Corporate HR departments can’t ignore social media and its impact on employees. Employees are on social media so how do you manage their participation?

HR.com, the largest social network and online community of HR executives, with 194,000 members, is holding a free webinar entitled Social Media and Employee Communications with two days of speakers on March 1st and 2nd.

As the webinar copy states, “powerful enough to fuel revolutions, the tools of social media can connect and enable employees to new levels of communication that enable productivity and alignment with business results.”

Empowering Employees As Brand Ambassadors

As my regular readers know, I’m a big supporter of organizations that engage their employees to serve as brand ambassadors for their companies. So, I will be one of the speakers. Here is a link to my talk at 12:30 on Friday, March 2nd.

My session is about how to Empower Employees as Brand Ambassadors on Social Media to Promote Your Products, Services and Brand.  I’ll be discussing:

• The steps your company can take to develop a corps of brand advocates – from identifying advocates, training them, developing a pilot program, and then launching your advocates on social media.
• How companies like IBM, Zappos, Comcast, and Pfizer are enlisting their employees to enhance their brands.
• How to develop a social media policy that works for your company.

Other speakers will be discussing how to manage a Facebook page, social media analytics, a social media approach to employee engagement research, and much, much more. So consider registering for the entire event. It’s free, as is membership in HR.com.

Hope you’ll join the discussion!

They will write blogs, not term papers

The words “term paper” strike fear into the hearts of students, followed closely by “essay.”  I remember those dark days of burning the candle to finish a term paper in college. It usually wasn’t fun if you had been assigned a specific topic.

I was lucky that my English professor, Dr. Edward Chalfant, didn’t require term papers, but simply asked us to write what we felt about an American novel or a Shakespearean play.

He was ahead of his time and foretold the coming of the blog, an informal style of writing that can enable a more personal connection between students and professors and between companies and customers in the business world.

Blogging for Grades

The New York Times weighed in on this topic recently, quoting educators who advocate trashing the old-fashioned term paper and those who still preach that students need the discipline of the format: make a point, defend it, repeat it.

Championing the blog as a legitimate and more modern style of writing is Cathy N. Davidson, an English professor at Duke, who has written extensively about learning in the digital age. She wants to replace the term paper with the blog and says, “This mechanistic writing is a real disincentive to creative but untrained writers.”

Instead of term papers, she assigns her students to publish 500-1,500 word entries on an internal class blog as essays for public consumption. Many professors at other institutions are following her lead

The New Way of Writing

There is no doubt that writing has become informal with the advent of the Internet and social media. But don’t blame the Internet for everything. The trend towards a more conversational style started long ago when television entered almost every home. We’ve become accustomed to receiving information in “sound bites.”

Let’s face it: we want to be entertained. Fox News leads the audience ratings because the network understands this new paradigm.

Training students to write term papers and dissertations that no one will ever read again is not training students for the workplace. Yes, students must learn the basic rules of grammar. People won’t read poorly written blog posts just as professors will downgrade poorly written essays.

Out With the Old, In With the New

But the format for writing has changed:

Old

• Make a point
• Defend it
• Repeat it
• Summarize

New

• Grab attention
• Make your point
• Support with evidence
• Persuade to your point of view
• Call to action

Communication Preferences

Students who enter the workforce will soon learn the rules. How do their managers want to receive information: verbally, by email, in a written document? They sure don’t want something that reads like a term paper.

The most important element to any communication – written or verbal – is the call to action.

During our entire work lives we will be required to persuade others to our points of view. That’s how we assume more responsibility and authority. It isn’t good if no one pays attention to you.

George H. W. Bush famously insisted that his staff prepare one-page summaries on important issues. The President had the power to start conflicts, appoint Supreme Court Justices and approve or veto legislation. Yet, he wanted his information in short takes and felt that was enough to make a decision.

Blogging is the New Term Paper

Kudos to those professors who understand that the way we communicate has changed forever. Holding onto to old communications vehicles – like the term paper – is self-defeating. Worse, it doesn’t prepare students for the real world.

Richard J. Mast

A few weeks ago I was in Bloomingdale’s when a friendly young store employee approached me to ask if he could help. I wasn’t obviously shopping at the moment so I asked him who he was and learned he was Bloomingdale’s Director of Customer Loyalty, a new position in New York. This led to the following personal  interview about the store’s robust customer loyalty program with Richard J. Mast, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Bloomingdale’s 59th Street in Manhattan. Mr. Mast discusses how understanding and responding to customer needs engenders customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Why did Bloomingdale’s create the Director of Customer Loyalty position? Is it part of a corporate branding program?

If you’re in the retail business you know that satisfied customers will continue to shop with you. So it’s our responsibility to enhance the customer experience. We’ve had employees assigned full-time to customer loyalty for several years. There are four Managers of Customer Loyalty in the Manhattan store but we decided to strengthen the structure by appointing a Director of Customer Loyalty with the other MCL’s reporting to him.

What are the responsibilities of this position and who does the Director report to?  

The role of the Director of Customer Loyalty is to interface with the senior executives in charge of ready-to-wear, Men’s Young World, the Home Store, Fine Jewelry and other departments. They tell the Director what they need and what customers want, and then these needs are translated to the MCLs assigned to these departments who then implement the actions to be taken.

The Director of Customer Loyalty reports directly to me. I don’t see him a lot because he and his staff need to be out on the selling floor interacting with customers. Nothing replaces the experience of talking to customers.

We also conduct focus groups – I sit in on these, too, so I get to hear directly from customers about what they like or don’t like and what would make them have a more satisfying customer experience.

It would seem that good customer service leads to customer loyalty. Are employees trained in customer service?  

Our employees are trained in what we call our “b-connected” system. It’s love at the point of sale. Employees are trained in relationship selling and not simply transactional selling. When a customer using a Bloomingdale’s charge card buys something, that information is entered into our database so we begin to build a profile of that customer. After a second or third visit we understand his or her level of spending and interests. We call it “client telling.”

This benefits the customer because capturing this information draws customers into our “family.” We can send them information about events they may be interested in attending, or invite them to private sales, or suggest making an appointment with a personal shopper. Whatever we can do to strengthen the customer relationship.

Is Bloomingdale’s undertaking any customer loyalty initiatives?

Yes — throughout the store we’re making changes based on what we’ve learned our customers want. For example, we learned that a woman in a dressing room becomes very annoyed when she needs a different size garment and there is no sales associate to help her get it. So in our Intimate Apparel dressings rooms on the 4^th floor, we’ve introduced phones in each room. When a customer picks it up she is connected to someone who can help her. The associate helping the customer also leaves her business card in a slot on the door.

In our shoe department our initiative is called “4 to the floor and 2 out the door.” Sales associates are trained not only to get the particular shoe a customer requests, but also to bring out four different styles. That gives the customer a broader choice and may lead to an extra sale.

Another example is in our men’s department. Our customers have told us that when they pick up a suit that’s been altered, they would like to see a selection of shirts and ties to go with the suit. Don’t just hand them the suit.

Sometimes it’s the simplest changes. We’ve learned that people tend to buy shoes and belts at the same time. So we’ve moved belts to the shoe department and we’re selling more belts than ever.

What has customer response been to your customer loyalty program? Is it working?

They love it. The customer experience begins when a customer steps in the store. We have what we call Brand Ambassadors stationed at all the entrances and strategically around the building. They are there to greet customers and answer their questions or take a customer to the department if he needs that extra help. Our Concierge desk will help with your shopping needs but also purchase theater tickets for you and book restaurant reservations.

Bloomingdale’s is a leading destination for tourists. We invite them to visit our International Visitors Center on the balcony for help and special offers. At the end of the visit, we’ll give them a gift just for shopping with us.

We’ve made great strides in customer loyalty and satisfaction here at the Manhattan flagship store – there is always more that can be done. But it’s working and other stores in the system are following our lead with more robust customer loyalty initiatives.

Richard J. Mast is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Bloomingdale’s New York City Flagship Store, with responsibility for 150 Executives and 2500 selling and sales support associates. He has been with the company for 28 years, having held various operating, financial, and merchandising positions both in the flagship and in branch stores.

[tweetmeme]Well, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg went to Harvard and look where they are now –   founders of Microsoft and Facebook.  But wait a minute.  Didn’t they drop out before graduation?

Both were computer nerds but for sure Harvard didn’t teach Zuckerberg how to build a Facebook community of 500 million people across the globe.  Harvard is a fine university and many of their graduates have gone on to unbridled success in business, the government and the arts.

Community Colleges Beckon

But Harvard and other Ivy’s aren’t the answer for everybody.  What our educational system needs now are different tracks for different folks.  Only one-third of high school graduates attend college and, of those, half drop out before finishing.   So where is the next generation going to acquire the skills to succeed in an increasing technological society?

The answer for many is community colleges. The enrollment of these unsung institutions is 8 million and growing.  They are so important to the future of our country that the administration held a White House Summit on Community Colleges in early October.  A paper they issued touted these advantages of two-year institutions:

• Affordable tuition
• Open admission policies
• Flexible course schedules
• Convenient locations

Most important, in my view, community colleges are retraining older students to build new skills for an increasingly technological society. It’s exciting that these colleges are working with businesses, labor and government to create tailored programs in nursing, health information technology, advanced manufacturing, and green jobs.

Industry-Community College Partnerships

Many CEOs and other high-achievers attended a community college. One is William Green, who is chairman and CEO of Accenture, the world’s largest management consulting firm with approximately 150,000 employees in 49 countries.

Mr. Green, the son of a plumber, started his academic career at Dean College, a two-year school in St. Franklin, Mass. Now he and his company are giving back.  In 2007, Accenture launched the annual Accenture Junior and Community College Scholarship for students transitioning from junior and community colleges to four-year institutions to continue their education.

10,000 Small Businesses

In an initiative called “10,000 Small Businesses,” the Goldman Sachs Foundation is unlocking the growth and job-creation potential of 10,000 small businesses across the United States through greater access to education, mentors and financial capital.

In a pilot program at LaGuardia Community College in New York, supported by the Foundation, local business owners can learn new skills.  Rosalie Safier, whose family owns National Van Equipment, received counseling and learned the art of negotiation, mastered Microsoft Excel, and developed a business plan for growth.

Skills for America’s Future

At the White House Conference, the administration launched a “Skills for America’s Future” as an industry-led initiative to dramatically improve work force training partnerships with community colleges,  The Gap said it would expand community college partnerships in seven metro areas, including in-store job shadowing, interview and leadership training, and scholarships. Other participating employers are Accenture, McDonald’s, United Technologies and Pacific Gas and Electric.

Collaborating with community colleges is good corporate PR.  But more importantly, these companies are ensuring that they will have the trained employees that are essential for their future growth.

About the Author:  Jeannette Paladino is a seasoned communications pro helping companies to engage their customers on social media, and to leverage their employees as brand ambassadors for their products and services.  Visit her at Write Speak Sell.  This post was written for the Blogging for Education Contest.

Communications and training are essential for any company.  Based on my experience as SVP Marketing Director of the Bowery Savings Bank, I have direct knowledge of how important it is for community bankers.  If you’re interested, you can read two blogs I wrote for the Community Bank Consulting Blog  “Why Community Bankers have never had it so good and 10 things they can do to make it even better” and “Why banks can’t afford not to train their employees.”  Your comments are welcomed.

Jeff Simpkins, CEO of Community Bank Consulting, also hosts a free weekly webinar Free Webinar Wednesdays that features guests who talk about a variety of topics of interest to all businesses.  Recent topics included Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in Plain English” and “Using Facebook for Promotion — Both Personally and Professionally.”  Click on the link to register for the webinars.

My colleague Amy Dean, president of Key Word Communication, and I will be presenting  “Inside Out Public Relations” on Wednesday, August 19th.  Stay tuned for  more details.