Lifetime Pass.

In your business and your life you have assets of all kinds but the most important are the people that get you through the day successfully. In your business you may not have hired them all but you did hire the hirers hiring the ones, you know what I mean. So how important are they really or is this all just talk, to keep the masses quiet? In a world obsessed with technology it’s good to hear about companies willing to put all their trust in one asset, their people.

Siemans, a ginormous German electronics company has just signed a deal with its employees guaranteeing them all a job for life. That’s nearly 130,000 people who are now entrusted with good stewardship to make sure their company continues to prosper. From a management viewpoint the guarantee has just wiped out the company’s negotiating leverage with the unions and individual employees when you look at the Australian example of at will employment and layoffs.

So how does something so backward looking, remember Gramps only ever had one job in his life, and forward looking at the same time, become a reality? In an unusual twist on today’s chaotic and only focussed on bottom line landscape, both sides were willing to be reasonable, trust each other and show humility.

What a concept you say, what am I missing you say, why hasn’t my company thought of that you say.

Siemans believe that they would not be in the position they are today, 50% up since 2000, if it were not for their employees. Think about that for a moment. A lot of companies give similar platitudes but how many act on their good business results with such a startling offer for staff loyalty. After all with 130,000 employees, not everyone would fit into the perfect employee mould but Siemans have given a blanket guarantee because the whole is greater than the individual parts.

They have given their employees a chance to become totally involved and the capacity to create Siemans World with only family members involved. Where Henry Ford once asked “Bring us your hands and you can leave everything else at home”, Siemans are asking their employees to bring their whole selves to work, to justify the long term relationship.

In your strongest relationships with family and friends, where things go awry occasionally, you are always willing to be reasonable and work through the issues. For many that equates to giving a lifetime pass because without your family and friends you would not be who you are and where you are today. Siemans looks on their employees the same way and they have given them a lifetime pass for the future.

So what better way to keep 130,000 people aligned, connected, motivated under an umbrella of common sense and reason.

Am I missing something?

Manic Mondays.

Why do Mondays feel different to any other day? Is the weekend too short? Are we working too long?

All questions asked as we head out for the start of the work week, pushing and shoving our way through the public transport jungle. Well it used to be the start but I’m not so sure there is a start or finish with technology giving us the ability to take work with us where ever we go and as such blurring the lines of the old clock on, clock off mentality. So it comes as a surprise to find a recent survey by Bankwest that found we are spending less time in the office than we did 10 years ago and a lot of that has to do with technology and the freedom it has provided for communication. After all it was the communication at work via face to face or phone that tied us to a particular address and the hours required.

It seems that Gen Y are the best adapters of the new communication channels, as the survey found they are the only group working under the 40 hour week while having a better grasp on that work life seesaw. Who’da thought they’d figure it out before anyone else? So who is teaching who on work life balance? I know what you are thinking, what do they know about life but you can’t argue with the statistics. Seems the Gen Xers and the Baby Boomer examples of work till they stick you in a box did not appeal, geez how did they work that out?

As leaders in a new workforce, Gen Y has something to offer their older counterparts and maybe some of them are listening as the reclamation of nearly two weeks a year of free time against ten years ago shows. While the Ys get better at time management (wasn’t that a Boomer thing?) there are still many who work longer hours and farmers and miners are the leaders when it comes to putting in the long hours at work. Seems the technology improvements have not equated to shorter hours but greater production which sees our mining state WA as the hardest workers in the nation.

It should come as no surprise that government employees in the ACT work the fewest full time hours. No jokes about “Yes Minister” departments, as we all know our bureaucrats work hard for the money (queue Donna Summer music). Maybe they are readers of Tim Ferris’ “4 hour work week” which isn’t about working less, just a lot smarter using outsourcing facilities available via technology. And in the end that is the most important aspect of working nowadays, to find a better way and improve work life balance without having to fill 40+ hours just because the boss says so.

Giddy up.

I can’t believe that Michael O’Leary from Ryan Air hasn’t jumped into the saddle on the latest seat design by Aviointeriors. Called the Skyrider, it has designs on being something between a bar stool and amusement ride seat with a half saddle to straddle as you buckle yourself in for the ride or is that the flight? Brings new meaning to riding an airplane.

Ideas to put as many people into an alloy metal tube and hurtle them from destination to destination are not new and the Skyrider one step away from standing up, is just the latest in a long line of innovations aimed at frugal airlines. I’m not sure if Aviointeriors are looking to test it in the cowboy states and hubs out of the Rockies on short rides but I’m sure the average passenger does not want to buy an extra pair of padded bike pants for comfort on the Skyrider.



I remember a couple of cowboy bars frequented in my youth with similar stool designs but it was in theme and alcohol was supplied to numb areas of pain encountered when sitting too long in the saddle. So watch out for the next cowboy airline that wants to rope you in with cheap fares that saddle you with an uncomfortable ride.

So from standing room only to saddle seats, what else are airlines dreaming up in their quest to sardine passengers?

A 2000 initiative from the global logistics company Fed Ex did not receive the attention it deserved as airlines struggled in the ensuing years after 911. The “overnight peoplepak”, a shipping envelope scientifically designed to protect “human cargo” to ship passengers for $100 a flight globally was a revelation in out of the box thinking.

The light framed envelope was like a sleeping bag concept with some ribbing protection to prevent injury from over stacking or the occasional drop by the baggage handlers. It came in 3 classes to give choice to the flyers or “packees” as they referred to themselves. The economy envelope still guaranteed next day delivery but came with no extra benefits, sound familiar? The premium economy envelope was supplied with a small heating pack and a bag of peanuts to get you through the longer flights. The business envelope had it all from a reading light, storage pouch, juice box and most importantly a porta pottie.



The head of Fed Ex at the time knew he would come up against harsh airline reactions; after all he was looking to take significant market share in passenger numbers. The FAA was sure to come around eventually as the idea had merit according to Fed Ex scientists. A few people exploding during decompression tests were just wrinkles to iron out as far as the scientists were concerned.

Jokes aside, the airlines and aviation companies won’t stop looking for ways to sardine passengers and I look forward to the next laugh in comfort and passenger innovation as they go way outside the box.

Captain Kirk had the right idea, beam me up Scotty.

Short but not so sweet.

On a recent flight I sat next to a twit. Not in the politically incorrect way but in the social media way. Twitterer sounds just as goofy so either should fit as a singular title and before anyone takes a swipe at me; yes I have tweeted and will tweet again, when I have something to say. It’s not a rare occurrence with 100’s of millions of twits tweeting daily. What I noticed was that they were sending out messages of frustration about being delayed again. No it’s not hard to read over someone’s shoulder in the confine of a small canister waiting to hurtle through the sky. Privacy after all, now seems over rated.

It used to be that passengers were held hostage without a voice but today it takes a mille second to send out a message to your followers and anyone else willing to listen that you not satisfied with a service delivery or product. At this stage most airlines shut down communications on takeoff but the demand to stay connected will push them all to include internet access at 35,000 feet throughout a flight. Then the airlines and their flight crew will really have to be on their toes as passengers communicate with each other and the rest of the world online. Imagine 400 passengers experiencing a terrible service level on a flight and sending live messages to their friends, the airline and sites such as Trip Advisor.

From fees that passengers feel are unfair, to food that is inedible through to staff complaints, airlines will have to tighten up their chain of efficiency and up their service levels. Levels that most airlines can’t see through the fog of AV gas and with ageing fleets and staff alike, it will be grist for the twits.

Not that everything that will be tweeted should be taken seriously, after all alcohol at 35,000 feet will be responsible for many a rant. Still the challenge for the airlines will be trawling through the millions of messages and reacting and responding accordingly. I can see call centres of social media staff employed by the airlines working to keep a lid on issues, pacifying passengers and having a laugh when bad things happen to airlines other than their own.

Where airlines are using social media to their advantage for making flights via sites such as Facebook, commercial communications and engaging customers to buy their product via sites such as United’s Twares Tweets, they have yet to figure out how to cover a mass cloud (what do you call a lot of tweets) of complaints and frustration should it occur.

Occur it will because like most industries airlines are stretched thin in the people department and eventually one will fall over and be snowed under so many tweets that a pound full of St Bernards won’t be able to dig them out.

The current trend for twitter centres around celebrity and personality updates but just like Facebook it will mature into communication and business applications to stay relevant. Will your company be affected or will you need a direct line to the pound?

Boomers or bust?

Five million Australians, one quarter of the population has over 50% of the wealth of this nation and many industries including travel are still not tapping into the possibilities they present for sustained growth. It was only a few years ago that the first Boomers turned 60 and all discussion was around how to turn all that so called retirement and retirement money into profits for industries like travel. Well before anyone got into serious discussion the GFC took a bite out of that money stashed in ineffective superannuation funds and people forgot about the possibilities.

Fortunately or unfortunately time marches on for the Boomers and things improve and once again the discussion is how to engage them and pry the money from their wrinkly grasp. Well that’s the first mistake industries can make, because they will never be seen as wrinkly (especially the ones prone to needles and chemicals), they see themselves as an indiscriminate age somewhere between early years and just before their best years finish, whenever that might be. As cloudy as that sounds remember Peter Pan was written for this generation and if industries don’t recognise that, then they have no chance of being engaged with a pot of gold.

To spend their hard earned cash with you, they have certain expectations. They want you to engage their curiosity and to pamper and spoil them. They want you to know they are young at heart and to credit them with a lot of intelligence, after all how else did they end up with all the money on the Monopoly board? They want you to re relevant in your approach and to celebrate their optimism in the future, a future that for many is a good couple of decades longer than any generation have ever lived.

A current ANZ survey found that 92% want to travel around Australia and 70% want to travel overseas in the next few years. That’s a lot of people for any industry and for travel it has certain challenges with the main one being, there is no defined Boomer market approach. Interestingly we can discuss the youth market in terms of backpackers and gap years with defined strategies from companies like Contiki yet where are the Boomer alternatives? The challenge is the market is so big that no one has come up with a defined plan to tackle the wide interests of the Boomers.

So most current strategies are defined around niche market sectors for the Boomers but that in itself is a problem because niche refers to specific segments of interests and not the broader population. I remember years ago a high profile coach touring company coming up with dedicated brochures marketed under the “Autumn Years” to try and attract the so called Boomer money. Of course it was not patronised and was quickly taken down from the shelves as Boomers do not want their relaxed years ahead referred to as Autumn.

Social technology is seen as a panacea for many in travel when it comes to reaching more of the Boomers but they need to be careful as Twitter and Facebook et al are more the regime of the next generation and although Boomers can be found there, they are not the most engaged of the social media population. The appearance of human contact via the net is not enough for the Boomers and to push social media as human contact is seen as poor substitution for customer service.

Like the lure of selling something successfully to a small portion of the Chinese, Boomers are the pot of gold for travel if only someone could come up with the right strategy to attract them all. Will you be the first?

I only read it for the articles.

Corporate travel has policies to decide how to make use of suppliers and contracts to provide best practice procedures and give travellers, company guidelines to help make decisions easier. Most times policies work but sometimes they are open for ridicule as in the recent case in the US. A Minnesota county recently considered a bill that would ban county employees from staying in hotels with porn on their pay per view TV systems. The employees would not be reimbursed for their expenses if the hotel offered pornography but it wasn’t made clear how the employees were to figure out whether or not hotels did or did not offer this service.

It’s hard to find a hotel nowadays without the ubiquitous adult movie channel and after all, until Facebook came along, wasn’t porn the number one revenue earner on the net, showing it had a certain following, that hoteliers couldn’t disregard. So the poor Minnesota road warriors now have to contend with a company censorship policy that could trip them up if they happen to book the wrong hotel or if the only hotel available for 100 miles has an adult movie channel. Will the company provide tents in that case ? Can you book a hotel that sells magazines you buy only for the articles (wink, wink) but has no adult channel? Can you stay in a hotel without the adult channel but hookers on the street outside? The traps to no reimbursement are endless.

Seems there are some exceptions to the policy and Minnesota county employees can stay at a hotel with adult TV channels if it also happens to be the official hotel for a conference. Who booked that hotel? Frank has just become the office legend.

Or they have the option of staying at a sin palace if the porn free hotel is 15% more expensive to stay at. The last point is interesting in that the county has now put a price on porn, so it’s not so much about shielding the traveller but more about the bottom line, get it bottom.

Gotta work on my delivery.

Either way it leaves the policy open to misinterpretation and isn’t that the reason policies are brought in, so that the company can give clear directions to make employee decisions easier. What do your policies look like?

I love polls.

No not the nice folks just to the right of Germany but opinion polls. Often they are a slice of life, a moment, as people react to questions and situations, sometimes not thinking before they reply and sometimes replying with thoughts they wouldn’t normally share but are happy to hide behind an anonymous pollster.

Recent polls from Skyscanner give an insight into people’s psyche when travelling out of their comfort zone. A poll result suggesting that there should be demarcations between families with small children ( noisy ) and childless passengers raises the old chestnut of what people expect for their money and a comfortable and quiet flight is not that much to ask for. Family only sections on board planes has been suggested but like the old smoking areas of old, what happens if you are in the first row of seats in front of that family section? Just as it was difficult to stop the smoke wafting across the aisle or seat in front, noisy kids can still be heard 6 rows away. A recent uproar on a Qantas flight where a woman claimed a screaming baby made her ears bleed will no doubt keep this topic on the boil and maybe airlines are thinking of premium adults only flights for which they could charge an excess.

If the price was right I’m sure there would be customers for this type of service, think Concorde, but perhaps a better solution comes from the small percentage of poll respondents who would prefer children fly in the hold. Now there’s a suggestion made under anonymous polling.

Still on planes and on new products, 13% of people polled have said they were prepared to share a sky couch with a stranger on board Air New Zealand’s new seating configuration. The new lie down seats that can be transformed from 3 economy seats into a bed require two seats to be booked and paid for, with the third seat sold at a discount to make up the couch.

So how do those 13% of passengers think this will be accomplished? I hark back to my ski days and standing in line shouting single, hoping to attract another single skier to share the T Bar. All very common and accepted but then you are also wearing a lot of clothes and not deciding who will be the spooner, spoonee in the onboard situation. Will the check in staff have special match making training to help facilitate passenger requests or will the airline add their online flight bookings to sites such as RSVP to find a new revenue stream?

For both the above issues of zoning and seating, there are revenue opportunities for the airlines that could persuade even more people to use their services, hopefully with their clothes on in the case of Air New Zealand.

Caustic thoughts aside, from a business viewpoint surveys, straw polls and feedback results from your clients and potential clients should be taken seriously and actioned accordingly. If people are prepared to take the time to answer polls and surveys for you, then make sure you reach a solution satisfactory to their responses.

Grace under fire.

What is the best asset you offer your customers? What is the best way to keep your customers? If you answered your staff on both accounts, you are correct. If you answered your technology, your product or even yourself, you are missing the point completely.

All recent surveys show the difficulty in attracting and keeping staff post GFC and yet companies continue to abuse the most important relationship they have. My staff give great service is a real throwaway line, unless you can show your customer absolute return on their money using great staff to accomplish this.

It’s hard enough to find great employees, let alone hang onto them and once you have, to imbue them with a sense of the culture you want to showcase to your customers. This is something that needs to come from the top down and the bottom up so there is a true meeting in the middle and agreement on the service excellence your company intends to provide. Without staff engagement of your brand and culture you have nothing to offer.

Your front line staff is under constant pressure to deliver your message, your culture, your product and your service levels all to the highest standards achievable. All to try and keep your customer for a lifetime. A lifetime that is not a fixed value but a moving target that can increase the more you create a positive engagement and emotional interaction between your employees and your customer. As Brad Miller of Litmus Group says, “everyone wants a relationship with their customer because this is the mythical thing that can make sure that we stay in business”.

The only way the above, will happen is via your employees. Do your people tell your story, your brand or do you look to outsource your most prized asset and only work on bottom line?

Seth Godin says, “That companies that race to the bottom in terms of the skill or cost of their labour end up with nothing but low margins. The few companies that are able to race to the top, that can challenge workers to bring their whole selves, their human selves, to work, on the other hand, can earn stability and growth and margins”. As it gets more difficult to find staff aligned to your thinking and objectives, it becomes imperative employers do all they can to hang onto staff and not take them for granted in any way.

If you can do that, then your staff will bring grace, skill and motivation everyday and you might even make some money.

Reputation management.

Could your business take on a $37 million court case alleging wrong doings on your behalf? Could you take on a civil suit against your product or services and still maintain your reputation and credibility? Could you survive an attack on your company via social media?

Every day it becomes more difficult to make your way through the minefield looking to explode your service delivery, your credibility and your reputation. It almost feels like paranoia but is everyone out to get you and how do you manage your way through it all.

Reputation and brand are often seen as going hand in hand and if you have both in spades then you receive a measure of leniency from your clients. Research shows people are willing to give you wriggle room and the benefit of the doubt when it comes to mistakes made. If you have built up the trust bank and your brand has stood the test of time and service delivered then like Apple you can carry on regardless of small glitches.

The world’s top brands by market share and reputation from Forbes, reads like a who’s who of our lives with Apple, Microsoft, Coke, IBM, Google, McDonalds and GE taking up the top 7 spots. They all face challenges to their reputation and they take those challenges seriously. They consider their reputation as an asset and as such devote resources to a strategic management of reputation and maintaining a consistency of product and delivery of service. A London School of Economics study has found that a 2% reduction in negative word of mouth increases sales growth by 1%. That’s a lot when you make billions.

With unlimited resources the above all sounds easy but on a smaller scale you or your company need to allocate resources as well, because if you are in control of the decisions then you are responsible for your reputation.

All of the above depend on managing your customer’s expectations and having a consistently clear message regarding service and product delivery.

From a personal viewpoint it is just as difficult in today’s social media jungle to maintain your reputation and it falls to the individual to maintain and manage all the challenges that throws up. Most people (57% of adults) have looked up their names on the net and checked out what is being said about them online with a view to making sure they are painted in the right colours and hues. So just like the major brands you need to be aware and have a strategy for your reputation management because once tarnish is encountered it is almost impossible to polish back to the gloss you are used to. Don’t let your reputation be determined by Google.

It will be interesting to see the ramifications of the $37 million sexual harassment case against David Jones and how it affects their major consumer base, women. Regardless of the decision, damage has been done and it will be worthwhile watching the effectiveness of the DJ PR machine.