Being A World Class Employee

Hi folks!

It wasn’t long ago that I was in the wonderful Singapore. Whilst there, someone said to me that they treat their place of work as if it were their customer. At the time, I found this to be merely poetic and wrote this down on a paper. It is beautiful quote, and I didn’t spend much time dwelling on it. 

However, seeing that quote, by chance many weeks later has got me thinking. I believe this is the reason why some employees progress and some do not. Those who do not treat the workplace as their customer are those who don’t do so well professionally-speaking. 

Let me explain. 

We live in a world which very different to how it looked say 50 years ago. No longer are there “jobs for life”, one is expected to be moving between organizations and jobs. The nature of jobs themselves are different, they are now much more narrow, defined and specific in what they require of an employee. The idea of continually getting more and more richer as you get older is permanently stained in our societies. Then there is also the environment of workplace, one is expected to know only a handful of individuals in t he office as opposed to all the staff really well, especially in large organizations. 

So in essence our job should not define us for all those reasons mentioned above. It is temporary state. These facts added together puts some in despair. They feel then why should one go beyond the tasks at hand at work?  Whats the point, within some years I will have enough experience to move onto better job or for those particularly pessimistic, I will be leaving at some point why bother? This attitude is what creates the unsuccessful worker.

The successful employee then is one who sees themselves as the brand not the organization they work for as their brand. Every individuals name denotes unique idiosyncrasies, some more general personality traits and a skill set. These put together are a functioning business. You are a functioning business.

Your workplace is a customer, some of which will be temporarily and others more long-standing. The employer and employee join together in contract. You provide a service, of say offering the company’s clients legal advice and in return you get some monetary return. Similar to how a law firm works, they sell legal advice and in return they are paid a monetary fee. If you are a lawyer do not think of yourself as a Clifford Chance associate but rather a law firm itself which goes by the name of your own name. 

This way of thinking though, still does not explain why one should excel at their job and make active efforts to always go beyond what is required. Well its simple. Think of a business like Clifford Chance or Prada.  Their customer service is know to be incredible. It is for this reason that people pay more quite happily. We as brands should always be thinking of our own customer service. But what does this mean? It means ensuring wherever possible, additional work could be done. If you are a lawyer, this may involved checking on clients, finding more clients and maybe perhaps giving a few minutes here and there free of charge to your clients. Maintaining high customer service is expensive both in business and in person but worth it. It is more likely that your own customer i.e. the employer would want to maintain a long-standing relationship with you as well as more customers will be attracted.

As in business, there is of-course another model, simply put in the Apprentice as “stack them up high, sell them cheap”. The model of quantity which doesn’t involve much customer service. If we apply such a model on ourselves, it becomes a self-depreciating cycle. This is because time is finite. There is maximum numbers hours per day one can work and so the idea of doing short cheap jobs becomes uneconomical as they cost of time in setting up for the next job and opening and closing the job does not cover the return payment. Those who take this attitude also fail. Think of your employer as a customer, and customers want to be served otherwise they would not enter into a contract with you.

Successful organizations are those that are continually are investing in their business. Investing involves a few different stages. The first being assessment. As individuals then, setting aside time to examine our CVs and work is crucial. The next step to investment is analysis. Once we have examined out work and CVs it is crucial to analyze it, merely seeing what is going on is not enough when making investment choice. Remember for business money is finite and for individuals time (and money usually) is. This analysis should involve looking at the competition and the general market. So for a lawyer assessing your work against how your peer is doing can be eye-opening and looking at the general demand for lawyers in the market, what is demanded. Perhaps compare to job criteria for similar jobs. The next stop is examining the investment options. For individuals, it is looking at the different options they may have whether its a new language class or a position on the board of a NFPO. The final step is making the investment. This is crucial to being a successful employee. 

So this sums up my case for why those who view themselves as businesses and workplaces as customers do well in their professional lives!