KELLY GROUP OFFERS EXPERT TRAINING TO INCREASE CUSTOMER AND EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

Johannesburg, 21 February 2008 - A unique training initiative that has produced a quantifiable improvement in customer and employee satisfaction levels at the Kelly Group is now available to other companies as part of the group’s comprehensive range of employment and outsourcing services.

Known as the Brand Champion programme, the course has been designed to develop a sustainable competitive edge by aligning employee behaviour with a company’s vision and culture.

Since its introduction internally last year, the Kelly Group has improved employee productivity in real terms. Three of its brands also featured in the top 20 of last year’s Deloitte’s Best Company to Work For Survey. These were PAG, which came 9th overall (2006: 24th), Kelly, which came 15th (2006: 33rd) and Kelly Industrial, which came 11th overall in its maiden entry at this annual survey.

In addition, client and candidate satisfaction levels, as measured by an independent research company, have increased from 77% to 84% for clients and 81% to 87% for candidates at the group’s flagship brand Kelly.

The project is the brainchild of chief executive Grenville Wilson, who spent years perfecting it as CEO of Avis Southern Africa, the country’s leading car rental company. He says the principal aim of the programme is to show how the personal behaviour of its employees has a material effect on how a company performs and how it is perceived by its stakeholders. “Personal behaviour is the one element in our lives over which we have complete control and it also happens to be a make or break factor in a service-orientated business,” he says.

“Services industries have become increasingly commodified, where there is little difference in terms of the types of services available or the prices at which they are offered. In this type of environment, customers choose one company over another because of the experience they have at the human interface. Consequently, employee behaviour is the last frontier where we can achieve a quantum, sustainable competitive advantage,” says Wilson.

At the same time, Brand Champion acknowledges that unhappy employees will never be able to deliver on a company’s promises and as such the programme centres on life skills and right brain development. It includes a strong focus on achieving a healthy balance between work, home and self-actualisation so that employees can interact with confidence, power and presence in their daily lives.

“Research has shown that committed employees generate greater output at higher quality levels than uncommitted employees and stay longer at a company. Committed employees also develop stronger customer relations, which lead to higher levels of customer retention, profitability and growth,” he says.

The programme will be marketed to other companies as a brand alignment intervention and takes the format of a two-day workshop. The success of the programme will be monitored through customer and employee satisfaction surveys, conducted by an independent research firm. Where short-comings are identified, further intervention initiatives will be implemented.

“It is designed to give a company an edge by contracting its people to represent the brand, support the vision, deliver on the company’s promises, subscribe to its values and to help build the company’s corporate culture through effective teamwork,” he says.