a few people out of work who would gladly do her job. So what if you reward them for 80 hour weeks with 2 or 3% raises (if any at all). You have the upper hand. You have the control and you want to take advantage of it. Right? For one thing, continued stress such as employees have endured

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