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Attention all bosses

Read this article. If it pisses you off, then you need to think about what you're doing that it talks about.

I cannot possibly emphasis this one point enough: You will never retain people just because you pay them money. Salary is a trade. I do work, you give me money. I will make an appropriate salary from anyone I work for. Really. It is the intangibles that count. Do you treat your people like smart, necessary, critical parts of your company, or is your theme "Sit down, shut up and stop talking to me"? Is your benefit plan one you can point to with pride, or does it meet the minimum level of suck to be called a plan? Do you balance your benefits between what's best for your people and what you can afford, or is cost always the driving issue? Is the only contact you have with your people required or optional?

There's no amount of money you can pay me to hide things like contempt for your employees. When you spend more time orienting me on the history of the company, rather than what the company does and how it does it, you don't want informed employees who get the big picture. You want drones at a desk who will do what they're told without complaint. When things like Corporate Challenge or other such events come up, and every participating company but yours has a loud group of supporters including senior management, you don't care if your company does anything, you're just participating to fill in a checkbox. When the only time people are asked for feedback on major initiatives, or even informed of them is after they're moot, you don't want people to take possession of their jobs and duties. You want them to remember that it's your company, your money, and they should be lucky to have a job at all.

If you think people are happy in an environment where they are treated like little more than drains on your bonus, think again. That's not desire keeping them there. That's a crappy job market, and/or enough time invested in the pension plan that leaving would cost more money than it's worth. Neither are loyalty. Loyalty cannot be bought, imposed, or created by fiat. You must earn it every day, and if you think otherwise, you have none. But if I'm pissing you off, then you probably don't care.

Maybe when your people dump you like a bad spouse, you'll realize your mistake. Then again, probably not. Bad spouses tend to not realize these things either.

Technorati Tags: Business, Leadership, Management

Categories: Business, Leadership

Posted by John C. Welch at 17:47 | Permalink

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Read this article. If it pisses you off, then you need to think about what you're doing that it talks about.\n\nI cannot possibly emphasis this one point enough: You will never retain people just because you pay them money. Salary is a trade. I do work, you give me money. I will make an appropriate salary from anyone I work for. Really. It is the intangibles that count. Do you treat your people like smart, necessary, critical parts of your company, or is your theme \"Sit down, shut up and stop talking to me\"? Is your benefit plan one you can point to with pride, or does it meet the minimum level of suck to be called a plan? Do you balance your benefits between what's best for your people and what you can afford, or is cost always the driving issue? Is the only contact you have with your people required or optional?\n\nThere's no amount of money you can pay me to hide things like contempt for your employees. When you spend more time orienting me on the history of the company, rather than what the company does and how it does it, you don't want informed employees who get the big picture. You want drones at a desk who will do what they're told without complaint. When things like Corporate Challenge or other such events come up, and every participating company but yours has a loud group of supporters including senior management, you don't care if your company does anything, you're just participating to fill in a checkbox. When the only time people are asked for feedback on major initiatives, or even informed of them is after they're moot, you don't want people to take possession of their jobs and duties. You want them to remember that it's your company, your money, and they should be lucky to have a job at all.\n\nIf you think people are happy in an environment where they are treated like little more than drains on your bonus, think again. That's not desire keeping them there. That's a crappy job market, and/or enough time invested in the pension plan that leaving would cost more money than it's worth. Neither are loyalty. Loyalty cannot be bought, imposed, or created by fiat. You must earn it every day, and if you think otherwise, you have none. But if I'm pissing you off, then you probably don't care.\n\nMaybe when your people dump you like a bad spouse, you'll realize your mistake. Then again, probably not. Bad spouses tend to not realize these things either.\n

Technorati Tags: Business, Leadership, Management