I know that I said I wanted to get away from talking about work, but a few things happened this week that helped me decide to give this subject one last look. There are several things that really boggle the mind when it comes to corporate management. So many things that really should be simple to understand, yet once a person has a C in their title, they simply cannot comprehend them.
TRUST: The one thing corporate management seems incapable of doing under any circumstances–is to trust the people they hire to do the jobs they hire them to do. These corporate executives are perfectly capable of understanding the concept of quid pro quo in the context of some shady deal, but when it comes to give and take in the employer/employee relationship, they are completely clueless. Unless they have some lackey standing over the employees at all times, they believe that those employees aren’t working. (It’s interesting how the work always gets done–lackeys or no.)
COMMUNICATION: Why is it that there is always a communication wall in big corporations? This wall of secrecy is incredible! Something amazing is going to happen…but don’t tell anyone. What is that?! Why can’t these people understand that working with others is a type of relationship, and the key to any healthy relationship is communication? These companies could boost morale, productivity, and reduce turnover in one fell swoop…just by being transparent.
HONESTY: Companies lose their best employees because of dishonesty. Promised promotions that never happen, misrepresentation of company goals, or outright lying to an employee to achieve a short-term goal. Just as bad as lying to a current employee, a lot of times employers are dishonest right from the start. They misrepresent positions in job postings. By listing the job duties of one job under the job title of another, employers can offer less salary. This is most prevalent in the technology industry where employers will often list tech lead jobs as product owner or scrum master. If you pull up the product owner posting, it will require proficiency in several coding languages–which should never be necessary for a real product owner position.
These concepts should be simple, but apparently they’re too complicated for the average C-Suite executive. By lying to (potential) employees, these companies lay an unstable foundation for a working relationship with their employees. The lack of communication reinforces the unstable foundation with wobbly walls. The lack of trust tops it all with a caved-in roof. If these executives believe that they are somehow saving money, they need to think again.
HONESTY: Hiring the right person for the job is all around the better way to go. It saves time, lowers turnover costs, strengthens teams, and builds morale. 1 “Turnover costs” sounds a bit arbitrary, so let’s break that down a bit. Background checks, skills tests, job postings all cost money. Doing it all over again costs more money. That can be said for time, too. Interviews take time to prepare and execute. 2 The time interviewers take translates into money for companies. In the end, dishonest practices will translate into costs for the company who uses them. 3
COMMUNICATION: For most companies, there are very few secrets worth keeping. Unless it is a trade secret, HIPPA protected, or a national security issue, there really shouldn’t be a need to keep it. 4 In fact, poor internal communication can cost companies millions per year. 5
As much as I would like to give you data on the cost of employers distrusting their employees, most of the data available is on the reverse situation. The big caveat here is, employees don’t trust their corporate heads because those heads 1) don’t trust their employees, 2) don’t communicate properly with their employees / create a secretive culture, 3) are dishonest in their dealing with their employees. So, it all comes back to the corporate heads anyway, doesn’t it? These companies create a low trust culture that permeates everything within the company–including the bottom line. 6 Though CEO Magazine focuses on employee distrust, their cost evaluation is staggering, costing one company ~$29m AUD per month and another over $1b US drop in stock price. 7 Robert B. Cialdini et. al. posit that serious breeches of trust are what cost companies, 3 but a culture of distrust can be so much more subtle. By installing software on employees computers to monitor their activity, constantly having managers check in (especially when those managers have no clue about the work the employees’ are doing), discouraging remote work, and many other things that are subtly obvious clues that employers don’t trust their employees to be autonomous, they are creating that culture of distrust.
In conclusion, I have said it before, and I will say it again–employees owe nothing to their bosses. We DO NOT sell our time; we ARE NOT indentured servants at work. We have entered into a contract to provide our skills and services for a specific wage; it’s a quid pro quo–give and take. An employer who cannot trust his employees to hold up their end of the bargain is not very good at his job, and should probably not be doing it. Unfortunately, here in the US, people who should not be employers make up the majority of the category. What can we do? Personally, I just hold up my end of the deal. I make it clear going in that I don’t gossip, so I won’t be keeping secrets behind people’s backs. I let them know that I value honesty and integrity, so if that’s a problem, this might not be the job for me. For many people, choosing a job or a company based on principles is not an option, but more and more people are seeing the value of being kind, compassionate, honest, and trusting–in life and business. As companies realize that treating their workers poorly costs them money, hopefully better companies with better jobs will emerge.
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