Ins!ghts

Last week, my mum just retired from her 30 year service as a staff nurse in Adventist Hospital Penang. This blog post is the tribute to her contribution and loyalty to the company and also a case study for us to ponder on staff loyalty in this new era.

My question is, “what motivates people to stay in a company for 30 years?” Over the past few months, Edu Action is invited to conduct a full circle customer service training for a private hospital in Petaling Jaya. We had completed a 600 staffs customer service centric program and they are in the process of implementing Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to measure their customer service performance. This is part of our strategy to ensure that all the staff practise what they have learnt and also to bring their customer service level to the next level.

Throughout the 6 months project with them, we faced with different challenges but one of the key challenges we faced is to make sure the “hems ” (the stubborn character in “Who Moved My Cheese?” who refused to change because of fear, comfort & denial) open up their mind for changes and help to make the company move forward. Majority of them are the senior staffs who have been working in the hospital for the past 20 to 30 years. They are the one who think that we have doing it for the past 20 years and don’t try to teach old dogs new trick mentality.

Tough sometimes, we are loyal to a company because of the welfare, benefits and we are comfortable with the job, loyalty does not mean you hope that the company will stay the same. We need to adapt to the new changes, initiate changes and to work together as a team to move the company to the next level.

The latest change which many senior staffs are fearful off is the changes in system automation which involves computer functionality.

Looking at the new generation which is also called the Generation Y, we read the statistics and comments that they won’t stay in a company for more than 2 years. What has changed which caused someone to stay 30 years in a company but only 2 in this new century?  Does it mean, the idea of staff loyalty does not exist anymore? Is it because the companies are changing too slow to cope with the more intellectually advanced young adults? Or is it because the idea of delayed gratification and patience has long forgotten in our new generation?

EduAction is born, July 2009

Everyday, I receive leaflets, brochures & catalogs in my letter box and in the gate grill.  Sometimes I feel that it is annoying because you are forced to collect the advertising materials and throw it away to prevent it from scattering around the compound.

Quoting from Seth Godin’s concept of interruption marketing which means that delivering non-anticipated, non-personal and not relevant messages to people who actually don’t want to get them. The door to door delivering of promotional material is interruption marketing because you are interrupting the private property (letter box and gate grill) by forcing someone to read your material which is a waster of money and resources as people merely throw the material away.

Thus I think the better way of marketing is, again, quoting Seth Godin, permission marketing which is defined as delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them. The best of permission marketing is giving value first and asking permission from people to receive periodic newsletter for education first and selling comes naturally as people begin to feel your goodwill and initiatives.

Here are 4 steps how you can use permission marketing effectively:

1. Giving value first by providing educational material like blogs, whitepaper or newsletter to your prospects
2. Update them with periodic newsletter for keeping in touch with you which you gain subscription permission from them
3. Provide FREE sample or trial of your product
4. Ask for permission before you sell them

In short, permission is like dating. You don’t start by asking for the sale at first impression. You earn the right, over time, bit by bit.

Please click on the below podcast to listen to the interview session of the CEO of EduAction with Freda Liu, in the Enterprise segment at BFM, 89.9