When a customer is unhappy with the way he/she is treated by an organization - he or she moves on to find a better one where he/she gets better service and is treated better. It affect the revenue of the company.

When an employee in a company becomes unhappy and decides to move on to another company - it still affects the revenue of the company - in terms of the expenses involved in hiring a replacement and training the new person to take the place of the old and experienced employee who has left.

So, what is the major difference here? Is it right to expect an organization to treat its employees just as it would treat its customers?

Hmmm....good question, Johnny.

My initial (knee-jerk) reaction is that an employee also walks away with intellectual property, thus that is more damaging.

Yet, it must be considered that negative word of mouth by unhappy customers is also quite far reaching.

I've experienced the spectrum. From organizations where the employees are valued to ones where employees are viewed as chattel.

Yet if one looks at revenues, profits, dividends...I'm not certain there is a clear-cut answer, i.e., companies of all cultures are successful...or not.

I do know what the data (still) shows, however. Overwhelmingly, employees do not leave organizations. They leave bosses. Which rather makes the decision far more personal, i.e., whether or not the organization is value-based is not the determining factor. It's whether or not the employee can communicate and work with (value) the boss.

KSB

This is quite interesting. Like Karen, I am not going to attempt to get into a comparative analysis based on financial "loss" as the result of an employee who has left.

Johnny, I can tell you that I have thought of the concept of "employee as customer" rather recently. And this idea fits into the phrase I have said to team members before, and that is "I also work for you." Not long ago, I went back to that article from last year that the editor of this site put up (interview with Mr Blanchard, author of the 5-Minute Manager). In that article there is some focus on the notion of "servant leadership" - as opposed to self-serving leadership. Really have to step back on that one. We wouldn't think it makes sense to be "catering" to employees, and I don't think the intention behind the idea is to answer to whims and be at mercy of employees. I think when you are self-immersed in the goal of adding people to an organization who will bring high spirits to the work you do, and to keeping the employees you have and should keep, it DOES involve a lot of things we say about customer service principles. Like: Doing what you say you will do, and all those good things. Of course those principles share things in common with good management of people resources. When you are staying in tune with what you want an employee to experience over time (satisfaction in new learning, advancement, etc), then I guess you are playing the part of servant to those people who have things they need. This brings the word SERVANT into a less pejorative level too. And in turn, why would "keeping a good employee" be so phenomenally different from "keeping a good customer"?

So I guess I pretty much agree with you, because the dynamics are very similar. Even if we think to ourselves, "Well, a free X is not the answer to every last customer satisfaction scenario," we have similarity in saying " a day off is not going ot be the answer to make you satisfied whenever you ask for it." The same issue resolution is there. And yes, an employee is being paid to be there, and that is something we would have thought immediately on the surface.

While I am able to grasp the idea that people can be replaced without a need for great upset and discomfort, it does represent a waste when we are having to replace too much, and this is where the "chattel" approach to people would soon begin to draw attention to the leader who has that view. And if we don't know how to keep someone who was worth understanding better, then how good are we at delivering what a customer needs and bringing an organization where it needs to go? There would be a problem with listening and owning resolution at the heart of it.