Katalyst

A friend and I were talking shop the other day about how much our careers have changed in just a year. For a while we were both working as marketing and PR executives in different corporate offices earning six-figure incomes and feeling grateful that we’d finally “made it.”  Then in 2009 we both lost our jobs in what I refer to as the “Great American Non-essential Employee Layoff.”

For over a year my friend and I both worked as consultants after we were laid off. We swapped client stories and whined about how low our hourly rates had dropped and how much time we were spending chasing down invoice payments. Then I was offered a staff position with an agency and left my friend with my list of former clients, who I knew could not pay my new agency fees.

My friend didn’t know whether to feel jealous or sorry for me because, while consulting work offers a lot more freedom than being required to show up to an office every day, it also causes sleepless nights spent worrying when a client doesn’t pay you. On the other hand, while the regular job offers some degree of financial security and a sense of being part of a team, it also makes you vulnerable again to industry changes over which you have lost the flexibility to adapt because other people are making those decisions.

The “essentials” who remained after our layoffs were staff-level employees who churned out project work for under $35,000 a year and the C-level bosses who were being told by their CEOs and boards to make big budget cuts during a tanking economy. So, they cut us – the D-level middle managers who kept the workflow going, managed lean departmental budgets and our staffs, who were unhappy they’d not be getting year-end bonuses after all. We worked directly with the clients and customers, reported up and down the corporate food chain, solved daily problems and put out fires, then flew economy across the country for client and regional office meetings, stayed in Marriott hotels and carpooled in compact rental cars.

After the 2008-09 sweep of layoffs, companies started bringing in the very people they let go to do the very tasks they once did on salary, but now as underpaid consultants. That opened up some opportunities for the unemployed, but it also created a Dixie Cup throw away approach to staffing.

I’m not entirely blaming the employers, by the way. They create the office culture that they prefer and we sign on in return for a regular paycheck. We may grumble as we gather around the company microwave, where we heat up our frozen lunch entrees, before taking them back to our desks to continue working; but we generally don’t challenge the culture that exists for fear of losing our “secure” jobs.

I have news for you… nothing is secure about “regular” employment any longer.

Multinational CEOs are being shown the door if company stocks tank, along with formerly regaled sports coaches who dare to have two losing seasons in a row, as well as the 20-year veteran executive administrator who doesn’t know what a Tweet is, but knows every detail of the last CEO’s flight preferences, his wife’s birthday and how his dog died.

Any more there seems to be little fiscal value placed on actually training someone in a job, but an inexplicable value in finding where an employee went wrong and letting them know that they’ve been “put on notice” not to make the same mistake again. After all, your replacement is just a resume review and a phone call away.

I used to walk into companies as a management consultant, review their hiring practices, look at their employee workloads, assess their staffing and skill deficits, review their team performances against their objectives and then make recommendations about where to cut, hire, reward, fire, develop and train. That was when companies actually recognized that high turnover is costly in terms of lost productivity, repetitive training time, new hire compensation gaps, decreased company morale, lost business, project delays and bad publicity (sometimes disgruntled present and former employees complain with a megaphone). I didn’t even name every real and hidden cost of high turnover because it would just be piling on. You get the point.

When I was studying business management in college the mantra then was that successful businesses excelled by developing company loyalty among employees. Employees who love their jobs engender the best word-of-mouth publicity a Marketing Director can get. Low turnover keeps staffing costs down, productivity values high, and clients and customers happy. No customer appreciates that Customer Service Sue solves their product problems in July only to have New Hire Sam mess things up again in November. They want to know that Sue is still there and has their back if something goes wrong again.

Don’t get me wrong. If Sue drinks on the job and swears at her teammates, she may be a candidate for firing. Sam, on the other hand, may just need some additional training and time to learn the system before becoming a stellar employee. I am not suggesting that no one should ever be terminated from their job. I’m just recommending that employees not be viewed as disposable as Dixie Cups. One is not always just as good as another.

Sometimes, when given a chance, people can really surprise you with how intelligent, creative and resourceful they can be at a task that would not ordinarily fall within their job description.

As a fundraising executive, I once asked a administrative assistant – who lacked a high school diploma and whose second language was marginal English – to help me write a very challenging grant narrative for a million dollar request of a national financial institution. I needed another brain helping me on the subject and I didn’t want to keep revisiting the same well that came up with the same stagnant ideas.

My assistant shyly refused to write anything, but sat down with me and talked about her own experiences and ideas on the topic while I took notes. It was the best grant I’d ever written and I owed much of that success to my assistant. Even better than helping me to win the grant for our agency, she was very pleased to have found a new sense of pride in her work and in her unique abilities. Not long after, she stayed after normal work hours to learn a complex client management software program that made her even more valuable as an employee and gave her a sense of accomplishment. She did resign later, however – to complete her high school degree while also attending community college. I can accept turnover for reasons as good as that.

I really admire companies I learn about through my wide-range of friends, clients, colleagues and contacts that demonstrate how much they value their people. A few weeks ago I was touring some of the senior residential facilities of a national client agency. My tour guide mentioned that they have more employees going on 10 years of service than on 2, and that they’d just celebrated more than 10 people in one regional office who’d been with the company more than 20 years. As we got on the elevator, this senior executive got into a lively conversation with a woman who had been working in the laundry facilities for 12 years. It was a conversation of mutual respect and appreciation for what each of them did in their work. I was impressed. Every company should strive to create such a respectful environment among their employees – regardless of who sits in a high-rise office, hauls a laundry bag or pushes the mail cart.

Hanging on to well-trained, hard-working employees and rewarding them for their service is a whole lot more cost-effective and productive than installing a revolving door on the HR office to accommodate high staff turnover. Just run the numbers; but don’t forget to run the hidden ones I’ve mentioned too. People are not Dixie Cups. Just because you can reload the dispenser doesn’t mean you’re not being wasteful.

Wishing you all tremendous success in your endeavors!

Kat

See this great Inc. Magazine article, which illustrates my point.

“To create happy, satisfied, and loyal customers, you need happy, satisfied and engaged employees. Create a work environment where employees don’t feel appreciated, respected, or well-equipped to do their jobs, and you’re guaranteed to drain them of energy and passion.”

shortlink: http://www.katalystblog.com/?p=918