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From November
2007
Back
Recognition programs
Another aspect of The Container Store’s
employee-centric view is recognition. Its annual
Colorado Getaway program – in which employees
nominate peers’ contributions and commitment to
the chain – results in a ranch retreat for about
a dozen employees. The program receives
thousands of submissions each year.
Other recognition programs include leadership
development for employees who want to move into
management positions and an employee referral
program that pays a bonus.
While the Colorado Getaway program has a high
profile within the company, The Container Store
prefers to frame employee recognition as a
“daily conversation.”
“It's not necessarily about achieving one
pinnacle, goal or program, but about really
helping our managers on follow-up
conversations,” Maynard says. “Sometimes that’s
a small pat on the back or maybe a quick note
that says, ‘Great job today.’ Those pieces of
information and recognition are tremendous for
the employees' long-term growth and
development.”
Maritz, a St. Louis-based sales and marketing
services consultancy, says recognition programs
impact employee satisfaction. Its February poll
found that 55 percent of employees “agree” or
“strongly agree” that the quality of their
company's recognition efforts impacts their job
performance – and that only 43 percent of
employees “agree” or “strongly agree” that they
are consistently recognized for their
performance in ways that are meaningful to them.
Finding good people to work in the retail
environment often demands flexibility and
creativity, Maynard says. Creativity can mean
giving candidates an opportunity to show their
skills and perform. At the Cherry Hill
recruitment drive, for instance, candidates
participated in role-playing exercises to give
recruiters a sense of how the candidate would
react to various sales situations.
“We’ve never looked at someone’s background and
said specifically we’re looking for a retail
background or somebody who already has rung a
register,” she says.
“We focus more on finding people with different
life experiences who love to share information,
who love people, who enjoy interacting with
customers and who genuinely like to listen to
customers.”
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