In a land far away, there was once a young prince. While he was at university, he met and fell in love with a young girl who came from so-called common stock, and after a number of years, they decided to get married. There was much rejoicing in the ranks of the people of their country, because everyone likes to have something to be cheerful about, don’t they? People from far and wide were travelling to their capital city, some even going as far as to camp out on the streets for days in order to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom as they made their way into and out of the wedding service.
The new prime minister of their country, a public relations man, had decided to give everyone an extra day’s holiday to celebrate the wedding, so many offices and schools would be closed so that the workers and their children could watch the day’s events on television. One particular entrepreneur realised that he would have to open his business on the day of the wedding because he had a retail business with a lot of branches in London and would lose a lot of money if he closed his stores and gave all his staff the day off. He wasn’t particularly interested in watching the wedding himself, so decided that he would work in one of the stores himself for the day. Then he hit upon a cunning plan.
He asked all his store managers to find out which members of staff would like to take the day off to watch the wedding, and which ones would prefer to work. Then he asked the same question of all the head office support staff. He had worked out a way of keeping all his staff happy. The staff who wanted to work would all be keeping the stores open, and he would reward them for doing so by giving them an extra day off when it was mutually convenient. This was a very go-ahead business, so no-one from head office had a problem with working on the front line – they all did so regularly anyway, following a suggestion made during the frequent two-way staff feedback sessions that happened within the company. The staff that wished to watch the wedding of the prince and his new princess would be allowed the day off. Our entrepreneur reckoned that by doing this he would be keeping the vast majority of his staff happy, and that his customers would benefit from that because they would receive great service from his happy staff. He would go and work in one of the busier branches himself and that would give him the chance to get some direct feedback from his customers and staff on what they thought of his company. A no-brainer really. He wondered why more people didn’t think of doing things this way.
Thank you to nicholemflores for the picture