Back-to-basics method lifts morale
The sign of good business leadership in any company is often a willingness to leave the sanctuary of the corner office or executive floor to pitch in where necessary and get one's hands dirty alongside 'ordinary' staff.
Even comparatively small gestures of this type help improve communication, add substance to corporate messages about teamwork, and provide greater understanding of day-to-day challenges faced at different levels of the organisation. Any senior executive who has been brave enough to try it knows that a short spell in the 'real world', perhaps doing in-store sales for a morning or working a shift with a cleaning crew, is one of the fastest ways of learning what it takes to achieve customer satisfaction.
Sunny Yeung Kwong, associate director of Sino Group, head of Sino Property Services and a speaker at the Human Capital in Greater China conference, realised through keeping in touch with staff that a high turnover rate could severely affect the company's business.
Safety, cleanliness and comfort were vital elements in creating the right first impression and ongoing perceptions of a building and he saw that it was important to tackle the problem head-on.
With a headcount of about 6,700, not including those employed as external contractors, the company had to be sure of maintaining service standards in its property management, security, cleaning and parking-management businesses and in its premium-living team attending to the needs of high-end residential clients.
'Conventionally, frontline staff are ready to move if next door offers a slight increase,' Mr Yeung said. 'The turnover rate was hindering our continuity and the upkeep of our core values.' Aware that employees came from widely different backgrounds and all walks of life, Sino therefore decided to focus efforts on aligning everyone's thinking about the importance of customer satisfaction and spelling out what the company wanted to achieve in this area.
To do this, eight training programmes, known internally as academies, were introduced to help staff understand and meet the full range of customer needs, and to give a greater sense of professional pride. This was also seen as the best way of expanding the company's business portfolio in the longer term.
'Customer needs are becoming ever more sophisticated,' Mr Yeung said. 'So the only way to cope with and exceed expectations is by tailoring the training programmes.'
The eight academies cover property management and maintenance, safety, landscaping and running a clubhouse. There are language courses to teach frontline staff basic English, Putonghua and Japanese and a 'five-star service' academy, which concentrates on how to greet people and aspects of personal grooming.
'This ranges from the colour of women's tights and hairnets, through to how men's ties and suits should be worn properly,' Mr Yeung said. All classes are included in the weekly routine, though some in landscaping or maintenance may require staff to attend training centres or obtain practical experience elsewhere.
The 60-hour property management programme is specifically geared for fresh graduates, giving them the skills needed to serve initially at officer level. The security course offers people with diverse educational qualifications a thorough grounding in security procedures as stipulated by the Hong Kong police.
In order to lead by example, Mr Yeung was the security academy's first graduate.
'Only by going back to the grass roots could I understand our business operations better,' he said. 'We have asked all our senior people to go through this and now the majority of the senior management team have qualified as part-time security guards.' He added that the multidisciplinary nature of the training ensured that staff were knowledgeable about more than one discipline. A fair number had already completed as many as six of the different courses.
While noting that this initiative made Sino unique, Mr Yeung said it was crucial to benchmark against the highest professional standards. Therefore, external consultants and in-house experts collaborated in the running of each academy.
To track progress and effectiveness, 'mystery shopper' programmes and independent customer satisfaction surveys were introduced.
The results pointed to a noticeable and continuing improvement in standards, but Mr Yeung acknowledged there was never room for complacency.
'There are always new things for everyone, even senior staff,' he said. 'Quite a lot of us don't know how to operate a fire extinguisher, but it is a very important survival skill, whoever you are.'
Setting an example, senior staff have also been involved in the nuts and bolts of running promotional events involving celebrities, some of which have attracted thousands of fans.
'Crowd control is a great challenge,' Mr Yeung said. 'But for us to be out there helping out and managing the queue is a wonderful experience.'
He is in no doubt that the academies and the principles that everyone can learn have fostered a fuller understanding of the company's operations and how different departments function. This has led to better synergy and higher levels of staff satisfaction.
