Quality Service Marketing

Who is More Engaged: Nonprofit or Forprofit Employees?

An interesting question that I’m finding is a challenge to answer. My initial presumption was nonprofit staff would be more engaged because their work is mission-driven. However, I’ve also known nonprofit employees who are minimally engaged because their workplace situation turned out to be negative. So I started a quest to find research on nonprofit employment engagement and discovered there’s not much out there.

What I was able to find came from Gallup, and it surprised me. Jessica Tyler, Practice Manager in Employee Engagement, shared comparative data from Gallup’s global database with results showing employees in the nonprofit segment were actually less “engaged” and slightly more “actively disengaged” than employees in the overall database.

Commenting on this, Gallup consultant Bill McEwen noted: “It certainly appears that the employees of not-for-profit organizations, while perhaps attracted by a strong sense of mission, are often less (rather than more) engaged than the average employee. Of course, this varies by organization … as some of them are super in recognizing and energizing those who work for them, while others may pay great attention to their mission and relatively little attention to the people called upon to fulfill it.”

As Jessica aptly noted: “Connecting to the mission is just one of the [many] critical elements involved in a person or team’s engagement.” But it’s clearly not enough.

[Thanks, Jessica and Bill, for your help with this post.]

Special request

While most employee engagement research seems to include the healthcare and government sectors, I haven’t found data on other nonprofits that include social & human services, arts & cultural organizations, professional associations, education, and membership-based organizations. If you’re aware of any, please let me know.

Nonprofits Still Investing in Learning

I’m not sure what the actual stats are, all I know is that training budgets are way down. Ironically, in light of a chaotic economy and marketplace, professional development is more critical than ever. So I find it fascinating that most of my training work these days is with nonprofits, rather than for-profit organizations.

Later this week (May 14-15th) I’ll be conducting a Nonprofit Marketing Boot Camp for the Boston AMA Chapter. If you need a better understanding of marketing and how to differentiate your organization mission in a competitive environment, this is the place to be. Registration is still open if you can make it. It’s a great way to step back from the daily grind to focus (or re-focus) on marketing fundamentals and share knowledge and ideas with other nonprofit professionals.

And this summer (July 15-17th), I’m going to present a pre-conference tutorial on internal marketing as part of the AMA’s 2009 Nonprofit Marketing Conference in Chicago. This year’s Thriving in Times of Change theme is designed to help you deal with the changing economy, changing market segments, and changing marketing channels. I’ve attended this conference in the past to network with and learn from top marketers in the field, so I highly recommend it.

It may be that nonprofits have better survival skills than for-profits because they’re used to working with limited resources. Yet in this economy when resources are tight for everyone, nonprofits are still investing in professional development – providing an important lesson for their for-profit colleagues.

Good People and Good Works at Goodwill

I had the privilege of conducting an internal marketing workshop for the good folks of Goodwill Industries in South Central California and it was a delightful experience.

From the warm and welcoming reception by workshop host, David Hessberger, Director of Retail Services, to the active participation of Goodwill staff and guests, it was one of the most rewarding programs I’ve ever presented. I love sharing internal marketing with people who “get it” and are eager to learn more. I also love learning about their work: their daily challenges and what motivates them to do their best.

I’m familiar with Goodwill as a consumer (I’m both a donor and shopper at my local Goodwill stores) and as a marketer (I’ve presented marketing sessions at a Goodwill Industries International Learning Event). Yet I continued to be amazed by what I learn about them. Goodwill is a nonprofit organization that relies on donated items (clothing, household goods, etc.) more so than financial contributions (although they’re happy to accept them as well). They support the Goodwill mission by managing and running stores with professional retail operations that include logistics, merchandising, and customer service. As such, they compete with for-profit retailers as well as other nonprofits. When it comes to their role in workforce development, however, they’re engaged in collaborative community partnerships to provide vocational skills training and employment opportunities.

Goodwill is an organization that’s truly committed to developing people (including its own) in advancing its mission to help others. From my experience with the good people of Goodwill of South Central California and Goodwill Industries International, I’ve seen their commitment to the organization’s core values of respect, stewardship, ethics, learning, and innovation. I’m proud to work with them and support them.

Speaking of support, it’s time to clean out my closets and see what more I can donate to my local Goodwill. I encourage you to join me in this “Goodwill hunting.”

Great Business Resources

It's back to business now that the holidays are over. Here's a list of some great resources that I compiled over the past month to share with you.

Professional Development
The 23rd Annual Services Leadership Institute, March 9-11, 2009, presented by the Center for Services Leadership.

HR and Communications e-letters
Keeping the People - with insight on how "best" employers are leading in tough times.

The Corporate Communicator - Bon Mot Communications'free e-zine "helping corporate communicators do more with less." Subscribers are invited to attend a free teleseminar/webinar, "Communicating Confidence in an Era of Low Trust," on February 17, 2009. Learn more about this topic from Bon Mot's white paper, The Low Trust Epidemic: Why It Matters and What Communicators Can Do About It.

Nonprofit Management
Realistic and refreshing advice about surviving these challenging times from nonprofit leader Jan Masaoka.

New blogs that are worth reading
Marketing Mindset by Frank Haas, a long time colleague and friend of mine.

The Business of Service by Scott Miller.

Customer Management
Check out Becky Carroll's blog post series from Nov. 17th, 18th, and 19th, covering the recent Customers First Conference.

"Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic" That We Can All Learn

Every service provider is challenged with engaging employees and creating systems to deliver a positive customer experience, but none more so than those who work in healthcare. So what can be learned from the Mayo Clinic? This excerpt, from the book Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic by Leonard Berry and Kent Seltman, explains it best:

    “Imagine what can be learned from an organization that serves customers who:

1. arrive with some combination of illness or injury, pain uncertainty, and fear
2. give up most of their freedoms if hospitalized
3. need the service but dread it 
4. typically relinquish their privacy (and modesty) to clinicians they may be meeting for the first time.

 "Mayo Clinic and other well-run healthcare organizations serve just these kinds of special customers who are called patients and still earn high praise and fierce loyalty from them. Yes, indeed, a successful healthcare organization offers important lessons for most business organizations."

Inside Mayo Clinic

There’s quite a story behind the powerful and enduring brand that is the Mayo Clinic with its emphasis on patient-first care, medical research and education, an integrated approach to healthcare, and a strong partnership between physicians and administrators (an adversarial relationship in many hospitals). Co-authors Leonard Berry, Distinguished Professor of Marketing at Texas A&M (one of my mentors), and Kent Seltman, former Marketing Director at the Mayo Clinic, studied Mayo Clinic’s service culture through in-depth interviews and observing patient-clinician interactions.

Their book paints a fascinating picture of the history and culture of Mayo Clinic, including how it engineers its internal systems to support its patient-first mission. Best of all, the book contains great lessons on creating and managing a brand that has achieved incredible growth in a difficult and challenging industry while staying true to its core values. The story is even more amazing given ongoing medical technological advances and the financial and political pressures placed on the healthcare profession.

Listening to the Voice of the Customer

Berry and Seltman share numerous quotes and testimonials from patients, their families, doctors, nurses, administrators, and their families, to illustrate the Mayo Clinic story. (Some of the anecdotes brought me to tears.) Even with Mayo Clinic’s unique position in healthcare, the authors do a great job discussing lessons applicable to other service firms in the “Lessons for Managers” section throughout the book.

One of my favorite chapters describes how Mayo Clinic manages the different types of clues that positively impact the customer experience:

• demonstrating competence to instill customer confidence – e.g., with a collaborative team approach to patient care and integrated & timely access to medical records.
• influencing first impressions and expectations – such as the design of physical space to convey a sense of healing and calm to reduce the stress of patients and staff.
• exceeding customer expectations – including extraordinary sensitivity to patients and their families.

I recommend Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic to all service management, marketing and branding professionals … and everyone who works in healthcare.

Caution: the only downside after reading this book is the possible dissatisfaction with most healthcare institutions. If my family or I need critical care, my first choice would be Mayo Clinic!

Engagement Can Be Tricky in Association Management

Chris Bailey recently wrote about not taking employee engagement for granted based on his experience working for nonprofit associations. (I met Chris earlier this summer on my virtual book tour.)

Here's another reason to be concerned with staff engagement - loyal members who have strong ties to their professional associations, particularly those who are strongly committed to and passionate about their participation. These members tend to work closely with the association's professional staff and develop strong collegial relationships with them. As a result, they become concerned with - even protective of - how staff are treated in the organization.

For association management, the staff-volunteer relationship can be tricky, especially in instances where volunteers overstep their bounds to interfere with personnel issues. The relationship works both way, however, as many professional staff enjoy working with the members and volunteer leaders; it's one of the perks that compensates for working in a professional association at nonprofit wages.

For association management, the bottom line is that internal issues regarding staff engagement can also impact (and be impacted by) member engagement.

Book Tour Update

I'm about mid-way through my virtual book tour and am thrilled with the favorable response to my book, Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee-Customer Care.

Today, Toby Bloomberg posted her interview with me on Diva Marketing in which she asked many thought-provoking questions about internal marketing.

In yesterday's review at Bailey WorkPlay:The Alchemy of Soulful Work, leadership & career coach Chris Bailey started an interesting discussion in two areas: 1) changing management's mindset to be more employee-focused and 2)internal marketing's application to non-profits.

Also check out Lisa Rosendahl's book review from Tuesday based on her perspective as an HR professional at HR Thoughts.

For those of you who are new to my tour, it was launched earlier this week with a review by Kevin Burns at Burns Blog Attitude.

My book tour continues

I hope you'll join me as I make these tour stops:

June 6th - Becky Carroll, Customers Rock!

June 9th - Paul Hebert, Incentive Intelligence

June 10th - Phil Gerbyshak, Slacker Manager.

The Ultimate Gift Card: The Good Card

For personal and corporate holiday shopping, consider the ultimate gift card – The Good Card, a gift card for charity that allows the recipient to donate to his/her charity of choice. The Good Card is the brainchild of nonprofit Network for Good, the leading online charitable resource that’s approved by the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance.

Good Cards can be purchased online at Network for Good and can be sent via mail or email (the latter as an electronic gift card). The Good Card recipient goes to Network for Good’s website, selects his/her charity of choice from over one million charities registered in the U.S., and enters the donation amount using the code indicated on the card. Network for Good then sends to the donation to the chosen charity. And get this – 100% of the card’s value goes to the charity!

A wonderful gift from individuals and any-size business

Each card costs $5 plus the donation amount (ranging from $10 to $250). Both the donation and fee are tax deductible for the purchaser. (Remember, 100% of the donation amount goes to charity.)

For corporate gift-giving, companies can get logo placement on bulk orders of the physical cards for an additional charge. This unique charitable gift card allows a company to reinforce its philanthropic image without limiting its support to a single cause.

The Good Card - it’s the perfect gift suitable for anyone.

Working Smarter, Not Harder: A Nonprofit Case Study (Part 3)

Here’s the last post in this nonprofit case study on how small nonprofits can effectively balance growing demands and limited resources by working smarter, not harder. As a quick review, the first two steps involved staying mission-focused and inventorying your organization’s program offerings.

The third key step called for role clarification and communication. Each ABC Healthcare affiliate was increasingly recognized as an organization that “made things happen and got things done.” As a result, other groups’ expectations were becoming unrealistic in looking to ABC Healthcare to do everything – providing funding, leadership, and manpower. The affiliates needed to better manage these expectations.

Step 3. Clarify and communicate your organization’s role

To do this, they assessed their participation in regional activities – from program development & implementation to assisting with other groups’ programs to serving on community committees. They recognized they played a number of roles (based on their mission & operation) that they labeled as: “advocate,” “catalyst,” “connector,” “do-er,” and “facilitator.”

The resulting discussion helped staff identify which role was most appropriate for certain situations instead of being all things to all people. When someone came to ABC Healthcare with a request for money and/or manpower, staff clarified “up front” their limited resources and the specific role the organization was willing to play. As a result, the affiliates learned how to better manage expectations within their communities.

An ongoing challenge

Coping with success involves a delicate balance of mission, need, and resources. To maintain equilibrium, nonprofit leaders need to continually ask hard questions: What are our mission and purpose? What programs and activities do we need to offer, maintain, or give up to fulfill our mission? What is our role in the community we serve? Should we change that role, given our capabilities and resources?

The answers may be as difficult as the questions themselves. But the results, as ABC Healthcare has learned, are worthwhile. Those who don’t engage in these critical discussions are at serious risk for fragmented focus and staff burnout.

Working Smarter, Not Harder: A Nonprofit Case Study (Part 2)

This post continues the case study on how small nonprofits can effectively balance growing demands and limited resources by working smarter, not harder.

The first step is to stay mission-focused, but that can also present a challenge. Many nonprofits have broad mission statements that let them justify responding to even remotely-related requests. Staff who are truly passionate about the mission find it difficult to turn down such requests or discontinue programs that are no longer worthwhile. (“But we helped the three people who came to our educational seminar!”)

Recognizing this situation, one ABC Healthcare affiliate took the next step to address the question: Where can we, with our limited resources, really make a difference?

Step 2. Inventory your program offerings

To answer this question, the affiliate conducted a detailed inventory of its educational programs and activities. This was a multi-step process in which staff completed program descriptions and developed a profile for each educational offering. First they reviewed the following key questions (several adapted from the Drucker Foundation's nonprofit self-assessment tool: The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask about Your Nonprofit Organization) for each of their programs:

• Who is the target audience for the program?
• What does the target audience value about the program (based on evaluations and other feedback)?
• Could this audience get the same program elsewhere?
• What is the estimated return on investment for the organization (based on mission-fit, resource input, and resulting output)?
• Will this offering advance our capacity to carry out our mission?
• If we weren’t already presenting this program would we start now?

Answering these questions allowed staff to sort the educational programs into three categories:

1. “Need to have” (programs that should be kept)
2. “Nice to have” (those that might be expendable) and
3. “Not sure.”

They further assessed each program in the “nice to have” and “not sure” categories by considering: Is what we’re doing precluding other opportunities? Can (or should) we invest our time and energy more effectively elsewhere? What would be the greatest consequence if we didn’t offer this program for a few more years?

Their answers to this second set of questions helped determine which programs to keep, which to phase out, and which to eliminate. Staff also revisited programs in the “Need to have” category to see if they should be kept “as is” or if there might be opportunities to enhance or expand them.

The inventory exercise was a valuable way for employees to prioritize and streamline their programs and activities. While initially reluctant to let go of a number of programs, they recognized that doing so would free them to explore new initiatives as well as improve current ones.

The next (and final) post in this series explores the 3^rd critical step involving communication.