Standing in the Shoes of Front-Line Employees

How can leaders understand the challenges, frustrations, and obstacles faced by front-line employees as they set out to perform key tasks and serve customers?  Simply surveying them, or speaking with them from time to time, may not be sufficient.  Management by walking around is effective, but perhaps only provides a glimpse of the true nature of front-line work.  Moreover, word spreads quickly that the boss is walking around, and people may change their behavior if they know management is heading their way.  When I worked at Staples, I can recall Tom Stemberg, founder and former CEO, telling us that word would spread like wildfire once he popped into a store unexpectedly.  All the other stores in the region learned very quickly that he was in the area.  Shockingly, the stores looked immaculate by the time he arrived later that day.  

So, what else can leaders do to understand the needs and challenges of front-line employees?  How can they learn what daily work is really like for those associates? Here's a quick story about Chris Nassetta, CEO of Hilton Hotels, excerpted from my book, Unlocking Creativity.   Leaders should follow his example.  

Leaders across all types of organizations should consider how they can empathize genuinely with their employees. Great new ideas may emerge from these efforts. Chris Nassetta took over as CEO of Hilton Hotels in 2007. He had to engineer a turnaround at the struggling chain. Nassetta decided that his executives needed to connect more closely with the associates on the front lines – to understand their concerns, identify their frustrations, and hear their ideas. He worried that the top management team had lost touch with those doing the real work. Nassetta remembered learning a great deal in his first job in the hotel business, cleaning toilets as an eighteen year old at the Capitol Holiday Inn in Washington, D.C. He decided that it was time to return to his roots. 

Nassetta directed his top managers to spend one week per year working at one of the Hilton hotels around the world. He did the same, thereby modeling the behavior he expected from his team members. They took on housekeeping tasks, helped the facilities and grounds crew perform maintenance, and greeted guests at the front desk.[i] Nassetta notes, "Their job is harder than your job. You get in there, and you pay them the respect."[ii] The management team learns a great deal from this “immersion” process each year, and new ideas emerge from the many conversations that take place between executives and front-line workers. 

[i] I first learned about this initiative during a conversation with Kimo Kippen, former Chief Learning Officer of Hilton Hotels, at a meeting of the Human Resources Leadership Forum in Arlington, Virginia in December 2012.

[ii] Scott Mayerowitz, “How Hilton's CEO Led the Company's Massive Turnaround,” Inc., July 30, 2014. https://www.inc.com/associated-press/how-hilton-ceo-turned-around-his-hotel-business.html Accessed March 3, 2018.