IntroductionRecruitment requires headhunting. In order to get the best, employers need to seek out the best, which also means recruiting from among your competition. Fortunately, this is easier than ever provided the way that companies release employee directories and information can be searched out using LinkdIn. In combination with online services such as the online portal, 24/7 Wall St., it’s easy not only to find the companies with the best ranked workers, but also to look up workers in those departments using a quick Linkd In search. This simple combination of tools easily allows a manager to seek out the best from among the best.
Five Places of Customer Service
Hiring from Amazon.com, Chick-fil-A, Apple, Marriott, and Kroger is the best way to assure that a hiring manager finds a customer service representative that can deal with high volume while respecting the client (Sauter, 2015). The diversity of backgrounds of these employees, while all still relating to the realm of customer service, would benefit a company through diversification while remaining focused on a quality customer experience.
Amazon.com.Amazon.com has led in customer service ratings for six consecutive years and easily has the highest reviews for its customer service department. Given the considerable volume Amazon deals with, this ability to stand out from among its competitors in the online market is admirable (Sauter, 2015).
Chick-fil-A. Representing the casual dining experience in these rankings is Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A, known primarily for its fast food, also boasts a similarly high profile. Its year over year increase in approval rating includes a 10% increase between 2014 and 2015. As a baseline comparison, Chick-fil-A’s customer service is rated with an admirable 47% approval rating. In contrast, its competitors in both the fast food, fast casual, and casual dining market, typically only rate the stores they attend with somewhere between a 30% and 40% approval rating (Sauter, 2015).
Apple. Apple is yet another high tech company whose customer satisfaction rating improved between years, although only half of Chick-fil-A’s (Berry, 2000). Its ever expanding sales base is indicative of continuing customer happiness and loyalty. Apple also instills its employees with a sense of independence and ownership that is transferable under the right management, empowering its employees to make decisions and take the lead in dealing with customers.
Marriot hotels. Marriott hotels represents the hospitality industry as the highest rated hotel chain in the U.S. Nearly 40% of all respondents enjoy their customer service experience with Marriott, indicating a high level of training and commitment to customer happiness (Sauter, 2015).
Kroger. Finally, Kroger grocery stores trains both its front line and desk workers to prove excellent service as well. 77% of all respondents to surveys find Kroger to be an excellent customer interaction experience, with only 2.7% of customers marking the chain poorly (Sauter, 2015).
Five Places of Production Line
A similar method can be used to find production line workers using a combination of online portal Glassdoor and comparing it against LinkdIn profiles to find workers currently on the production line. From these comparisons, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Aerotek, FCA Fiat Chrysler, and Zodiac Aerospace all emerge as some of the top ranked companies in the U.S.
Fiat and General Motors. Both Fiat Chrysler and General Motors boast improved employee productivity through the continual adaption of technology alongside quality employee hires. Fiat and General Motors both share a robust production line workforce from which to draw, and their experience would make immediate contributions to any workforce. General Motors has also recently improved its productivity through outside partnerships (Inkpen, 2006).
Ford Motor Company. Ford Motor Company’s long tradition of using a production line dates back over the century, and the company’s business practices, which included good treatment of employees, pay, and good training (Evans, 1999), helped it avoid the bankruptcy filings that struck its competitors. Ford’s long tradition of employing a quality workforce that is well trained makes its production line employees invaluable, and while the cost of luring them away may be substantial, the reward in productivity cannot be underestimated.
Aerotek and Zodiac Aerospace. Likewise, Aerotek and Zodiac Aerospace, while working in different markets, have simultaneously been able to lure quality employees, integrate high degrees of training, and create a workforce with low turnover. Although roughly in the same field of working on production lines, Aerotek and Zodiac employees come from a slightly different company environment than workers from car manufacturers and could add valuable input and diversification to the workforce.
While difficult to lure, when seeking out a highly productive workforce with low turnover, these may be the places where three quality employees can be hired away from. Appealing to these workers is a matter of offering comparative geographical, pay, benefit, and promotion advantages. The benefit to the hiring team is the assurance of a low maintenance worker that will benefit the company for years to come.
- Berry, L. (2000). Cultivating Service Brand Equity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 128-137.
- Evans, J., & Lindsay, W. (1999). The management and control of quality (4th ed.). Cincinnati, Ohio: South-Western College Pub.
- Inkpen, A. C. (2006). Learning through alliances: General Motors and NUMMI. Strategic
Direction, 22(2). - Sauter, M., Frolich, T., & Stebbing, S. (2015). Customer Service Hall of Fame. Retrieved October 9, 2015.
