THE ROLE OF PEOPLE IN THE PROVISION OF THE LOGISTICS SERVICE

In recent years, many companies have realized the potential that logistics activities have to create value for their customers and, in this way, gain positions in the frantic quest for competitiveness. It is through the logistics service, understood as the set of activities that must be carried out to meet the needs of increasingly demanding customers, that companies seek differentiation, pursuing compliance with deadlines, error-free deliveries, perfect orders and a wide range of of service attributes that go beyond the conventional requirements linked to deadlines and quantities met.

However, even companies that are technologically well prepared from a logistical point of view present not very satisfactory results when, disappointed, they observe some indicators of their performance: late deliveries, damaged packages, documentation with errors, incomplete orders, etc. These flaws harm the relationship with customers and are in the opposite direction of the effort to create value, compromising the objective of differentiating oneself from the competition.

The satisfaction gap, that is, the difference between what the customer expects from a service and what he perceives he is receiving, can be caused by different reasons, from the lack of knowledge, on the part of the company that provides the service, of expectations that the customer has in relation to the service he will receive, to unrealistic expectations of the customer, often caused by the tendency of commercial areas to promise too much. But what research shows is that the main reason for the occurrence of the satisfaction gap is the difference between the specifications of how to perform the service and the way it is provided by the people in charge of its performance. Several reasons can determine that difference: the lack of training, the demotivation of the employees, the mismatch between their abilities and the technology used, the workload, the functional conflicts that generate problems between departments; finally, a set of reasons often resulting from the non-compliance, by the company, of a series of conditions that should be created for the provision of the service. Such conditions can result in a greater commitment of the employee to the organization, generating a positive behavior that leads him to carry out his tasks with greater attention and with the awareness that his distractions can cause problems for the company and for its customers.

The conditions created by a company to generate a good work environment and, in this way, contribute to employee satisfaction with the organization are given several names in the literature: service climate, quality of life at work, quality for the internal customer, company humanized, among others. The objective of this article is to draw attention to the key role played by people in providing an excellent logistics service and to present the main dimensions that contribute to the creation of a work environment that generates employee satisfaction, productivity and loyalty. the company.

Although most managers know that motivated employees are essential for achieving good results, this article begins by showing why, in practice, this knowledge does not translate into actions that lead to quality for the internal customer. The article continues with the relationship between quality for the internal customer and results for the company. Next, we will return to the question of the satisfaction gap and its causes in an example of a logistics system and, finally, the dimensions that contribute to the creation of a favorable service climate are presented.

QUALITY FOR THE INTERNAL CUSTOMER

Organizations need to understand that they don't “perform” the service. This task falls to the employees. They are the ones who play a key role in the service provision scenario, especially those who have direct contact with customers.

Most executives recognize that good service is the direct result of having effective and productive people occupying relevant positions with the service that is provided to customers. However, what is seen in practice is the perpetuation of what is conventionally called the service failure cycle: companies plan jobs so that they are occupied by people willing to work in exchange for a salary slightly above the legal minimum. . To compensate, little is required of these people in terms of responsibilities and, above all, that they think, that they concentrate on what they are doing. They project to occupy their time with repetitive and boring tasks that require only a minimum of training.

Dedication to work and loyalty to the company are not worked on, not least because managers are aware that they pay little. The results of this way of acting are predictable: high employee turnover and growing customer dissatisfaction, which also leads them to change suppliers. The high turnover of personnel reinforces the wisdom of decisions in the sense of minimizing efforts in selection, training and activities that contribute to the creation of a commitment to the company. At the end of the day, most managers say, “Why invest in people who won't stay with us? There are plenty of people available to fill these roles.”

This vicious cycle has its origins in old industrial systems, where a set of assumptions about people, technology and costs led to incomplete trade offs that failed to perceive long-term implications for the decisions they contemplated. Although nowadays they do not appear explicitly in any management manual, the logic that explains them is still present in the minds of many companies and managers. It works something like this: other things being equal, it is better to depend on technology, machines and systems than on human beings. Machines are more efficient and productive. They cost less in the long run. In addition, they are infinitely less problematic to manage since, unlike people, they do not need to be recruited, selected, trained, supervised and, most importantly, there is no need to keep them motivated.

The truth is that the logic exposed above ends up determining a litany of excuses about the difficulty in providing quality services. It is common to hear things like:

▪ There is a lack of quality labor to provide the service we want to provide.

▪ Nowadays people just don't want to work.

▪ High turnover is nothing more than an inevitable part of our business.

▪ Nowadays people are not considered good.

▪ It would be very expensive to get good people and you cannot pass these price increases on to customers.

▪ It's not worth training these people when you know they're going to leave so quickly.

Unfortunately, the industrial model falls short on what service sector customers often value most: the things technology can't do or doesn't do as well as thinking human beings. About three or four years ago we wrote a teaching case about a logistics operator strongly based on technologically up-to-date assets, with automated distribution centers, routers, vehicle trackers, sales forecasting systems, inventory control, monitored management indicators daily, etc. The company served an extremely demanding customer who paid dearly to receive a level of service bordering on perfection.

Although he was proud of the infrastructure he had available to meet the client's requirements, the director who gave us the interview recognized: “All of this is a necessary condition to reach the required level of service, but it is not enough to delight the client, to keep it with us. When an unforeseen event happens, such as a store that made a mistake with the numbers on an order or the occurrence of an unforeseen event in the area where another store operates, it is the people who stay here on weekends or holidays that `break the branch´ customers and handle emergency requests. There is no computer capable of doing that.”

In the example just described, we observed at least two elements: the interest of the staff on duty to respond to emergencies and the autonomy they have to not follow the script imposed by the system that receives normal orders. And how is this achieved? There is no secret: well-trained people, committed to the company's goal of serving customers, who understand what it means for customers not to respond to an emergency, who know the customer's business, who are paid above the industry average , who have been performing that function for some years, etc.

That's where you start to break that cycle of failure and start the cycle of success. They are people who like what they are doing, who earn more. And this is not a problem for the company. These people are paid more, but they save on layoffs, recruitment, selection tests, interviews, training and, above all, there is no need to worry about constantly chasing new customers because those that were won stopped buying as a result of the bad service received.

The conditions created by a company to generate a good work environment, and thus contribute to employee satisfaction, constitute what we call Quality for the Internal Customer. Several authors have already proposed different elements that constitute Quality for the Internal Customer (we will see some proposals later on). In the case of the example of the logistics operator described above, we can highlight the autonomy, work infrastructure and differentiated remuneration for achieving employee satisfaction, retention and productivity.

QUALITY FOR THE INTERNAL CUSTOMER AND RESULTS FOR THE COMPANY

The intuitive importance of the impact of service employees on customer loyalty was integrated and formalized by Heskett, Sasser and Schlessinger (1997) in their research on the service-profit chain, in which they demonstrated a series of relationships between: employee satisfaction, retention and their productivity; perceived value of the service by customers; customer satisfaction and loyalty; and revenue growth and profitability.

Fred Smith, the well-known founder of Federal Express – a worldwide logistics company recognized for the quality of its services –, perhaps inspired by the service-profit chain, created the People-Service-Profit concept in his company, based on which, if employees are well cared for and thrive in their work environment, they will provide excellent service to customers, which in turn represents an increase in profits for the company's shareholders.

Guidance for implementing the People-Service-Profit model reaches all FedEx locations. In Brazil, for example, the company has frequently appeared in the ranking of the best companies to work for, a classification created by The Great Place to Work Institute and which takes into account a series of dimensions related to the conditions that companies create for their employees. employees: credibility, respect, impartiality, pride in working for the company and camaraderie.

Several surveys have been devoted to studying the relationship between people management and results for the company in terms of service quality and external customer satisfaction. Such studies systematically point to the fact that several variables related to employee management are significantly correlated with positive results for the company.

WHERE TO START?

The concepts of quality for the internal customer, service climate, a good place to work, etc., have been worked on by different authors in different areas: Labor Relations, Organizational Behavior, Total Quality Management, etc. Collecting the various contributions of publications in these areas, we organized Table 1, with the eight dimensions most cited in the surveys that the authors carried out with companies that sought to develop actions that led to the creation of a favorable work environment for their employees.

Albuquerque and França (1998) introduced the concept of Quality of Life at Work as an expansion of the concept of total quality to the service environment, when they began to discuss the need to include the concept of Personal Quality and, consequently, that of quality of life at work as part of total quality programs. According to the authors, one cannot speak of total quality in the provision of services if it does not cover the quality of life of people at work.

Conduit and Mavondo (2001) proposed that, in order to increase external service levels, supply chain performance and the company's financial performance, the company should first improve the quality of the service provided internally. For those authors, this would not be a new idea; it has been previously researched by several authors and can be seen in the TQM literature and in the Malcolm Baldrige Award criteria themselves.

Evidently, it is not necessary for a company to work on all the dimensions listed in Chart 1 to develop Quality for the Internal Customer. An internal climate survey, for example, can identify people's expectations and how they perceive the attention received from the company. The actions to be put into practice can start little by little, seeking to eliminate the gaps between what employees expect and their perceptions of what they receive.

The Brazilian Post Office provides a good example of a logistics company that thought about creating good working conditions for its more than 50 postmen. So that these professionals can work in comfort and safety, the company has put into practice a series of actions ranging from the development of uniforms, bags, special shoes, to sunglasses and sunscreen. In addition, postmen receive training in how to handle dogs. These professionals are not always well received by the animals and this was never a concern of the company until a few years ago, when its executives realized that the service could only be well provided if, first of all, the postman was able to perform it. it in comfort and safety.

Similar concerns were noted at DHL, another major logistics service provider, after the company's president decided on a given day to carry out courier activities. Humble employees never expressed their difficulties or were not heard by their immediate bosses. When the company's chief executive felt them personally, immediate actions were taken to minimize the difficulties faced by those in charge of deliveries.

Another Brazilian example was presented at the International Logistics Forum in 2008, reporting on a program for the appreciation and safety of drivers, put into practice by Tegma Gestão Logística and Shell. Through a series of initiatives, such as limiting hours worked and hours of continuous driving, tools to control small accidents and unsafe practices, and technological support through the use of trackers, real-time monitoring systems for equipment, conditions of driving and road conditions, in a few months the number of accidents, minor and serious injuries, violations (sudden braking, overruns and speeding), loss of materials and other incidents were reduced.

CONCLUSION

Every moment of interaction between employees and customers generates an evaluation of the company. If the organization is concerned with providing employees with a good service climate, they become able to understand customers' reactions during service provision and, concerned with their satisfaction, assume the role of the organization's eyes and ears. Companies that have such resources in their favor will be fully capable of developing continuous improvements and offering superior quality services.

One of the pioneering authors to work on the theme addressed in this article was Karl Albrecht. According to him, “the way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel”. That is, if an employee is not happy with what he does, if he does not feel prepared, if he feels wronged, in short, if he is not motivated, it is difficult for him to convey to the customer the idea that the company cares about the quality of what he does. it offers to its customers.

The internal quality of a work environment makes an important contribution to employee satisfaction. Internal quality is measured by employees' feelings about their jobs, colleagues, and the company. Internal quality is also characterized by employees' attitudes toward each other and the way they serve each other within the company.

Figure 1 seeks to summarize the ideas presented here. On the one hand, the main dimensions in which the company should invest to create a good work environment or what we call Quality for the Internal Customer. On the right side of the figure, what can be expected from employees in return for the organization's efforts to provide them with a favorable environment for them to develop their activities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALBUQUERQUE, LG; FRANCE, ACL. Human resources strategies and quality of life management at work: stress and the expansion of the concept of total quality. Management Magazine, v. 33, nº 2, pp.40-51, Apr./June. 1998.
CONDUIT, J.; MAVONDO, FT. How critical is internal customer orientation to market orientation? Journal of Business Research, vol. 51, pp.11-24, Jan 2001.
HESKETT, JL, SASSER, WE, JR., and SCHLESINGER, LA. The service profit chain. New York: Free Press, 1997. (Published in Portuguese by Editora Campus, under the name Lucro na Prestação de Serviços).