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What You’ll Learn
Elizabeth Kuhns, of Dickson Electric and Ignite Broadband, shares how her team used employee incentives to help boost morale around the launch of the broadband division. Incentives don’t have to be expensive, but they can go a long way toward keeping employees excited and encouraging ownership during a season of change and uncertainty.
Guest Speaker
Elizabeth Kuhns
Show Notes
Transcripts are lightly edited for clarity and readability.
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Andy Johns: What are some ways that broadband providers are incentivizing employees? That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of The StoryConnect Podcast. My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer, and I'm joined on this episode with Elizabeth Kuhns, who is the business development manager for Ignite Broadband and Dickson Electric. Elizabeth, thanks so much for being on.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Thank you for having me, Andy. I'm so excited.
Andy Johns: This is exciting. Now, you have been on with Megan before, but we have not been on podcast together.
Elizabeth Kuhns: I thought you were avoiding me, so this is a pleasant surprise that I'm still welcome.
Andy Johns: Definitely not. Happy to have you to do it. Let's talk about the way that y'all are using employee incentives. And really the biggest one I wanted to get into, well, we'll hold on to that a little bit. Because you guys are doing everything from some dollars here and there to also blue jeans. I mean, you talked about all the different ways to incentivize employees.
Elizabeth Kuhns: I'm just going to provide a little bit of my background to explain why that this is not my first rodeo, I would say, as far as trying to get creative in how you can pour into your people. I have been in this role as business development manager for Ignite Broadband which is the broadband division of Dickson Electric Systems. So of that panel that you were referencing, we are the municipal electric system and right outside of Nashville. And I, prior to this role as business development manager, I served as assistant to the general manager for ten years. And in that role, my–
Andy Johns: At the electric side.
Elizabeth Kuhns: At the electric side. Yes. So the general manager, at that time, there was only electric. So I, but that, I was uniquely positioned in that role to be able to have an impact on our personnel, on our staff. Sometimes organizations can feel very siloed. You've got upstairs, downstairs. You've got inside, outside. You've got customer facing, and you've got back office. And then you also have different departments individually. And there could be animosity, or there could be resentment between, you know, I do, I work so hard. I'm not saying that was true for our organization, of course. But like generally speaking –.
Andy Johns: It happens all the time.
Elizabeth Kuhns: I immediately started trying to come up with ways to make people happy, make our people happy. And so when it came to this broadband project if you, if you've ever taken a class on organizational change, or if you have ever read any books, or if you've ever experienced it personally, organizational change can be chaos. And the uncertainty, the kind of assumptions that get made by your staff, can often really cause there to be lack of ownership over whatever that mission or project or deployment or whatever it is. With our situation, the board of directors, you know, made the decision and the general manager was tasked with executing this, and he's put the people in place, but it's creating yet another silo, a division, literally. It's called a division. And so the task of exciting your employees and wanting them to take on even more work, they're already stressed. They're already overworked, and so I found very quickly ways that I felt like were very beneficial to get their buy-in and to do my best at least. And to engaging them and letting them be a part of it.
Andy Johns: Because I think that's one thing that would surprise people to know is, is you guys have, what, 6,300 or so subscribers at this recording?
Elizabeth Kuhns: Yes. As of today, it's around that number. And 6,300 and we are just over halfway done with our build out. As of actually today, Tuesday, we opened our final zone of phase two, and it's a four phase build out. So we're literally just over halfway built out. And that's very exciting. But as we continue to grow and get more subscribers, it involves every single one of our employees at Dickson Electric.
Andy Johns: Because you haven't added as much, I don't think you've added as much headcount as people might think –
Elizabeth Kuhns: Right to our staff, yeah.
Andy Johns: Considering how much y'all are doing. So that could have been a disaster to have that much more work going on with folks.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Exactly that. Absolutely. And, you know, I will say that we from the beginning, This was going to require there to be people who step up and want to do more than what they've been doing. And a lot of times, ideally, yes, you would pay everyone much more money.
Andy Johns: Always nice.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Ideally.
Andy Johns: But you can't always do that.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Dream world.
Andy Johns: Right.
Elizabeth Kuhns: But that's not realistic. You also need to be successful, and you need to be mindful of this investment that we're making so.
Andy Johns: Sure.
Elizabeth Kuhns: That's where I feel like in my previous role, and then now in this new role, I was, had kind of a goodwill that I had established internally among our team of 100 plus employees to make them understand that like we are doing this, and we need you, and we love you. And we're going to try to do everything we can to make it worth your while to care about this, if that makes sense. So I haven't thought about any of the things we've done.
Andy Johns: No, no, no, this is good. And what an asset to have somebody that had been involved and is known among the folks. One of the other things when we're talking about generating goodwill, giving people 50% off their internet bill is certainly another way to generate some goodwill.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Giving employees.
Andy Johns: Right.
Elizabeth Kuhns: That is, yes. So one of the earliest ways that we decided and established that we were going to be able to ensure that they not only care, they experienced it themselves is to allow our employees and our board members to be the first of our customers to be connected ahead of the zones that open. So basically you know, you've got 100 plus employees out there in the community every day. They're at Walmart. They're at church. They're at the soccer fields.
Andy Johns: Baseball field, yeah.
Elizabeth Kuhns: This project, as many, especially with rural areas where there's such a dire need still for high speed internet, this project had garnered a lot of attention a long time before we finally were launching and going.
Andy Johns: Right.
Elizabeth Kuhns: So people were already starting to come up to Dickson Electric employees asking questions about this project. And certainly we wanted our staff to, if asked, we wanted them to say, "Yes, I have it. I love it." Not, I mean, the worst case scenario is, well, I would have loved to do it, or I don't actually have it. I've heard it's good, but I've got another a cellular carrier because it was bundled. That would have been – that's awful. So like you want brand ambassadors, you want people who, not only do they care enough to like do their job for it, but they also care enough to like, take ownership outside of the business day.
Andy Johns: And I think that's a really strategic way to think about it. That it's not just, "Hey, let's do this thing for our employees that, you know, we'll give them 50% off. What a deal." But the reasoning behind that I think is so smart.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Right.
Andy Johns: We know, I mean, one of my foundational marketing things is, is in the absence of a narrative, people will write their own.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Yes.
Andy Johns: And so if they're going to the grocery store, they see somebody, you know, either that they know or that's got an Ignite, you know, hat or whatever on, they ask. And "I don't know how it is." Then people start making up their own story.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Exactly.
Andy Johns: You don't want that.
Elizabeth Kuhns: And, what's also important, and I think that this, you'll get to this question, so I'm going to jump ahead, is the fact that like, I love a survey. You and I have talked at length about the use of surveys. Well, actually, Megan and I talked at length.
Andy Johns: I did listen to the episode.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Yes, I'm glad you listened. Top fan. No, we surveyed, like, again, one of the ways that we try to get that buy-in early on was to survey our employees ahead of creating a brand for our broadband division in this project. We surveyed, you know, their options were rebrand or create a new, you know, individual name and brand. And, but we wanted their opinion about that because I think that there's nothing but good that can come from understanding people and interests. And certainly it's a representative of also our community at large whatever the sample of our customers, I mean, our employees. So they had already, so a survey gives you the information you need to improve. And with our employees getting not only early connection, but 50% off of those services, It also allows us, we actually call them test customers is the terminology we use. And that allows us to have a sounding board for things that we need to know about our services, about the processes, about their experience, about everything. And to have access to that kind of information when we need it is so beneficial. So that is how we've used that has really gotten us a long way. And we've made slight improvements here and there based on that information.
Andy Johns: I like it. One of the things that came out in the panel yesterday is, obviously not everybody's the same. Not everybody is motivated by the same things.
Elizabeth Kuhns: That's right. You know, I think it was Bill on the panel that says something about younger employees are going to be motivated by development opportunities and cash. Yeah.
Andy Johns: More experienced employees are going to be motivated by maybe time off with their family and cash.
Elizabeth Kuhns: That's right.
Andy Johns: So I mean, there's always.
Elizabeth Kuhns: So cash is king always. We can remember that.
Andy Johns: But, if so, I guess kind of a two part question. Let's talk a little bit about how the different employees or the different generations of employees value different things. And then some of the things that you all have used, whether it's, you know, blue jean day or that kind of thing for folks when you can't, you're not just printing money, you can't just always give everybody all the cash you may want to.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Right. Yes. So I agree that Bill was spot on. Cash is always going to speak the loudest.
Andy Johns: Sure. Sure.
Elizabeth Kuhns: But as we've talked about, that can't always be the case. So generally like so we talk a lot in marketing about an omnichannel. Omnichannel means that you're allowing, you're providing these different avenues for your customers to reach you or to reach the information that they're looking for to either start their service, improve their service, get what they need from you. So whether that be email or online or text message or a paper, whatever, in-person at the window. So those are, that's an omnichannel. So similarly, you've got a staff of a lot of the age range of at least three different generations in the same workplace. And those all have different interests and opinions and are just different. And so I think that to be able to get creative and come up with ideas like kind of outside of the box that do speak to those different areas. So some of the things that we've done. Well, first of all, there's the most basic things, and again, a lot of them do have monetary ties to them, but they're minimal.
Andy Johns: Sure.
Elizabeth Kuhns: And so, you know, incentives or basically just efforts to bring, to pour into our people. As though, really the way that I look at it is it's almost like positive reinforcement for positive behavior. So we've done Kona ice truck, which is a like icy whatever. And you can, yeah, they can pop up in our, we've done it 2 or 3 different times on some of the hottest days. And if you've ever experienced the Tennessee summer, which Andy, I know you do, you know, a thing or two about.
Andy Johns: Tennessee gets warm in the summer.
Elizabeth Kuhns: It does. And so and that is for our linemen, our office employees come outside, and they all are excited about it. We get our contractors involved. This last time, we opened it up to our customers as well. So that's an example. Food, so food goes a long way. The things I've experienced that are really helpful. Food, blue jeans is what I mentioned.
Andy Johns: Never underestimate the power of blue jeans. That's what I heard you say yesterday.
Elizabeth Kuhns: It is truly. I said never, and if you asked anybody at Dickson Electric, I promise you they will back me up. And even the outside, you know, are like engineers and operations teams. They can also tell you, because we talk about a blue jean day all the time. We used to only be able to wear blue jeans on the last Friday of every month, one day a month. And so to be able to allow a blue jean day on a Tuesday at every zone opening our staff gets to wear blue jeans with an Ignite shirt. And that is one way of just allowing them to be comfortable. Be simple, like a simpler decision.
Andy Johns: Yeah, and I think that's important. And when you say zone opening that's when a different pocket of the area.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Yes. So that is like kind of the big thing that customers in that zone are waiting for their zone opening, and that is the day that it launches. Like at midnight, we open the zone, and then they get an email saying your service is now available for sign-ups. So it can be an influx of orders and work, you know, for some of our customer facing. But more than anything, we just want to make sure that we are celebrating a milestone.
Andy Johns: It helps them chart that progress.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Yes. Yeah. And through those zone openings, we also came up with ways to give back to our different departments and highlight the roles that they have played in getting us this far. So we started with our customer service department. They do receive the majority of the heavy, or they do the heavy, the majority of the heavy lifting.
Andy Johns: On the front lines.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Yes. For those zone openings, for those sign ups. And so we, you know, brought them boxes of donuts. We highlighted them. We wrote a thank you card from our team, personally thanking them. We did a social media spotlight. We on our monthly newsletter, we did a department spotlight that showcased them. And that is important because even if you've got, let's say hypothetically, you've got some maybe linemen, maybe they're a foreman and maybe they've been there for a long time, they might not really care about getting, they might care about donuts, but they're not going to care about a blue jean day. And they're also not going to care about an article written maybe.
Andy Johns: Right.
Elizabeth Kuhns: But guess who does? Their wife and their daughter.
Andy Johns: Hypothetical wife and hypothetical daughter.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Hypothetical. Yes, yes. I'm sorry, I forgot. Yes. So and they will share that on their, they're going to share that and take ownership of that and want him to come to my office and ask for extra copies so that they can. So that is a way that it, you're doing things, different things that speak differently and that impacts people differently. But hopefully there's something for everything, for everyone. We did a giveaway for our, I think it was our 3,000th customer milestone. We had food trucks set up where people could come and get free food. I mean, just our employees. And then with that, we also did a giveaway of an iPad that it was one person, the entire staff, regardless of if they were there or not or if they, everybody's name was put into a hat, and we drew one winner. And it was somebody from our metering department, and he was so grateful. Those are some examples, of course, clothing and swag and gifts. Like I always joked that in my previous role, I was like a mom. I would feed them, clothe them, and love them. And so I'm still doing that just from a different perspective, and it's important. They then feel like they are cared about, and they feel valued.
Andy Johns: Well, that ties into a quote, I think I know where you were going. The quote I wrote down the first part of it yesterday, you talked about when people feel they're appreciated.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Yes. So there is a quote that I cannot tell you who said it, and that's important. So I'm sorry. But I can tell you it impacted me, but it is "A person who feels appreciated will always do more than what's expected." And that is something that like, I truly carry that with me because you can throw money all day at everything. But if someone does not feel like what they're doing matters, or like they are a part of something, a mission that's important. Or they feel overlooked or underappreciated, they will not go above and beyond what they have to do to get home every night. If you are finding ways to express how grateful or how important, even just making people feel seen.
Andy Johns: Sure. Absolutely.
Elizabeth Kuhns: I think that that is really a powerful, like kind of a superhero secret weapon type of thing to – it's like a life hack. If you pour into people around you, then I think you will see an elevated level of response and of performance.
Andy Johns: I agree with that perfectly, and I think that's a great spot for us to end it. I think that's a nice –
Elizabeth Kuhns: No! I'm kidding. I'm joking.
Andy Johns: Elizabeth, thanks so much for joining me.
Elizabeth Kuhns: Thank you so much, Andy.
Andy Johns: She is Elizabeth Kuhns with Ignite Broadband and with Dickson Electric. I'm your host, Andy Johns, with Pioneer. And until we talk again, keep telling your story.
Outro: StoryConnect is a production of Pioneer Utility Resources. Send questions to hello@pioneer.coop and learn more about our member-owned marketing agency at pioneer.coop.