“Gladys” in the HR Suite: the Emergence of the Hypersensitive Employee?

Have you heard about this great new bestseller? “Who’s Your Gladys? How to Turn Even the Most Difficult Customer into Your Biggest Fan” by Marilyn Suttle and Lori Jo Vest is a great read about how tech-savvy customers, who have more competitive information than ever, but with this crazy economy, also have less money to spend. Call her Gladys. The book asserts that more than ever – if you don’t take care of your customers, you will lose them.

According to the publisher’s website, the term Gladys defines a hypersensitive but powerful consumer:

Every customer service provider has at least one Gladys. She’s the picky customer who knows what she wants and she wants it now. She’s bold and bossy and extremely particular. And she’s got a lot of friends coming soon to a business near you. A recent study out of the U.K. has revealed the emergence of the “hypersensitive customer.” With sales figures down dramatically in just about every industry worldwide, consumer spending habits have been drastically affected by economic uncertainty. Worldwide, customers are becoming increasingly choosy about what companies they patronize.

I laughed out loud at this concept, thinking of the several times I’ve gone head-to-head with a customer service rep – and won. But at another level, I thought about how we can draw a linkage to HR policies. Think about it: just as every service provider has a Gladys, so too does every organization, from an HR perspective. Call her the squeaky wheel. The one who questions every review, the one who challenges new policies and procedures when they are introduced… sigh.

But Gladys can also be a top performer, a valued member of the team. She gets her work does, meets her goals. She’s successful. And we know that if we lose Gladys we lose an important asset. She’s also an influencer, so we may soon lose several of her peers.

So how can HR learn from the customer service model of dealing with Gladys? Obviously, taking a focused, strategic approach to talent management is a major part of the equation. How you use your tools and communicate your policies is another… I’m just mulling this over, so send me your thoughts. Do you have a Gladys on your team? If so, how does she influence your policies?