The Art of War - Importance of Time Off for your Employee

November and December is a very busy month for hotels in Malaysia. Its the last term school holidays leading to Christmas and New Year. Families will be traveling, some resorts will be full during the durations. Manpower will be stretch to limit as this is the last two months for the year to maximize revenue and profit. What most of these hotels fail to see is what Sun Tzu in Chapter 2- Waging War  about prolong war.

"There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare"  Verse 6, Chapter 2 Waging War.

What I see is the staff will get very exhausted as some companies even hold back leaves and offdays. When the staff energy level and morale is low,then service level will also decline. When service level declines, customers are not happy. When customers are not happy, what do they do nowadays. They not only don't come back, they let everyone know of their unhappiness. They write in reviews, blogs, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and so on. Then the whole world will know your service sucks. Sun Tzu's have another quote for this situation.

"Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity.Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue"  Verse 4, Chapter 2-  Waging War.

So what I normally do when the busy season is about to come. I will source for partimers so as I can reduce the extra working hours of my permenant staff. So they will be well rested. And I also give them time off to go for holidays with their family, especially those with school going kids. These are the perks thats is better than money. They will really appreciate you and work hard for you. Always remember that your staffs are humans too, they have feelings.

As Sun Tzu said in Chapter 9.

"Therefore soldiers must be treated in the first instance with humanity, but kept under control by means of iron displine. This is a certain road to victory" Verse 43, Chapter 9'

Also Read

Sun Tzu - The Use of The Office Gossip

Most people will say that its not honest to use spies in what we do. But I don't agree with this statement. Spies if used with integrity and honestly can be a great asset to an establishment. With spies you can know why the competitors is getting more business or what they are doing differently. Maybe their product or sales team is better, so then you can improve your product or team with this piece of info. That is why Sun Tzu has dedicated a chapter on the use of spies. Below is one of the verse "Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men." Verse 6 Chapter 13. THE USE OF SPIES Even the office gossip is useful.

Read more Click Here.

Fish- A customer Service Lesson from Fish Sellers

Fish! A Proven Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results Amazon.com

I came across this book on display at a group team building activity in my former hotel. This Team Building company brings lots of different corporate groups to our hotel. This particular group was learning about providing Great Customer Service. The book looked like a children story book similar to the cover of "Who Moved my Cheese". It even had a boring cover with just the word "Fish" and a drawing of a fish on it. So I just passed it by. Yes I am guilty of Judging a Book by its Cover. 
Then lately my present boss, highlighted of about Customer Service and how we can try to make the work more fun even for work that is boring and mundane. He highlighted about the Pike's Place Fish Market in Seattle, America that is famous. People go there not only to buy fish but also to see the antics of the staff there. He said that there is even a motivational book written about this place. I remembered this book and got it. Like most books in this lens, its a simple to understand and a fun read. The book shares with you how to boost your employee morale and thus increases your revenue.

Seattle- Monday Morning
The story starts with an introduction on how a First Guarantee Financial supervisor named Mary Jane Ramirez life changed after the death of her husband within a year of moving to Seattle. And how she reluctantly accepted a promotion to manager of the dreaded third floor. A department which is the joke of the other departments in the bank. A place that everyone wishes they didn't need to come in contact with. Some department managers say that the third floor is able to suck the life out of you. Working there she realized why people dreaded coming to third floor. It was due to staff doing everything slowly. She then pondered on how she can bring life to the third floor. She noticed that the job was boring, so she needs to make the job exciting. One day to avoid hearing negative comments about her new department during lunch breaks. She normally goes for lunch by the waterfront, but today she happens to take a turn towards the market. Here is where she finds the world different from what she knows. She finds the Famous Pike Place Fish Market. She is amazed at the energy of the people selling fish there. They seem to enjoy their work. In between the chaos she happens to chance upon Lonnie, one of the workers there. Lonnie offered to explain how she can use the Fish Market's strategy in her workplace. The very next day, during her lunch break she rushes to meet up with Lonnie. He explains that all jobs are boring. Then he goes on to say the first strategy that makes the Pike Place different from the other fish markets, the first strategy is as follow. The first strategy is "There is always a choice about the way you do your work even if there in not a choice about the work itself" 

Choose Your Attitude 
Lonnie shares with Mary Jane how he and his friends changed their attitude when they come to work everyday. Everybody thinks working in a dreary,wet and cold fish market can be a difficult job but Lonnie and his friends come to work with the right attitude. With this thought in her mind, Mary Jane went back to work and confronted her boss on what was commented by the big bosses in the meeting. Her boss then gave her a recording of the meeting. Mary Jane started to notice that by changing her attitude, she in turn changed her surroundings. Everything started to fall in place and she plan to bring this same attitude to work on Monday morning. She makes a note that she have to change her attitude first before she can change others. On Monday morning she calls for a meeting with her staff and highlighted the concerns of the VP and how he referred to the third floor as toxic energy dump. After her talk, she found out her staff wanted to change but they needed a push. She saw some improvement in their attitude.

Play 
The second ingredient was what kids do best and we forget to do as we go older which was PLAY . Lonnie teaches that the fish market uses play in their daily work and with that they enjoy their daily job. The benefits of using play in our daily work life is productivity improves, there is a low turn over, teamwork and friendships. This I noticed in my present job, I am so afraid in failing or looking bad to my bosses. I didn't enjoy myself therefore I felt work was boring. Even in my home life, me and my other half used to be playful but lately we both became serious and had a lot of arguments. So now I changed my attitude and played more at work and at home.

Make Their Day 
The third ingredient to great customer service was to include your customers in your play. This will give a lasting impression to your customer. People will always remember something unique that they have done. Include your customers but don't go overboard.

Be Present 
The last ingredient is to be present. This is an important ingredient that I am trying to teach my managers. A manager have to be present in the restaurant. He have to be seen talking and showing concern about the food and beverages served. I learnt this technique from a manager in my former place. There we had a very slow kitchen, where food normally comes out after 1 hour. What most people do is to normally hide in the kitchen. So naturally we received a lot of complains. But what one new manager did was to go from table to table talking and assuring the customer the food will be out. He made sure the food came out fast and hot. He keeps telling the staff if the food is served steaming hot, then the customer will know that the kitchen is slow. If its served cold then the customer will think we were slow in pickup