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Texas Roadhouse Won't Scrimp on Making Employees Happy

"If we take care of our employees, they will take care of our customers" is a common phrase. In your experience, is it actually practiced or is it just a cliche on the wall? Discuss the implications of your answer.

The phrase 'The customer is always right' was initially created by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge's department store in London in 1909, and is characteristically used by businesses to encourage customers that they will get good service at a company and to encourage employees to give customers good service. More and more businesses are abandoning this adage for the reason that it frequently leads to bad customer service (Top 5 reasons why "The Customer Is Always Right" is wrong, 2006).

In conflicts between employees and unruly customers companies are turning more to siding with their employees. The good thing about this approach is that it balances workers and customers, where the always right saying directly favored the customer, which is not a good idea, for the reason that, it causes bitterness among workers. This makes the employees' job that much harder, when trying to rein them in. Also, it means that rude people get better treatment and conditions than nice people do (Top 5 reasons why "The Customer Is Always Right" is wrong, 2006).

Most businesses think that the more consumers the better, but some consumers are quite basically bad for business. It is an easy matter of respect and dignity and of treating employees' right. When you put the workers first, they put the consumers first. If a company puts employees first and they will be happy at work. On the other hand, when the company and management time and again side with customers instead of with workers, it sends a clear message that workers are not valued and that treating workers fairly is not significant (Top 5 reasons why "The Customer Is Always Right" is wrong, 2006).

2. Texas Roadhouse uses money as a motivator for employees. In today's economy, describe alternative methods that could be used to motivate their employees.

Motivating employees is a vital skill for supervisors, managers, and business owners to have. When developing motivation plans, it is imperative to be familiar with the individual dissimilarities among employees and realize that not all motivation methods will work for everyone. Each worker must be assesses in order to figure out what motivates them the most. There are several ways to motive employees without spending any money. These include: job rotation, job enlargement, job enlargement, job Enrichment increases, flextime and job sharing (Methods and Techniques for Motivating Employees, 2012). Other things that can be done include sending handwritten notes, making work fun, helping employees connect, reward effort as well as success, giving out free passes and stroke their passion (Tynan, n.d.).

3. Discuss the possible effectiveness of each of your alternative methods.

- Job rotation permits employees to learn new skills by changing them from one task to another. This prevents boredom from setting in. If employees are constantly stimulated and exposed to new areas of the company their motivation to work hard and move to a new areas will be high. This is a great way for people to see if there is somewhere else in the company where they could apply the talents that they have (Methods and Techniques for Motivating Employees. (2012).

- Job enlargement is a motivation technique used for workers who perform very few and simple tasks. Job enlargement augments the amount and diversity of tasks that the worker performs, ensuing in a feeling of importance. Employees want to feel as if what they are doing is important and meaningful. The more important they feel the harder they will work (Methods and Techniques for Motivating Employees. (2012).

- Job Enrichment increases a workers control over the work being done. It permits employees to manage the planning, execution, and evaluation of their own work, resulting in autonomy, independence, and added accountability. If employees feel that they have control over what they do they are more likely to make sure that what they produce is the best product possible (Methods and Techniques for Motivating Employees. (2012).

-Flextime permits workers to choose their own work schedule, to a certain extent (Methods and Techniques for Motivating Employees. (2012).

- Job sharing is a less frequent method, but very effective at averting boredom. It permits two workers to share two different jobs. The workers often alternate days or weeks, working twenty hours in each position each week (Methods and Techniques for Motivating Employees. (2012).

- Sending handwritten notes by the top brass to employees who deserve recognition. This is a great way to make employees feel appreciated and that what they do matters (Tynan, n.d.).

- Making work fun is a great way to get people excited about coming to work everyday. If a person really wants to go into the office they will be more apt to give it their all on a daily basis (Tynan, n.d.).

-Helping employees connect by introducing employees to key suppliers, customers or someone in senior management can help make an employee's career and it doesn't cost a thing (Tynan, n.d.).

-Reward effort as well as success. Even if their ideas sometimes fail, you want employees to keep producing them. This stimulates innovation and positive behavior which leads to happy, productive employees (Tynan, n.d.).

-Giving out free passes- Experts suggests giving out a certain number of free days off passes to employees to use as they see fit. Employees get a few of these a year and can use them as they like. That way they don't have to pretend to be sick in order to take that very much needed mental health day (Tynan, n.d.).

- Stroking employees' passion. Great employees are not mercenaries, they don't just want to enjoy their work, and they want to be passionate about it. If a company wants their employees to feel valued and inspire their passion, they should encourage them to make their own decisions. One can have systems in place to control the implementation of ideas, but one must be certain not to compromise the enthusiasm, creativity and hard work that make them possible in the first place (Tynan, n.d.). Some of the best companies have benefits from ideas that came from their employees on the front lines. Everyone's ideas should be taken to heart and evaluated so that the best of the best gets utilized.