Moments of Truth and Creating Community Well-Being

What is a Moment of Truth

The term “moment of truth” is used quite a bit in marketing. We’ve adopted this term to recognise the impact that our carers have when they do something special for a customer. We use the term in a way that is very similar to how it was used by Jan Carlzon in a book entitled (would you believe) Moments of Truth. I should wholeheartedly recommend this work to you if you are even vaguely interested in inspiring leadership stories. Carlzon recounts the way he turned around a failing Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) in the early to mid-1980s.

Carlzon became Chief Executive Officer of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) in 1981 and transformed its fortunes. When he took up his post, the company was losing about $20 million, a year later it turned a profit of about $54 million. He did this by concentrating on the customer experience. He managed to get most of his workforce to buy into his vision. SAS developed an unrelenting, uncompromising, obsessive customer focus.

I have taken this a step further. When a moment of truth occurs carers have placed upon them a privileged duty. I have explained privileged duties thus;

"It is a duty, but one that is unenforceable. I can walk away from it. I can ignore it. The world will probably be no worse if I ignore it. However; the world generally, my community more particularly and the group of people to whom my duty is owed more especially still, may benefit from my acting on my duty. My acting for the benefit of others – and in the circumstances outlined I am the only person who can act in this way and bring about this benefit – benefits everyone, including me. It adds something to the store of individual and community well-being. And being able to do that, indeed, is a privilege."

Carlzon explained that a moment of truth occurred when a customer had an interaction with an SAS employee. He estimated that each day there were about 50, 000 of these moments of truth, probably lasting no more than 15 seconds. He called them moments of truth because this moment in time is an opportunity for an SAS employee to provide a customer with a peak experience. It is, of course, equally an opportunity to leave customers feeling deflated. In short, then, a moment of truth is a brief moment in time when an employee can delight or deflate a customer.

Caremark Thanet’s Moments of Truth

As a domiciliary care provider, we have hundreds of moments of truth each day and almost inevitably some of these interactions will provide carers with the opportunity to delight or deflate customers. When carers delight customers, it gives us wonderful opportunities to recognise the fantastic work that they do. We invite customers and their families to tell us about the special things our carers do. We also invite our carers themselves to tell us about the things they or their colleagues have done. Each month we choose three winners. Each winner receives either our gold, silver or bronze moments of truth award.

Some of our moments of truth winners

What delights a customer can be something that may seem quite small. That does not mean that it is without monumental significance to the customer concerned. The customer who is anxious because he can’t get out to post his weekly letter to his sister will be delighted when his carer walks twenty yards to the post box to ensure his letter is sent. Of course, the actions of some of our carers are, occasionally, far from small.

Creating Community Well-Being: Transforming Domiciliary Care

We did not call our recognition awards moments of truth just because we thought it sounded good – it does sound good by the way. We chose it because it says something fundamental about the type of company we are. We are not an ordinary domiciliary care provider. We are different. We are different because by our activities we are creating community well-being and transforming domiciliary care. And to do this we need people who buy in whole-heartedly to our belief that creating community well-being and transforming domiciliary care are the right things to do. Our Moment of Truth awards also recognise the fact that award winners have responded to the duties they owe to other carers, customers and our community in general. 

Creating Community Well-Being

The people who care for our customers are special people. We expect our carers to buy into our vision of a world where their actions can have a very positive effect on the well-being of the community in general.

We live in an interconnected world. By providing outstanding care to our customers - something upon which we will never compromise - we are making a significant contribution to the store of community well-being. But we do far more. We do far more by making further contributions to the store of community well-being. We do this in many ways. One way is by providing fantastic opportunities for our carers to progress personally and professionally.

We believe in communities; in the Thanet community and the wider East Kent community. We believe in the people who make up our community. Our carers and our customers. We believe that each of us has opportunities to contribute to the store of community well-being. We believe that each of us has a duty to ourselves and our communities to develop ourselves to enable us to play a greater role in creating community well-being. We believe that one of our responsibilities as an employer is to provide opportunities for our carers to develop their talents to allow them to play that greater role in creating community well-being.

Moments of Truth and Community Well-Being

Our moment of truth awards recognise occasions when carers have delighted customers. They also represent occasions when carers have contributed to the store of our community’s well-being. It might only be a small addition, but like grains of sand small additions grow.

Recognising achievement

Could you buy into our vision? Do you want to play a significant role in your community? Why not find out more about the type of company we are and our opportunities for you.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet and Caremark Dover Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or 01304 892448 email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet or Caremark Dover's at www.caremark.co.uk/dover.

Contributing to the Store of Community Well-being in Domiciliary Care

Caremark Thanet: The Reason We Do What We Do

Let me tell you about us. We are a domiciliary care company serving the Isle of Thanet. And we are different. We are different not simply because we provide outstanding care - what else would you expect from a domiciliary care provider - we are different also because of the reason we do what we do.

The reason that we do what we do is to contribute to the store of community well-being. Providing outstanding care, of course, contributes to the Thanet community’s store of well-being. However, we do more; much more.

Caremark Logo

At Caremark Thanet, we believe in communities, especially the Thanet and wider East Kent communities. Our business philosophy is very much based upon strengthening the indivisible links that exist amongst a very important trinity; a trinity that consists of everyone at Caremark Thanet, each of our customers and each person in our community. 

We live in an interconnected world. By providing outstanding care to our customers - something upon which we will never compromise - we are making a significant contribution to the store of community well-being. But we do far more. We do far more by making further contributions to the store of community well-being. 

How We Do More

We do more by being a community engaged organisation. We believe that connected communities are stronger communities and that stronger communities are good for the well-being of every person in that community. That is why we support a whole range of community organisations and events; and that is why we organise our own events that bring together our carers, our customers and our community.

Christmas Carol Concert

In the last two years we have organised a comedy night, a quiz night a variety afternoon, a Christmas Carol Concert and many more events. Some of these events have helped us raise over £3500 for East Kent Hospital’s Dementia Charity Appeal. These events and our fundraising activities are excellent examples of how we contribute to the store of community well-being.

What Is Well-Being?

Now here is an interesting question. Have you ever thought about what well-being actually means? You probably haven't and if you did you may find an answer difficult to arrive at, There is quite a burgeoning body of writing on the subject of well-being. Some believe that it is possible to measure well-being; indeed the government has attempted to measure it. 

Although it is difficult to explain, a lot of people have said a lot of things about well-being. I've just searched on Google for "what is well-being" and received over five billion results!. The thing is; well-being is important to all of us. Yet if asked to explain well-being, we may be at a loss. We can probably say that our well-being is high or low; good or bad or indifferent; but we may struggle to say exactly why our well-being is as it is. 

Although it's not easy to say precisely what it is; we can say, without any hesitation, that well-being is much more that just physical health. Certainly, our physical health is one part of our well-being. However, it is quite conceivable that someone in poor physical health may have good overall well-being. 

There are a whole range of factors that will contribute to our well-being; there are just two, though, that I want to highlight: the quality of our network of relationships and the strength of our community links. I want to highlight these because they are so important to everything we do at Caremark Thanet. They are central to our community engagement programme and our work to create community well-being.

Connected Communities Are Stronger Communities

The idea of social capital is not new. The term has been used for well over a century and the idea itself can be found in writing dating way before this. It is however from the 1980s onward that a new found academic interest arose particularly in works by Pierre Bourdieu in France and James Coleman and Robert Putnam in the USA. 

Margate Carnival 2018

There are differences, inevitably, in the work of each author and there exist multiple strands, straddling various disciplines, to the many discussions of social capital. However, a theme that is important for this article is that of the benefit that individuals and communities gain from the trust and support that the many networks that strong communities can provide.  Community well-being and social capital are clearly related concepts. 

Our Recruitment Philosophy

Would you like to be a part of this? We are always looking for people to join our team of care and support workers. When we recruit, we are very exacting. Of course, we look for people who are caring and reliable. But we look for something more - as you might expect given what I have written so far. 

We look for people who share our vision of making our community stronger by contributing to its well-being. Its hard work but supremely rewarding. Our expectations of you are enormously high, and one of our expectations is that you will have high expectations of us.

Recognising the outstanding work of our carers

We also look for people who understand the importance of developing through education and training. We believe that it is important that we all take responsibility for our self-development. That is one simple way of creating community well-being. By developing our knowledge and skills we can play a greater role in our communities. And that creates community well-being.

An essential part of everything that happens at Caremark Thanet is the training opportunities that we provide. We know that education and training can have a transformational effect on people's lives. As an employer, it is right that we encourage your self-development and provide opportunities for this to happen. When you work for us you are never just a carer; when you work for us, it is not just a job it is a career. The opportunities we have are transforming domiciliary care.

If you like what you have read so far, and you appreciate the transformational potential of education and training; we may be just what you are looking for. Why not have a look at our website: www.caremark.co.uk/thanet. You can also find out a great deal about the type of company that we are by visiting our Facebook page:  
https://www.facebook.com/caremarkthanet

After you've had a look at us, I'll look forward to hearing from you.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.