Empowering the workforce

Bruce Jones explains how developing leadership culture increases employee loyalty.

It's great that this company is working so hard to create a culture that builds loyalty and empowers employees. Empowering employees is a key lesson in 'Disney's Approach to Leadership Excellence' - one of five core programs we offer at Disney Institute. The opportunity for this company and its managers is to examine how to truly empower employees for long-term effectiveness. The answer may surprise them, as it lies in their hands.

Disney has always trained well and, as recently as the 1990s, many leaders thought that hiring great people and training them was sufficient. Employees would do as they were told and guest service would be seamless. Disney employees, or cast members, as we call them, take great pride in their work and want to do more, but we had created an environment where the expectation was to simply collect a paycheck. We were not effective at connecting the cast with their jobs and the guests they were serving, and we were missing a vast opportunity.

It would have been easy to dismiss this as a cast member problem and send them to another round of training. But astute senior leaders saw an opportunity to make bigger changes that would positively influence our company for years to come. They started by asking cast members what would help them feel connected to their jobs. The answers were startlingly simple. For example, cast members wanted the freedom to help guests immediately when problems occurred, and they wanted to do so without fear of retribution. In other words, they wanted to be treated with the same respect we give our guests.

As a result, Disney embarked on a journey focused on developing a culture of great leadership rather than top-down management. Leaders now must demonstrate effective empowerment, along with coaching and cast member development to be successful in their jobs; in fact, leaders' annual reviews are tied directly to the cast members they oversee. If a cast member is not achieving his goals, then neither is the leader. This requires leaders to constantly interact with, and seek input from cast members, which in turn fosters better service at all levels of our company (fellow cast members can be guests, too).

Tools have been developed as part of this process to empower immediate service recovery. If a child drops her ice cream cone for example, the cast member is empowered to offer the child a new one at no cost to the parent. The cast member can do this without checking with his or her leader, as long as he or she records the transaction. This record creates opportunities for coaching and ongoing collaboration between cast members and leaders.

These efforts unleashed the hidden value from within the organisation and have allowed Disney to become world-renowned for employee engagement and loyalty. And it doesn't have anything to do with castles and princesses (well, maybe a little bit). Working in the happiest place on earth certainly has its benefits, but I doubt we would be the happiest place on earth if we didn't treat our cast members with respect. Guests come back to our parks again and again because our cast members listen and act when they make suggestions on ways to improve the experience. The thousands of positive letters, emails and phone calls we receive from guests every year almost always have one thing in common - they rave about our cast members.

The biggest challenge for any company wishing to implement changes, ones that will result in increased employee engagement and loyalty, is to develop a culture of trust. If employees feel they are heard, and that their ideas and suggestions are taken seriously, they'll respond in a positive way. A company that is successful in introducing this type of culture will see a positive impact that goes beyond employee satisfaction, all the way to the bottom line.

Bruce Jones is programming director for Disney Institute. In this role, Bruce oversees the team that develops engaging content built around the five topics that Disney is best known for - leadership excellence, people management, quality service, brand loyalty and inspiring creativity. Bruce also ensures the content is suitable for presentation across a variety of formats, including webcasts, keynote presentations and multi-day courses.