~ Considering different perspectives is important to keep employees happy ~
Employees are what keeps a business running, but without customers there wouldn’t be a business to run. So, what happens when you need to make a decision that boosts customer satisfaction at the expense of employee happiness? Here Yashmi Pujara, Chief Human Resources Officer at Cactus Communications, a technology company accelerating scientific advancement, discusses the importance of listening to your employees when creating customer-first policies.
CACTUS is based in India, which has four public holidays requiring all offices, schools and banks to close. However, these holidays were stopping the company from being available to support its international customers. The solution was to keep the office open on public holidays, but to do this the local government must grant permission. One of the prerequisites of securing this permission was to get at least 70 per cent of the staff to agree to working over the holidays.
CACTUS prides itself on putting the customer first, and it was this rationale it presented to the employees. The team knew that CACTUS customers were some of the busiest people working on critical research, some of it potentially lifesaving. India’s national holidays were of no consequence to these researchers and CACTUS needed to be available to them.
However, not all the employees were happy and this proposal was met with some resistance. Some felt that the organisation had become too customer and growth orientated while disregarding the happiness of its employees. One employee even refused to sign off on the proposal. She, like most of us, looked forward to the holidays as welcome breaks where one can spend time with family, and felt that CACTUS was trying to take away this personal time.
CACTUS tried to explain the rationale behind this decision but failed to reach a mutual agreement with the employee. At a simplistic level, it was a choice between the customers’ need and employees’ happiness, and CACTUS chose the former. Although some thought this unfair, many understood the reasoning behind the decision and gave their consent.
The scale of operations was smaller at this time, so keeping the office open meant the entire team had to be at work. But since then, the company has grown and 70 per cent of the team are able to take these holidays off whilst the remaining 30 per cent get a compensatory holiday on another day. CACTUS also communicates this arrangement to new recruits so that they are prepared and can understand the rationale for keeping the office open.
Now that it has grown in size, CACTUS is in a position to draft policies that consider both the customers’ needs and employees’ requirements. If the employee had not openly challenged the company on its decision, CACTUS may not have developed some of the people-friendly policies it has today.
Having strong, passionate voices in the workplace keeps a company in check and forces it to look at things from other perspectives. There may not always be a satisfactory solution in the moment, but having different views helps to shape the way a company progresses. If the employee had not shared her opinion as passionately as she did, CACTUS would have implemented its solutions believing it to be best. Voicing your opinion and listening to others is important. You never know how it could shape the future for you and many around you.
To learn more about CACTUS, visit the website at www.cactusglobal.com
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