PAID TO QUIT : THE NEW TREND

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Jeff Bezos has done it. Zappos has been doing it for a long time now, and soon, many more companies would follow suit. The new trend catching up is of companies paying their employees to quit!

Yes, it’s no more the era of receiving incentives just for living up to the target; today, one may even get an incentive for not living up to the target or expectations!

THE PROBLEM: You need to have the right skills and the right attitude
The secret to a successful organization is the spirit of the workplace. If there is positivity and enthusiasm, then everybody is motivated and works to the best of their potential. But there are just a handful of organizations that can boast of such a work environment. According to a study done by Gallup in 2013 (State of the American Workplace report), only 30% of the employees are committed to working sincerely. There are 20% people in most places who are actually counterproductive and bring about negativity and discontent among their coworkers. The rest 50% just put in their time, and their contributions are hardly significant. The group to worry about are the 20% counterproductive employees. They cost the company a lot. These unproductive employees, apart from negatively influencing fellow workers, also have high absenteeism rates. They invariably provide poor service, which drives away a lot of potential customers. All this in the long run culminates into a huge loss for an organization.

If we go by the Gallop survey, then these unproductive employees cost the US economy around half a trillion dollars every year, which is a huge waste. The same would be true in every other business environment. So it becomes extremely important to weed out from your organization these kind of employees as soon as possible. A creative way of doing it is to follow Zappos and Amazon.

SIMPLE SECRET TO SUCCESS

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Amazon is today the one of the largest retailers of the world. Most of us have bought or at least browsed through the zillion things the site sells. Most of us have also patiently read the numerous customer reviews before proceeding to check out and finally buying the stuff. Now, here is an interesting fact. Most of the reviews are written by people whose job is to review products sent to them by Amazon. So they are not normal customers like you and me for they did not pay for the stuff they are reviewing. The important thing to note here is the fact that ‘customer review’ is an important factor today in building market share. It’s proved that products which get a feedback, that is are reviewed, are sold more than products which get no reviews. So Amazon has developed a program called ‘Vine’ where some trusted reviewers are invited to be a part of it. Through these reviewers, it populates its site with reviews which can help customers.

In the virtual world, to be successful, you need to be reviewed, to be noticed. It’s similar to the real world where ‘word of mouth’ is responsible for most sales. Today, we all depend on feedback and reviews before deciding on anything. Even before deciding which movie to watch, we check reviews. Before deciding where to dine, we look for what other customers have to say about the place. No wonder, sites like Zomato, Yelp are such big hits. The key word here is feedback. If you want to be successful, you need to get feedback from the market. In marketing terms, this used to be called ‘buzz’.

ASK FOR FEEDBACK TO SUCEED
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions”. Ken Blanchard said this years ago and it’s so true right now. A great leader is one who gives great feedback and a true achiever is one who is constantly asking for such feedback. The same rule applies for all successful companies also. They are those who have learnt the art of talking to their customers and seeking their feedback constantly. In today’s digital world, it’s become all the more easy to connect with your customers and find out what they actually need.

BRANDING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

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The way we communicate has changed today. Branding is a different game altogether. The strategy that was considered the right way to build a brand just a few years back is all wrong today. We, as marketers, were doing a great job all these years and then came Tim Berners-Lee and changed it all. He is the man who invented the ‘World Wide Web’. With more than 2 billion users the growth in the number of people using the Internet in 2013, as compared to 2000, has been 566%. Whoa! That’s humongous. It’s this Internet which has created a unique generation of consumers called the ‘Millennial’. People in the age group of 18-34 fall in this category. Why are they so important? Let’s look at a few quick facts. 75 million is the population of the Millennials in US alone. In countries like India and Bangladesh most of the population is around this age. What it translates into is a few simple facts. By 2022 at least 30% of all retail sales will be to this generation, and by 2025 about 75% of the total car sales will be to this generation, making this age group the most important consumers. They are the consumers of the future and as brand builders it’s critical for us to make them believe in our brands. However, this generation is very different from its parents. They live differently, decide differently, and hate being marketed to, making things very difficult for marketers. Gone are the days when you picked up a Lonely Planet or any other travel guide book to know about a new destination you wanted to travel to. Today, you just ‘google it’ and can know more about the place, and even see real time videos of the place. You read books on the Internet and buy them through Amazon. If you want to change your job you don’t go to a placement agency but to LinkedIn. If you want an education many prefer to go online than to a campus. In fact, even if you want to protest for a cause you do not need to go out on the streets rather you go to the Facebook page and ‘like’ it and voila you are a protester!

Reading, writing, travelling, protesting – you name it and it’s happening on the Internet. So, logically your brand building too should happen on the Internet.