Corporate Cultures excluding highly contributing employee input will soon find itself with an insufficient and less than seasoned workforce
Many American workers are becoming more savvy when choosing how to spend their work life. The days of choosing a career and remaining with that same career for our entire lifespan have long since passed. There are several contributing factors to this trend but I believe they all come from the same root cause. A lack of focused intention.
The trouble with most relationships is that we pick out the one little thing we do not want, and then give that unwanted thing all of our focus, energy, and attention, thus bringing ourselves more of the very thing we did not want.
I have witnessed this very phenomenon so many times in my own work life; it never ceases to amaze me, the fallout that naturally follows this way of thinking. I’m going to use my most recent employer as an example: The management team set a goal to improve customer retention, great goal, one that every company strives for, the problem however, is that there was some wisdom missing in the plan. The plan was flawed for two reasons, one it did not take into consideration how the changes would affect their workforce. And two, it did not use the law of straight lines, which simply mirrors the path of least resistance in achieving the targeted goal. The reality is this, if the intent was to increase customer retention, then the only real way to impact that, would be to simply provide the customer with the service they were sold, for a reasonable and competitive rate.
The straightest path to achieving this goal is met through providing quality work, with consistency. From safe, reliable, trustworthy staff, within the agreed upon time frame.
Instead however the management team chose to make its sales force responsible for returning for a second visit, after the customer experienced their first service call. Conducting a walk through to check the quality of the service, and providing a thank you gift. Again, not a bad idea, but one that may or may not improve the desired goal of customer retention. The fact is that if the customer needs your service and you are providing it with consistent quality, that and only that, will make them spend their hard earned money with you over the long haul.
My company was a subsidiary of a multi-billion dollar service organization, and we happened to be a branch of a corporation, under the overall umbrella of the parent Company. That, in and of itself can be daunting to the employee/ employer relationship, but more importantly epitomizes the saying “one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing”, making effective working relationships and agreements very difficult to honor.
Corporations are leaving their employees out of their planning. Managers can take surveys, they may offer perks, give awards, saturate their workers with training seminars, and increase the width of the policy and procedure manual. But none of these things will address the number one problem I unveiled at the beginning. Focusing too much on the undesired target, in this example: (lost customers) instead of focusing more on the desired target (more satisfied customers). An inexpensive promotional gift is not going to stop an unsatisfied customer from going elsewhere to do business. No more than is increasing your employees workload, while decreasing their pay, going to result in long term profit. It will cost the organization thousands of dollars when they lose their top producers, over a lack of thoughtful planning and concern for how decisions affect their workers.
Corporations increasingly seek to inhabit states with few employee rights, in an effort to save cost. However, several options are always available to good employees with an entrepreneurial spirit. The Internet and home business opportunities have a huge appeal and are becoming much more user friendly.
My goal is to consistently work toward the common good, it is my tuning fork for every decision I make. In order to remain within that intent, I will continue to look for work opportunities that support my goal. Seventy percent of business in the United States is made up of small business. With the internet now making small business ownership more accessible, more qualified workers will be joining these opportunities to support their families, while enjoying more freedom with their own business. It will make it increasingly difficult for corporations to find good employees.
As the polarization of employer and employee widens, managers need to evaluate what the costs are in relation to the decisions that are made that ultimately affect the time and pocketbook of their employees.
The solution is not painful and is ultimately cost effective. Simply asking the people, who produce the most for your organization, can save your company thousands of dollars.
The same effort must be applied to retain good employees as is given to customer retention. If Corporations do not begin to invest as much or more in retaining their producing employees then they can expect to be faced with an unseasoned workforce.
While a younger workforce may seem more appealing, and come with the promise of obedience, lower salaries, and lower insurance premiums, their mistakes will be far more expensive. They will spend more on unnecessary equipment, they will lose qualified employees, they will be less focused, and produce less. While new recruits bring fresh ideas and enthusiasm, they need to be tempered with the wisdom of seasoned staff.
A good management team will avoid these common pitfalls, if they exercise some good common sense, and take the time to ask their good employees, “what do you think of this?” Then everyone will win.
The managers I used in my example were all good people, people I genuinely like, and wish well. I just could no longer align myself with their intention. There was no longer a clear path to follow. My natural instinct led me to create a new path. When we find ourselves at cross intentions and our voice is not welcome in the decision making process, we can flap our arms in despair or we can spread our wings and fly to higher ground.
