One strat­egy to become a com­pete­tive and attrac­tive employer is to treat your employ­ees as your cus­tomers. A work­place should con­sist of more than sales and sal­lar­ies. Mean­ing is of greater impor­tance. David over at 37signals wrote beau­ti­fully about this in “Put a dent in the uni­verse“:

“To truly be inspired for great work, you need to know that you’re making a dif­fer­ence. That you’re putting a mean­ing­ful dent in the uni­verse. That you’re part of some­thing that’s making a dif­fer­ence and that your role in that some­thing is significant.”

This is very true. The ques­tion is, how do you make your work­place sig­nif­i­cant? When you write PM’s, what are you focus­ing on? My guess is that you focus on how your prod­uct line will improve over the next months, how last months sales went and then you finish up with a promise about that upcom­ing manda­tory hol­i­day party you’ll be arrang­ing. Where is the sig­nif­i­cance in this to me as an employee?

To me as an employee, it is useful to know the num­bers, but only if my even­tual feed­back on these num­bers will ever be con­sid­ered and treated with respect. If not, I actu­ally don’t give a damn. And why should I?

If your employ­ees are lim­ited to a box where they can post ideas about even­tual improve­ments you might con­sider some time in the future, expect no love. The formal author­ity must be shared in order to open up for real love and prac­ti­cal use of the col­lec­tive bril­liance of your team.

I you as an employer look at your employ­ees as your cus­tomers, you’ll con­stantly try to make your offer look and work better for them. You’ll always try to improve, and you’ll do your best to keep them more than sat­is­fied. In fact, you’ll do your best to make them love your sweet deal. You want them to feel impor­tant, as if their work really mat­tered. And of course, it does. You can’t  fake this, if you’re clue­less about how to approach this, ask some­one for advices.

A basic course in mar­ket­ing teaches you that your com­pany have to have a story towards your cus­tomers. What story are you telling your employ­ees? Or even better, what sto­ries are you and your employ­ees making, together? Do you have any tools for this? Are you shar­ing your love for your work with the world? In which way are your work improv­ing the world? In which way are your work improv­ing itself? In what way are you help­ing your employ­ees grow? If your work isn’t devel­op­ing the world right now, then change cus­tomers! Help your cus­tomers make the right choices. Make your work important!