Editor’s Note (6/11/2016): For some reason the first “money and mouth” post got deleted. I’m including it here with this post and then will continue on with Part II.
PART I:
Money and Mouth – The Great disconnect.
I’m starting to think that the best way to tell if a company or an organization is serious about their “We are an employee centered company”intent, is to to see if they “put their money where their mouth is” as my dad said.. meaning doe the companies really push.. or are they just spouting platitudes?
– what what are your employee based benefits? How often do you make sure that no one is over burdened and has a good work / life balance?
“We have a talent retention department” – so what are the metrics? are they public / transparent? What are the tools talent retention uses? Is everyone treated the same? And most importantly, how powerful is talent retention / HR? Can they step in and censure and/or eliminate a manager that’s making everyone miserable?
“I helped them get to the new position” – so what did you do? did you coach daily, weekly, and proactively go to the new department and argue in favor of the candidate on your team moving to the higher paid/higher position. Or did you just say “sure you can have him” when the other department called to say they wanted the individual on your team?
PART II:
In part one I asked if the companies really walk the walk.. or are they just spouting platitudes? Here are some crazy ideas to implement that would actually be putting their money where their mouth is…
If an employer says:
“We put students / customers / patients first” – Then all decision making as it relates to customers (even financial decisions) stay with the person at the end interface point, no matter if it’s cashier, phone attendant, nurse, etc..
“We value our people and have a talent retention department” – HR / Talent retention is empowered like six sigma to ferret out employee issues and make organizational changes.
“We are an employee centered company” – Employees opinions of managers have equal weight with productivity in promotions, bonus and salary. This should go all the way up to the CEO and board*.
And for any comments relating to management and their teams career growth – Coworkers oversee the censure, promotion, and /or discipline of fellow workers
The joy of being a Professional individual contributor is P, i.e. generally there is wisdom and intelligence in PIC positions or the employee wouldn’t be in there. It’s that intelligence that allows these ideas to not seem so insane after you consider them for a bit.
*In the same way that employees should be able to have great weight on the comp plans of middle and sr. mgrs, then they should also have a large part of their own compensation measured on company productivity and profitability. This provides the balance needed, and more importantly no matter how comp plans are structured everyone is on commission.. because if a company isn’t making money, nobody can get paid.
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