An employee assists a customer inside a Home Depot store in Livermore, California. Photo: Getty Images
In a recent memo to employees obtained by Bloomberg, Home Depot announced that all employees—including executives—will have to work a full eight-hour shift in a store once per quarter.
This is brilliant, and how all businesses should operate when the core functions of the business differ substantially from the corporate office.
Home Depot isn’t the first business to send corporate folks into the thick of things. Twenty-five years ago, when I worked in the corporate offices of Wegmans, everyone had to spend time in the stores. And during the holiday season, it was all hands on deck. If a store needed me, into the store I went.
Why this is good for business
What is your core business? For Home Depot, it’s the stores. For Taco Bell, another company that sends corporate employees to work the frontlines, it’s restaurants. For Tesla, it’s car manufacturing, which is why Elon Musk requires its executive personnel to work in the office—to support the manufacturing staff.
It doesn’t matter how good your white-collar personnel are—if they don’t truly understand your business, they won’t make the decisions that you need.
If everyone in the boardroom knows what it is like to patiently listen to a customer scream at them, your customer service policies may improve. At a minimum, you’ll be making decisions with real, hands-on data.
Home Depot’s corporate employees will learn about products, customer service, work flow, systems, and all sorts of other things that need to be learned through hands-on experience.
Humility is key
If your executives are there stocking shelves (or, in Taco Bell’s case, making tacos), they’ll get to know your employees. They’ll get to know your customers. And your employees will get to know the executives and—hopefully—respect them.
But there is a big caution: Your executives can’t be jerks. They can’t come from their corporate offices and act like they know more than the people who do this work all day, every day.
If they come in acting as corporate know-it-alls, your employees will build increased resentment against your corporate team. An accountant or HR director who doesn’t want to get their hands dirty or who refuses to help an angry customer won’t win any respect from the store personnel. Someone from corporate who overrides store policy when they are in the store, but then doesn’t change the policy going forward, will be a disaster.
Your team can learn a ton from this type of program, but only if your corporate employees go in with the right attitude: They are there to be taught, not to teach.
Cross-training is good for everyone
Many businesses don’t have storefronts or consumer-facing employees. If it’s B2B sales, for instance, everyone sits in front of computers all day. That doesn’t mean your business can’t benefit from some cross-training.
When your employees understand what people in other departments do, you open up lines of communication and prepare pathways for success. If your marketing team understands what goes into the development processes, they can make better marketing decisions, and vice versa.
And everyone should understand your core business—whatever that is. If even a single person in your company can’t explain it, perhaps you need to conduct better training. All of your employees need to fully understand the core business—and that’s just what Home Depot is ensuring.
Does this work for small and medium businesses
Yes and no. Depending on where you are in the growth of your business. It may be more prudent to be out in your business community meeting other business folks who could also be potential customers. Nothing happens until someone sells something, so making connections, outside your four walls, is the first place to start. This is also a core value with any franchise business. Being well know in your business community can generate quicker business growth.
So what about what’s happening at my business when I’m out in the community? GREAT QUESTIONS! That’s where we come in, to help you monitor the customer’s journey and measure your service standards. Having a well honed team allows you to be the face and voice of your business in your market areas.
Are your associates creating raving fans? Give us a call, we’re here to help.
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SUZANNE LUCAS AND CARL PHILLIPS