Writing for the website The Conversation, Professor Yannick Griep of the University of Calgary suggests that
people consider (usually minor) benefits and potential (often severe) risks of
stealing office supplies, at least for the purpose of “getting even” with their
employer for wrongs real or imagined, and instead try to take a more
constructive approach to solving the underlying problems. I can’t argue with
any of that; even very extensive theft of officer supplies is unlikely to
compensate you for any major wrongdoing on the part of your employer, and even
very trivial theft may cost you your job, your career, or jail time. What I
feel that Professor Griep is avoiding here is the company’s side of the
situation…
As the Professor correctly
notes in the original article, many employees have some amount of grievance stemming
from violation of the implied psychological contract between management and
their workers. If representatives of the company promised an applicant that
there would be flexible working hours, regular raises, or opportunity for
advancement, and what the employee ends up with is a dead-end job with no
chance for promotion this side of retirement and a 1% cost-of-living adjustment
every other year, then the company has broken that implied contract, and many
people will feel that they are no longer obligated to keep up their end of the
bargain – e.g. showing up on time, doing the work assigned to them, and not
walking off with anything that isn’t bolted to the floor. What I think is
unrealistic here is expecting the employees to be the ones to take corrective
action…
While it would be facile to
suggest that all managers are essentially the villains in a 19th Century
melodrama, it is difficult to deny that most companies do want to get as much
work done for as little salary as possible – that’s how expenses work in a
free-market economy. The problem occurs when the employees have a different
idea of what the implied contract includes than the one from which management
is working. Even if you are adhering to the letter of everything you have ever
promised an employee, if they feel that they are being treated unfairly they
are going to act accordingly – and that may not mean appropriately…
This is not to suggest that a
manager couldn’t just wait and see what the employees want to bring to their
attention regarding promises they feel you haven’t kept but what I’m getting at
here is that they shouldn’t have to. Management is an active process, and a key
part of any supervising manager’s job is to know his or her people and their
expectations of the job and the company. If your people are underperforming, or
if the atmosphere around the office appears to be hostile, or if individuals
appear to be disaffected or unsatisfied, it is your job to find out why, and to
see what you can do to improve the situation. Or, failing that, explain to your
employees why you can’t…
I also don’t want to suggest
that thieves aren’t a thing, because they most definitely are. Sooner or later
you are going to encounter an employee who has been treated well and given
everything you promised them who is stealing from the company because of greed,
need, or any of the other common motivations for theft. But given that
estimates of the percentage of employees who routinely take office supplies
without permission runs from 75% to nearly 100% depending on whom you ask, it
is probably worth considering what might be motivating your people to take some
petty revenge on your company before you start implementing measures to stop
them…
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