We talk all the time at WOW! about the fact that it’s not what we do, but how we do it.  How we do it differently from our competitors is a result of the engagement and commitment of our frontline employees… to create a better experience for our customers.  Why do they do it?  Because it makes them feel good, feel proud and… well because it’s fun. 

It’s hard to believe I’ve been contributing to this blog for a whole year – yes, time flies as you get older (groan), but more importantly time flies when you’re having fun.  I guess that’s the last message I’d like to communicate in this space called ‘Culture’ on our blog.  At WOW!, having fun at work is something we’ve come to expect and I believe it translates to how.

In a work environment that is focused on Serving Others, where Respect, Accountability and Integrity rule the day… week… month… year, a natural byproduct is this:  People are happy to come to work.  There’s no worry about back-stabbing, sabotaging, blame-laying or spotlight stealing.  Our core values don’t permit these things.

When people are happy to come to work, there is a whole different kind of energy that pervades the workplace, for example:

- Particularly hard jobs become team challenges
- Unexpected ‘priority projects’ become volunteer opportunities
- Extra efforts are appreciated and recognized on the spot and…
- When there’s a reason to celebrate, congratulate or even reach out to the community, participation is whole-hearted and heartfelt.

So here’s my logic:
1. Core Values make you feel good at work.
2. Feeling good creates fun.
3. Fun Drives The How.

I have to admit I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to write about in this last ‘culture column’ and I also have to admit that I left it to the last minute.  It’s due to be posted today – 12/14/10.  So now I need to  get this up on the blog and then get back to having fun… oops – I mean get back to work… at WOW!.

Best Wishes for a Happy and Personally Rewarding New Year!

Then imagine you work for WOW!. 

Guess what? 

Your supervisor calls the garage who maintains the vehicles for their office, and the garage owner offers to repair the car for the cost of parts alone.  Your supervisor picks up the tab for towing.  Your teammates secretly hold a meeting and take up a collection.  Their money pays for the parts.  Then they find a replacement washer and dryer set in good working condition and buy it for you.  Finally, they purchase gift certificates and donate the rest of the collected cash toward food and gifts so your family can have a real reason to celebrate Christmas.

This is just one story, in one location, in one holiday season at WOW!.  These kinds of efforts go on all year long when a member of our WOW! family is faced with unexpected trauma and need. 

It’s called Leading with Courage.
It’s called Serving with Heart.
It’s called Celebrating the holidays with Grace

This year, like last year, there is more need than ever in our neighborhoods and our communities.  Please consider a few less stocking stuffers, or a more cost-effective Christmas meal and consider spending your savings on someone else.  You can touch the life of someone who has very little to celebrate this year.

I’ve quoted our CEO in this column before, but it’s appropriate to repeat it here:

“NOTHING FEELS BETTER THAN GIVING.”

Happy Holidays from WOW!

This month we had an unusually lively group of technicians and they asked a lot of questions.  As a result, I ended up describing the original Career Path program launched in 2003, and the iterations it had gone through over the past seven years to accommodate changes in our market, changes in our product offerings and changes in technology.  As the training came to a close, one of the technicians spoke up and said, ‘You know, I worked for ‘X’ company for over three years. I never had a performance review from them, not even one, and I sure never got any pay increase because of my skills.’ 

I was more than surprised.  No performance review in three years?  No pay increase as the employee was able to perform more complicated work?  I realized once again, that I sometimes take for granted the culture and core values of WOW!.  We do pay for performance – top performers are rewarded in multiple ways at WOW!.  We also pay competitively.  If someone can do A, B, and C jobs, that someone should be making more than a coworker who can only perform A-type jobs.  And we are committed to our annual review process.  Employees deserve to get feedback, find out where they are excelling, where there is room for improvement and what they contribute to their team, their department and the business.

It’s a simple matter of Respect – treating employees the way anyone would like, no, the way anyone would expect to be treated
It’s also a matter of Integrity – doing the right thing and connecting compensation to skills and performance
It’s a simple matter of Accountability – making pay adjustments timely and appropriately
It’s a matter of Servanthood – showing employees that as managers, we know we owe it to them to follow the first three statements above.

There’s those Core Values again.  They’re pervasive as all get-out at WOW!, even where compensation is concerned.   Next month, when I stand up to train new technicians on the Career Path Program they’re about to enter, I will tell them about the real roots of the program – the Core Values that are the foundation  of WOW!.

“I have worked for WOW! for five years and I can truly say WOW! is part of my family.  If you ever wanted to work for a company that cares and supports their employees and helps them strive for ‘gold’ in their career, then this is the company for you.  I cannot imagine working anywhere else”

“It only gets better and better and you WILL have a WOW! Moment while you are here… it’s just a matter of time!”

“Working for WOW! has been one of the best experiences of my life.  Since working here I have gained a level of self-respect that will never go away, and I have the courage to step out and do things I never would have imagined possible.”

Can you imagine working for a company where the culture and atmosphere inspire employees to say things like that?!  At WOW!, it’s all in a day’s work, and it all boils down to our focus on Servanthood.  Everyone at WOW! learns (and eventually believes in their own heart) that it is an honor to serve others.  When you are in a Human Resources department, whose primary function is to serve others, it is extraordinarily rewarding to have other managers, department heads and yes, even the executives of the company have the same mindset… the honor of serving others. 

Servanthood is a self-fulfilling practice.  When you ‘do’ for others, I guarantee there will be a time, maybe when you least expect it, that others will ‘do’ for you.  As we approach our national day of giving thanks, I would like to express my own gratitude for being part of this unique company and send out my own Thanksgiving wish:

May everyone who reads this either give or receive a WOW! Moment today.  Happy Thanksgiving!

WOW! teamed up with the Suite Dreams Project to raise money for a very special family. The Suite Dreams Project is a charitable organization whose mission is to bring comfort and joy to children affected by serious medical conditions by creating healing environments in their homes and in our communities that improve their quality of life and prospects of recovery.

The wonderful staff at Suite Dreams introduced us to the Zentz family and their adopted 7 year old son, Ben. When Ben was just six weeks old, he was believed to have been violently shaken by a family member which caused severe brain injury. Ben has had numerous surgeries, several strokes and is now legally blind and unable to walk or talk. 

Last Sunday, WOW! held a bowl-a-thon fundraiser in honor of Ben and the Zentz family. Over one hundred employees and their guests attended the event! The Zentz family was also in attendance and spent most of the afternoon thanking WOW employees for their support. Funds were raised through bowling games, raffles, a silent auction and general donations. In total, $13,887 has been raised so far!

Normally with a bowling fundraiser, funds are raised by charging an admission price to the event. We did not feel it was necessary to charge an admission price because we knew our employees would get behind the cause and individually reach out to family and friends to raise money. Indeed they did! Employee fundraising and donations alone generated over $7,000 – half of our overall money raised.

The proceeds from the fundraiser will go towards creating Ben’s healing environment. Ben’s greatest need is a special bed to keep him enclosed and safe at night. He also needs physical therapy equipment in his home to keep him active and constantly learning. 

Several WOW! employees volunteered their own time to design and create the bedroom with the help of a Suite Dreams designer.  Planning for the bedroom will begin in the next week or two and we hope to have the bedroom finished by Christmas.�
 

Ready to bowl!

Competitive team

Selling LOTS of raffle tickets! WT Young, committee member on left helps Shirley Roseman

The rest of the WOW! fundraising committee

A happy raffle prize winner!

There’s nothing cuter than a tiny Dinosaur, mini Dracula, or petite Wicked Witch trying their hardest to be scary!

Below you will find photos of the celebration in one of our regions.  We invite you to take a few minutes and sit back to enjoy the spirit of the holiday… done up the WOW! Way.

Broadband Supervisors await their victims...

Barney Rubble is not so scary

Cowboy Bob amuses Frankenstein

Freddie Krueger's ready to party!

Poisonous Potluck includes tails of gnats and eyes of bats

Baby Jakob Binagisaurus

Precocious Big-Mouth Frog

A Mighty Roar from a Mini Lion

One Serious Dinosaur

Who Belongs to Barney Rubble!

Clearly a Proud Daddy

The baddest monster doesn't even faze his twin daughters!

He's ready for take-off!

Not-so-scary Spider

Say 'Good Bye' now....

I'll be back....... brooooh ha ha ha ha ha!

We decided to help with marketing efforts and the Dispatch Management Team organized an outing to go door-to-door with door-hanger tags in newly released areas of Park Ridge.  That was it!!  What an amazing opportunity to get out of the office and celebrate the expansion opportunities first hand.  On 10/13/10 the Dispatch Management team conducted their first Door-Hanging Party, hitting the streets with door-hangers, chip clips, and WOW pens in hand for friendly distribution.  We were able to hang a total of 595 homes!  The team really “owned” it by going a step further ensuring their business cards were affixed to their hangers in an effort to demonstrate the dedication our staff has in reaching out to the residents/future customers of Park Ridge.  We had an amazing time and really were able to use this outing as a means to strengthen our relationships with each other. 

The value of this outing to our team and to the company left us wanting more.  So, we will be expanding these Door-Hanging Parties to include the Quality/Training Team and also our Dispatchers, who really represent the “face” of WOW! to customers and technicians each and every day!  Only at WOW! would the expansion of our system into new cities become an expanded teambuilding opportunity for departments that normally have nothing to do with direct sales.

Contributed by Brian Blair, Dispatch Manager

What is my yardstick?  It’s what we call positive TRs, or positive Tech Reports.  These are comments specifically about Broadband Technicians’ behavior and performance gathered from a number of sources:  calls to our customer service call center, customer surveys from our website and customer WOW! Moments submitted on our blog.  We also have an internal tool that allows other departments to compliment a tech’s behavior or performance too, called the FITS tool.

Ok, bear with me while I take you back in time for a minute.  When I started with WOW!, I joined in 2001 as an HR Manager with an automotive manufacturing background.  All the other department managers had spent their entire careers in the cable industry, but this was a start-up business so we were all taking a risk.  One of the things the technical managers tried to impress upon me was how and why WOW! would be different:  we would focus on top-notch service, we would do this by providing technicians with the proper tools to do their jobs, and we would recognize and reward them when the job was well done.  As an HR manager, this didn’t seem ground-breaking for me, but I’ve learned over time that it was a major change in attitude for a company in this industry. 

Nine years ago, the three senior managers in my region represented over 55 years of cable experience between them.  Each told me he could count on his two hands the number of customer compliments their prior companies had received over those years.  One of these managers was physically threatened, one had his tires slashed, one had a grocery cart flung at him in a parking lot as he wore his company’s jacket, and so on.  Nine years ago, cable companies didn’t have great reputations with their customers.

And then there was WOW!.  And here is my yardstick.  We have systems in four states, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio and we have about 725 technicians providing broadband service to approximately 470,000 customers.  These 725 technicians have earned, this year alone, over 4000 unsolicited, complimentary comments from those they serve.  Let me repeat that:

4000+ compliments so far in 2010. 

Kind of speaks for itself, doesn’t it?!

We have two major groups of employees at WOW! – those who interact directly with customers and those who don’t.  The quality of service and support provided by ‘those who don’t’ to ‘those that do’ makes the difference in our success.  In one region, we celebrate the contributions of ‘those who don’t’ annually with a Support Staff Appreciation Outing.  We have lunch, we take a few hours out of the day to go somewhere and play, and we try to express to this group of employees how much we appreciate the role they play.  This year we went bowling.  We had to split the group into two events in order to keep business running as usual, and it was clear at both locations we had a solid mix of real bowlers and good-sport bowlers.  The top three bowlers at each event won awards, as did anyone who bowled a turkey (which I learned means three consecutive strikes) and we even had some recognition for ‘most improved.’   I think everyone had a good time and the support staff so critical to our success had a few hours to relax, have fun, and be recognized.  Serving our support staff for an afternoon seems the least we could do to appreciate them.  Servanthood is a core value that really works!

Top 3 bowlers of the first Support Staff Outing, hamming it up for the camera.

Top 3 bowlers (green shirts) at second event, and 3 'most improved' (blue shirts). Do you think they had a plan?!

Why does this kick off the meeting?  Because employees at WOW! are so passionate about our business, so accountable for their role in it, and so dedicated to servanthood, the managers who design these meetings feel compelled to start out by recognizing the front line employees who make us successful. 

Today, while our 300 employees arrived, assembled and ate breakfast before the meeting started, we ran a loop of selected WOW! Moments with pictures of the employees who created them.  Year-to-date, this region’s employees have generated 2,780 customer compliments!  When the formal meeting started, we applauded 88 employees who received perfect attendance bonuses (that’s 43% of the total eligible); we cheered for 31 STAR Performance technicians, we whooped it up for a dozen sales reps (almost 25% of the team) who have exceeded quota every month this year, and we clapped for the 11 employees who topped the region in Just Ask Service Protection Sales – over 400 transactions just from this group!   Last but not least, we honored the 19 employees who were promoted so far, in 2010.

Only then did we go through performance numbers and progress this year, and at the half way point, we played a quick table game – designed to emphasize the power of teamwork.  There was lots of chatter and camradarie as the game progressed because there were prizes for the top 3 performing tables.  The second half of the meeting was dedicated to future strategies and a new technology that will set us apart from our competition, followed by the personal message from our CEO.  And guess what?  After Colleen delivered the ‘meat’ of her message, she ended by…  appreciating and recognizing all the front line employees who literally drive our success.

Hmmm.  I think there might be a message in there somewhere.