Devoted to customer service and the principles of exceptional customer services

Recently I sat in on a class taught by Maureen Orey titled "Motivation and Recognition Systems".  The class consisted of about 25 supervisors of a locally-owned company. One of my goals is to become a speaker someday, so I wanted to get some tips from a professional.  Besides, Maureen focuses on professional development which includes the topics of supervision, leadership, and customer service, so of course, that piqued my interest even more. 

One of the things I learned from this class is that there is a disconnect between what employees want and what employers think employees want. Below is a list of what employees want from their jobs and it is ranked in order with #1 being the most important thing:

1.  Interesting work
2.  Appreciation/recognition
3.  Feeling "in" on things
4.  Job security
5.  Good wages
6.  Promotion/growth
7.  Good working conditions
8.  Personal loyalty
9.  Tactful discipline
10. Sympathetic help with problems

Now here's how employers ranked these items according to what they think employees want:

1.  Good wages
2.  Job security
3.  Promotion/growth
4.  Good working conditions
5.  Interesting work
6.  Personal loyalty
7.  Tactful discipline
8.  Appreciation/recognition
9.  Sympathetic help with problems
10. Feeling "in" on things

(Source: Declining Employee Morale:  Defining the Causes and Finding the Cure by Vicki Niebrugge)

As you can see from the lists above, employers and employees are not exactly on the same page.  I've always known that employees sought appreciation and recognition, however, I didn't know that employers put good wages at the top of the list.  It's understandable that employers would think this way - especially nowadays with the economy the way it is.  People do want to be paid well, but making a good wage doesn't mean anything if you work hard every day and don't get recognized or even told, "Thank you." 

So how do you know what your employees want?

The class discussed how employers would go about figuring out what their employees wanted and the consensus was that the easiest way to get that information was to  communicate with employees and get to know them personally.  The lists above are generalizations and we shouldn't necessarily assume that every single person would want "interesting work" at the top of their list. (I'm just wondering who wouldn't want to do interesting work!?!) Nonetheless, we all have different motivations and reasons for why we do the work that we do. 

If you're a business owner or manager reading this, I'm curious to know whether or not you know what your employees want....