Monday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent a memo to employees outlining several cultural and operational changes including mandating a full return to the office at the start of 2025. For many future years we will read reports and say, “The pandemic caused that” and at top of the list is the work-from-home (WFH) phenomena that today has led to an increased level of tension between employees who have embraced it and employers, like Amazon, who are over it.
How Much Are Worker Shortages Impacting Customer Service Today?
It’s become common to complain about poor customer service, sort of the “get off my lawn/ things aren’t like they use to be” mutterings of those with clear memories of right-in-front-of-me employees who were eager to help. And those who mutter are right because a full 75% of American businesses have already turned away customers or cut operating hours because they can’t hire enough staff [i], making us wonder how much worse customer service can become. Here are just a few examples that cut across many industries:
- Airlines are closing off routes due to pilot shortages[ii] while national safety experts are monitoring whether airlines are promoting junior pilots to bigger planes too quickly.[iii]
- CVS, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart have all reduced their pharmacy hours “in the midst of a pharmacist shortage”.[iv]
- A nationwide shortage of lifeguards will force thousands of city pools to close or restrict their hours.[v]
- A new hospital in Phoenix stood empty for six months because administrators couldn’t find enough staff to provide services to patients.[vi]
- School bus-driver shortages are forcing parents to drive their children to school, brought on by more flexible driving opportunities with Amazon, Uber, and other employers.[vii]
- Parents also struggle to find childcare as 100,000 childcare workers have moved onto other available jobs since the pandemic.[viii]
- Private and public sector employers are scaling back on college requirements, focusing instead on actual skills required for their jobs…and reducing the value of a college degree.
Change is Happening, But It’s Not Enough to Solve the Problem
On the legislative side, at least eleven states have sought to loosen their child labor laws. Iowa for example wishes to allow children as young as 14 to work in meat coolers and industrial laundries,[ix] whereas lawmakers in Wisconsin believe those same 14-year-olds should be able to double as cocktail waitresses at night.[x]
On the military side, our U.S. Army is offering up to $50,000 in hiring bonuses for qualified civilians[xi]…while our U.S. Air Force has modified their fitness requirements by raising the acceptable levels of body fat[xii]. Our Air Force just got fatter in order to better find and retain recruits.
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Further Reading: The High Cost of Lowering Standards for Retention in the Military, and More
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In my own county north of Orlando, officials are urging us to drive our own recyclables to the dump because they can’t find and retain enough garbage truck drivers.[xiii] And our sheriff just lowered the age for jail detention officers from 21 to 18 to fill open jobs.[xiv] The convicts they are guarding will benefit from our worker shortage as businesses are opening their doors to ex-cons, saying more than 80% of them are performing their jobs the same or better than other workers.[xv]
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Further Reading: CVS Waives the White Flag on Turnover
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Retention Really is a National Epidemic
Last year, I wrote about how three national pharmacy retailers had cut back on hours for serving their customers because they couldn’t recruit and retain enough staff. These companies call themselves “pharmacies”, CVS being one, and they have much higher profit margins for those pharmaceuticals than they do for mouthwash. Yet they have apparently told their boards of directors they will take a major revenue hit because they can’t solve turnover. Back then I wrote this:
- Do your lead pharmacists want to manage their teams or would they rather just focus on pharmaceutical work?
- If they want to be leaders, have you trained them on leadership skills?
- Do you track turnover by pharmacy, and especially by length of service?
- And most importantly, do you hold your lead pharmacists to employee retention goals?
- And if they fail to achieve those goals, do you coach them or move them out of their leadership roles and replace them with someone who wants to lead a team?
No Getting Around that Retention is Directly Tied to Trust
So now we have pharmacies cutting back on customer service hours as well as profits. Our military ignoring proven methods of retention on one hand but implementing lower standards on the other, which is equivalent to raising pay to fix retention problems – not proven to work long term – as I have covered before.
Here’s an idea. Maybe instead of chasing their tail in an endless cycle of wishful quick fixes, our air force can take to the skies pulling old fashioned banners around the United States that say, “The #1 reason employees stay or leave is how much they trust their immediate supervisor and those leaders become your best retention solution” to get the word out to the truly smart businesses and organizations ready to make real long-term change.
Stay Interviews for Building Trust
If it seems like Stay Interviews are a required bridge for engaging and retaining employees, well…you see right through me because I believe they are. Initially the concept seemed too simple, that supervisors should invite individual employees to meet in order to discuss five questions about their satisfaction with work. “Isn’t that why we do surveys?” some asked. Or “How do we know employees will tell the truth?” But conducting Stay Interviews has proven to open very wide doors toward building TRUST which is the express lane toward engaging and retaining each of your employees – and improving your customer service, too!
Keep the Employees You Have, and Cut Your Turnover by 20% and More
Schedule a conversation with me at DFinnegan@C-SuiteAnalytics.com to discuss your employee retention roadblocks and I’ll share ideas for how you can move forward and what is working for other companies to cut turnover by 20% and more that will benefit you and your customers.
[i] https://njbmagazine.com/njb-news-now/75-of-businesses-have-been-affected-by-the-labor-shortage/
[ii] https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/american-airlines-drops-3-cities-service-blaming-pilot-shortage-soft-demand
[iii] https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/airlines-pilots-planes-safety-united-delta-southwest-e438ce08?st=kkg8q2fpzxjkhab
[iv] https://www.wsj.com/articles/cvs-walmart-to-cut-pharmacy-hours-as-staffing-squeeze-continues-11674796388
[v] The Week, 6.16.23, page 16
[vi] https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/capital/labor-shortages-supply-chain-issues-delay-opening-of-arizona-hospital.html?origin=BHRSUN&utm_source=BHRSUN&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&oly_enc_id=4079B6123845J6Y
[vii] https://www.edweek.org/leadership/a-districts-bus-disaster-highlights-a-nationwide-driver-shortage/2023/08?s_kwcid=AL!6416!3!602270476281!!!g!!&utm_source=goog&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ew+dynamic+recent&ccid=dynamic+ads+recent+articles&ccag=recent+articles+dynamic&cckw=&cccv=dynamic+ad&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyKurBhD5ARIsALamXaHZJ3s4sNeY2BWdfy29KBZreCQmp6pE9g7xaLnVv4QLjBLOx-Onq2MaAv1ZEALw_wcB
[viii] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/us/child-care-worker-shortage.html
[ix] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/18/child-labor-laws-targeted-lawmakers-11-states-seek-weaken/11682548002/
[x] https://www.columbian.com/news/2023/jun/05/granderson-kids-may-take-brunt-of-gops-disdain-for-poor/
[xi] https://myarmybenefits.us.army.mil/Benefit-Library/Federal-Benefits/Bonuses?serv=122#:~:text=Active%20Army%20Enlistment%20Bonus%3A,and%20is%20subject%20to%20change.
[xii] https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2023/04/03/fatter-recruits-now-welcome-as-air-force-revises-its-rules/
[xiii] https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/shortage-of-garbage-truck-drivers-leads-to-recycling-items-piling-up-in-altamonte-springs/ar-AA1dP22o?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=473e1c5df204437ba4c1837a7f5f73ad&ei=15
[xiv] https://www.wftv.com/news/local/seminole-county-sheriff-lowers-minimum-age-detention-deputies-hopes-filling-positions/7R4V4BBY55ED5AP3LZNQY53FXQ/
[xv] https://moneywise.com/a/ch-msna/employing-the-formerly-incarcerated?utm_source=syn_msna_mon&utm_medium=Z&utm_campaign=33531&utm_content=msna_mon_33531
How Much Are Worker Shortages Impacting Customer Service Today?
It’s become common to complain about poor customer service, mutterings by those with clear memories of right-in-front-of-me employees who were eager to help. And those who mutter are right because a full 75% of American businesses have already turned away customers or cut operating hours because they can’t hire enough staff, making us wonder how much worse customer service can become.
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