I was part of a panel asked to present on our top productivity tips yesterday. Often we don’t really know what we do that keeps us productive – it is innate.
I thought of my own productivity practices, such as writing the three things I must get done in a day before I go home and turning off email so I can focus on producing what I want to do rather than responding to other people’s agenda.
I contemplated what are some of the bigger ideas of how RedBalloon is focused and productive. The reality is that one must be intentional about being productive: floating through the day or ‘hope as a strategy’ simply results in a lot of wasted energy.
When I started RedBalloon I had a simple premise: to run a business that listened to its customers and acted on the feedback. (Anyone who has been on a RedBalloon experience knows that they will hear from us 48 hours after the experience with our ‘How was it for you’ questions – and a real person reviews and responds to these – always has.)
The customer experience is key. As a result, RedBalloon benefited from conversations about not just the experience but about the experience of delivering experiences, word of mouth marketing that gave us a profile on a shoestring that we no way could have paid for.
RedBalloon has been recognized as a Great Place To Work, and a Hewett Best Employer in the last few years – but it has not always been like this. It took years of commitment to fulfil our vision of being a great employer brand.
A strong employer brand is the reputation of an organization; its critical ability to recruit and retain the best of the best. Our recognition as an employer of choice gives RedBalloon tremendous leverage. We attract great people that bring diverse and new ideas to the business. I’m excited that we are now recruiting in several roles to join our corporate team.
I’d encourage all businesses to make their employer brand reputation a key element to strategy and really commit to the employee experience.
Encourage people to think big, make mistakes, innovate and grow — and while not every idea will fly, the freedom to be allowed to ‘get it wrong’ means there’ll be more opportunities when they get it right.
If you don’t allow your people the safety to make mistakes, then you’ll never get the grand ideas. And don’t be constrained always expecting ‘big’ ideas. In 2012, the theme at RedBalloon is “Small Things, Big Impact”, where RedBallooners are encouraged to make suggestions on ways to impact costs, productivity or revenue.
To qualify, the idea must be new or incremental and not already in the plan. The idea must also be small: so it doesn’t require one or two weeks worth of development; it can be implemented using existing resources; it doesn’t require substantial investment; and requires only a little extra effort.
One of our IT guys, Mitch, came up with a splendid idea for investing in RAM for old computers to speed them up, rather than spending big on new computers — prime thinking.
Naomi Simson is considered one of Australia’s Best Bosses. She is an employee engagement advocate and practices what she preaches in her own business. RedBalloon has been named as one of only six Hewitt Best Employers in Australia and New Zealand for 2009 and awarded an engagement scorecard of over 90% two years in a row – the average in Australian businesses is 55%. RedBalloon has also been nominated by BRW as being in the top 10 Best Places to Work in Australia behind the likes of Google.
One of Australia’s outstanding female entrepreneurs, Naomi regularly entertains as a passionate speaker inspiring people on employer branding, engagement and reward and recognition. Naomi writes a blog and is a published author – and has received many accolades and awards for the business she founded – RedBalloon.com.au.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
