Employee Peer Pressure

The following is written by Dave Murray, Experience Engineer for The DiJulius Group.

Flying High – I am always happy when I get to fly on Southwest Airlines. Not because of their unique boarding procedure, and not because their flight attendants are typically more entertaining than most. The reason that I like to fly Southwest is because I always feel invigorated after reading Southwest’s in-flight magazine. The “You Made Our Day” feature in the magazine each month is made up of letters from Customers that had “their day made” by a Southwest team member. And we are not talking about one or two letters either. Each month, two pages are full of stories sent in from Customers across the country.

Peer Pressure – What a fantastic message Southwest is regularly sending to their employees. That’s right. I did not say Customers (although I am sure there are many benefits from Customers reading these great stories), I said employees. Southwest is regularly and consistently re-enforcing that this behavior toward Customers is what they want to see, even providing a road map on how to achieve it! And, I am sure it is not cheap. Space in a magazine read by thousands upon thousands of travelers is expensive. Southwest is making a significant investment in getting these messages to their employees and Customers. What investments have you made to celebrate your employees? I’d really like to hear some examples. If you are currently not sharing any positive employee stories company wide, why not? I’d like to hear those reasons as well – maybe we can work together to get past some roadblocks. I can be reached @ dmurray@thedijuliusgroup.com, or on Twitter @DavidDMurray.

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