Okay, before you ask, yes, I do know that the title of this post is also the title of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode; a rather good one that features the return of Wil Wheaton and the appearance of “My Favorite Martian” Ray Walston. But I’m a business teacher, not a fanboy, and this blog is about business, not science fiction. And in a business context, that First Duty to which I refer is the duty to listen to your customers, and hear what they are actually saying – not what you want them to say.
It’s one of those points that are so obvious that it can be difficult to understand why you have to explain it to anyone, and yet it is found at the heart of every major customer service training program. After all, the first thing every customer wants to know is that you are paying attention to them; that they matter to you and that you will try to solve their problem (at least to the extent that you can). This is particularly important in circumstances where the customer is having a problem with your company, your product, your inventory, or some other business factor that you can (at least in theory) control; at that point, understanding the problem and helping to resolve it is absolutely critical.
What is less often brought up about this function is its importance in situations where there isn’t a customer service problem – yet. Consider, for example, the situation we had today with our second car. My wife stopped driving it four years ago, mostly because of the ongoing mechanical problems with the engine, and also partly because she was able to join a shared ride van program and thus didn’t have to drive to work anymore. Not operating a second vehicle has saved us a small fortune on gas, repairs and insurance, but it has also resulted in our not using the car for several years. When we decided to part with it, my wife called one of those donate-your-car-to-charity groups and explained that they could have the car, but they would need to tow it out of our carport and up a short ramp to the street.
When the charity group came to take the car, they arrived in a four-vehicle transporter that could not handle anything that wasn’t parked on the street (instead of the tow truck we had asked them to bring). They could not get to the car, and had no interest in coming back with a more suitable tow vehicle. So we called an auto-wrecking service, explained to them in careful detail where the car was and what it would take to get to it, and asked them to come out with a tow truck…
You guessed it: they showed up with a large flatbed truck that couldn’t back up to our carport either! Fortunately, the guys driving the flatbed and I were able to push the car far enough out of the garage that they were able to get a tow chain on it and pull it the rest of the way. But they came very close to doing themselves out of a very large amount of business (thus violating the First Rule of Business); the charity people DID succeed in screwing themselves out of a donation worth hundreds (or thousands) of dollars. All because they were unable to listen to what was required of them.
Then there was the Verizon FIOS sales rep who called our house today. Despite the fact that our last name has only five letters in it, and despite the fact that I corrected her three times about how you pronounce it, she couldn’t get it right. But that pales in comparison to the fact that when I told her we were not going to purchase the service, she then asked when a good time to speak with Mr. or Mrs. Burke might be. I don’t know if she honestly didn’t think I was the person who lives at this phone number, or if she thought someone else in my household might give her a different answer, or if she got lost in her script and was reading the wrong response, or if she’s really stupid that despite being told our name is Belin (B-E-L-I-N, short E, short I) three times she couldn’t remember it. I do know that getting snotty with me at that point was possible the most pathetic customer service failure I have ever seen, as well as the most incompetent telephone sales effort I have ever witnessed…
And remember that I’ve worked in both customer service and phone sales over the years! If it was a failure to program a computer, operate a vehicle, or even memorize complex information and understand its significance, I could be more sympathetic. But in all of these cases, all the people in question were being asked to do was listen…
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
Being Second-Guessed
A few people noted that in my post about management aphorisms a few months ago, I only exhorted managers of all levels not to second-guess the person on the ground; that is, not to question decisions made by someone else, on the spur of the moment, without benefit of hindsight, all the time in the world to think things over, and the complete lack of pressure that result from not having to take any responsibility for the situation (since the decision has already been made). I did not, however, mention what I would advocate when it is your decision that is being disparaged by Monday-morning quarterbacks who should really know better. Which, after all, would seem to be the more difficult role...
First off, acknowledge to yourself that this is not the first time this problem has come up, that it's completely understandable, and that unless you are a highly enlightened person, you've probably done it too. It can be hard to remember, in the light of subsequent experience and the presence of infinitely more comfortable circumstances just how dark, cold and scary a critical situation can be, and how hard it is to make a good decision while in the middle of one. In fact, unless the individual in question is a complete and utter fool, you might consider reminding whoever is second-guessing you of all of that...
Second, review the decision in your own mind. Actually, you probably have, endlessly, ever since you made it. But unless you are a complete and utter fool, you probably had a reason for making the choices you did. Were they valid choices, given what you knew at the time? More to the point, perhaps, ask yourself if you can now, with all of the time you need to think things over (but WITHOUT benefit of what you have subsequently learned!) make a better decision. Would you make the same decision again, or would you change things? There's another aphorism that applies here: "There is no shame in making mistakes. Only in repeating them."
Third, deconstruct the situation, not the decision or the person who made it. Perhaps in the future the person who is being critical of your choice should be the one to make those decisions; perhaps in the future you should be given more information or better resources when dealing with such a situation; perhaps in the future you or your organization can devise ways to prevent such situations from occurring. But you should not accept criticism from anyone who was not there at the time; you had to make the decision, not them, and those events are in the past, anyway. Working toward a better future is constructive; slamming someone over events in the past is punitive, and indicates that the person doing it is a fool, an idiot, or an incompetent.
If they were there with you during the crisis and agreed with your decision, or worse yet, refused to offer you any advice, only to criticize your choices later, they are all of the above...
Finally, if you are working for someone who persists in this kind of behavior, who is too stupid, incompetent and foolish to realize that such actions constitute disrespect for your abilities, arrogance of the worst sort, and invalid management practice (malpractice, in fact, although it isn't called that in our profession), then you will have to consider if your position if untenable and if you must consider a different career option. No one likes to change jobs on short notice, but a manager stupid and foolish enough to persist in this sort of monumental mistake is probably stupid enough to make other bad judgment calls and/or ignorant enough to foul up other situations in which they should have known better. I don't advocate storming out of the office and quitting on the spot, particularly if the problem you're having is isolated and most of your company's management structure does know better than this. Maybe you can transfer to another part of the company, or get higher management to help you out.
But if your entire management structure is riddled with Monday-morning quarterbacks, then by all means, get your resume ready. Because one day soon those idiots are going to destroy the company, and you don't want to be around when they do...
First off, acknowledge to yourself that this is not the first time this problem has come up, that it's completely understandable, and that unless you are a highly enlightened person, you've probably done it too. It can be hard to remember, in the light of subsequent experience and the presence of infinitely more comfortable circumstances just how dark, cold and scary a critical situation can be, and how hard it is to make a good decision while in the middle of one. In fact, unless the individual in question is a complete and utter fool, you might consider reminding whoever is second-guessing you of all of that...
Second, review the decision in your own mind. Actually, you probably have, endlessly, ever since you made it. But unless you are a complete and utter fool, you probably had a reason for making the choices you did. Were they valid choices, given what you knew at the time? More to the point, perhaps, ask yourself if you can now, with all of the time you need to think things over (but WITHOUT benefit of what you have subsequently learned!) make a better decision. Would you make the same decision again, or would you change things? There's another aphorism that applies here: "There is no shame in making mistakes. Only in repeating them."
Third, deconstruct the situation, not the decision or the person who made it. Perhaps in the future the person who is being critical of your choice should be the one to make those decisions; perhaps in the future you should be given more information or better resources when dealing with such a situation; perhaps in the future you or your organization can devise ways to prevent such situations from occurring. But you should not accept criticism from anyone who was not there at the time; you had to make the decision, not them, and those events are in the past, anyway. Working toward a better future is constructive; slamming someone over events in the past is punitive, and indicates that the person doing it is a fool, an idiot, or an incompetent.
If they were there with you during the crisis and agreed with your decision, or worse yet, refused to offer you any advice, only to criticize your choices later, they are all of the above...
Finally, if you are working for someone who persists in this kind of behavior, who is too stupid, incompetent and foolish to realize that such actions constitute disrespect for your abilities, arrogance of the worst sort, and invalid management practice (malpractice, in fact, although it isn't called that in our profession), then you will have to consider if your position if untenable and if you must consider a different career option. No one likes to change jobs on short notice, but a manager stupid and foolish enough to persist in this sort of monumental mistake is probably stupid enough to make other bad judgment calls and/or ignorant enough to foul up other situations in which they should have known better. I don't advocate storming out of the office and quitting on the spot, particularly if the problem you're having is isolated and most of your company's management structure does know better than this. Maybe you can transfer to another part of the company, or get higher management to help you out.
But if your entire management structure is riddled with Monday-morning quarterbacks, then by all means, get your resume ready. Because one day soon those idiots are going to destroy the company, and you don't want to be around when they do...
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Why Relationships Are Important
In most service-based businesses (at least, most service-based businesses that care about repeat business, anyway) you will hear people talking about the importance of establishing and maintaining relationships with their customers. I have actually met members of a customer service department whose title is "Relationship Manager," and who are charged with staying in touch with the company's better customers, specifically so those customers will have occasion to interact with the company that don't involve complaints, refund demands, or litigation meetings. It's even possible to purchase "relationship management" software that will track all of your customers, remember their birthdays, anniversaries, children’s' names (and birthdays), and advise you when it is time to call, write, email, send flowers, or whatever.
Some of you, I'm sure, have been subjected to these attentions, and have wondered if they really do any good; or at least if the company makes back the cost of taking such measures in the first place. If so, I really need to introduce you to the Realtor who sold us our house back in 2002. Her name is Martha, and she is amazingly good at what she does. Technically, I suppose, the people who used to own the house sold it to us, but we would never have found them (or they us) without Martha's help. And we would never have found her if I hadn't played a hunch; we met her at an open house one Saturday when we decided to stop and look around, even though the house in question was clearly out of our price range.
Martha was the agent showing the house, and she was busy enough that afternoon that she really could have told us she was too busy to talk just then and would get back to us later, and we wouldn't have minded. But she didn't; despite the time requirements of dealing with the dozens of people walking in and out that afternoon, she made a point of asking us what we were looking for, what our preferences were, what we thought we could afford, and what we might be willing to settle for. The house we met her in was taken off the market a few days later when the owners changed their minds about selling, but Martha showed us some others, and after a few setbacks (sellers who wanted too much, being out-bid by other buyers, and so on) we eventually arrived at the house we ended up buying in North Redondo.
You'd figure that would be it, right? Maybe a thank-you note the day the sale closed, or something, but then we'd all move on. And, in fact, a lesser talent might have. But Martha didn't. We continued to hear from her once or twice a year, either by telephone or by personal letter. We kept her posted about the passages in our lives, and we sent a couple of friends who were considering buying houses to her; we also told her about useful services in our neighborhood, like Precision Fence, our wonderful picket fence company (better AND cheaper than any of the competition!). And of course Martha put us on the mailing list for her online newsletter, but that's elementary stuff; if there's a Realtor out there who ISN'T doing an electronic newsletter, he or she should have his or her head examined.
It might well have seemed futile, and but for a million-to-one chance, it would have been. When we moved to Redondo we had no intention of selling the house, or moving, at least before the mortgage was paid off. I did point out at the time that we might want to trade the place in for a one-story residence when we retired, and after seeing the problems my grandmother had with her three-level condo after about age 95 or so, my wife reluctantly agreed. Still, it seemed unlikely that Martha would get any more business from us directly before the year 2032...
And then the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University decided to accept me for their Ph.D. program, effective Fall Semester 2008, and all of a sudden, we needed to sell our house. Anyone want to guess who we called? Good thing she maintained her relationship with us, wasn't it?
Some of you, I'm sure, have been subjected to these attentions, and have wondered if they really do any good; or at least if the company makes back the cost of taking such measures in the first place. If so, I really need to introduce you to the Realtor who sold us our house back in 2002. Her name is Martha, and she is amazingly good at what she does. Technically, I suppose, the people who used to own the house sold it to us, but we would never have found them (or they us) without Martha's help. And we would never have found her if I hadn't played a hunch; we met her at an open house one Saturday when we decided to stop and look around, even though the house in question was clearly out of our price range.
Martha was the agent showing the house, and she was busy enough that afternoon that she really could have told us she was too busy to talk just then and would get back to us later, and we wouldn't have minded. But she didn't; despite the time requirements of dealing with the dozens of people walking in and out that afternoon, she made a point of asking us what we were looking for, what our preferences were, what we thought we could afford, and what we might be willing to settle for. The house we met her in was taken off the market a few days later when the owners changed their minds about selling, but Martha showed us some others, and after a few setbacks (sellers who wanted too much, being out-bid by other buyers, and so on) we eventually arrived at the house we ended up buying in North Redondo.
You'd figure that would be it, right? Maybe a thank-you note the day the sale closed, or something, but then we'd all move on. And, in fact, a lesser talent might have. But Martha didn't. We continued to hear from her once or twice a year, either by telephone or by personal letter. We kept her posted about the passages in our lives, and we sent a couple of friends who were considering buying houses to her; we also told her about useful services in our neighborhood, like Precision Fence, our wonderful picket fence company (better AND cheaper than any of the competition!). And of course Martha put us on the mailing list for her online newsletter, but that's elementary stuff; if there's a Realtor out there who ISN'T doing an electronic newsletter, he or she should have his or her head examined.
It might well have seemed futile, and but for a million-to-one chance, it would have been. When we moved to Redondo we had no intention of selling the house, or moving, at least before the mortgage was paid off. I did point out at the time that we might want to trade the place in for a one-story residence when we retired, and after seeing the problems my grandmother had with her three-level condo after about age 95 or so, my wife reluctantly agreed. Still, it seemed unlikely that Martha would get any more business from us directly before the year 2032...
And then the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University decided to accept me for their Ph.D. program, effective Fall Semester 2008, and all of a sudden, we needed to sell our house. Anyone want to guess who we called? Good thing she maintained her relationship with us, wasn't it?
Not Invented Here
How many times has this happened to you? You're working on an absolute peach of an idea - something that will enrich the company, improve stockholder equity, solve all of those nagging problems that have beset your work group for years, and improve the quality of life enjoyed by all mankind. You don't expect a reward, let alone the promotion and raise you richly deserve, for making this happen; you're doing it because someone has to, because it's an idea worth having; because you take your fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders seriously, and because you take pride in your work. Even if your superiors steal all of the credit for your idea, it was still worth doing -- and of course, doing well.
Instead, your boss and his colleagues (or his boss and her colleagues) take one look at it and reject it without comment. Or, at least, without anything resembling INTELLIGENT comment. "That's not how we do things around here," they might say, if you've been with the company for a shorter time than they have. "It will take too long or cost too much," they could declare, if they don't feel like reading your proposal (after all, they control the money and the work schedules, so they get to decide) or thinking about it any longer. "This will never work," the might decree, if the idea has real merit and there's no easy way for them to steal the credit. "I don't like this," they might tell you, if you've demonstrated that your idea saves money, takes less time than existing methods, and works perfectly.
Chances are, you've just run into one of the worst things that can possibly befall an original idea: Not Invented Here Syndrome. Sometimes this means literally, in cases where the company has taken on a bunker mentality, and anything their own management team didn't dream up is seen as a threat to their way of life. Other times it indicates a manager who has come to view any subordinate with brain activity as a threat, who is maintaining control over the work group by attacking all ideas that he or she didn't personally invent and then blaming the employees for a lack of initiative and creativity. And sometimes it indicates that the person you are dealing with has fallen deeply, madly in love with their own idea or their own concept of how the business should be, and they can't bear to change or part with any of it.
I don't have any clever, magic-bullet ideas for how to beat this syndrome; it's one of the worst kinds of management failure, and may actually indicate that your manager is incompetent and/or in need of immediate replacement. You can prove the worth and value of an idea, and demonstrate that the concept will work, and still be met with comments like "You're right. I know you're right. But I'm not going to do it anyway." Trust me; I've seen it happen. If you have the power/influence with higher management, you may have to arrange an intervention by higher authority. If not, you might have to take whatever action you feel is appropriate to a supervisor who has gone mad and is going to destroy the company around you -- even if that means handing in your resignation and fleeing the scene.
To my fellow managers, I can only say that before you dismiss any idea, you should ask some logical questions. Will this idea work? If it does, will it make money or produce some other positive value for the company? What are its Net Present Value (NPV) and its Internal Rate of Return (IRR), and are they appropriate to the company, the current situation, and the characteristics of the idea? Can you personally gain by becoming the sponsor of this project and the mentor of the bright young person who came up with it? Is it, in fact, an artifact of how you nurture sharp young minds and the original ideas they produce? Or, at least, can you get YOUR boss to believe that it is? And, of course, if your subordinates fear bringing you new ideas to the point where they never do, how will you ever know when they ARE working on something that will enable them to take over your job?
It's worth thinking about...
Instead, your boss and his colleagues (or his boss and her colleagues) take one look at it and reject it without comment. Or, at least, without anything resembling INTELLIGENT comment. "That's not how we do things around here," they might say, if you've been with the company for a shorter time than they have. "It will take too long or cost too much," they could declare, if they don't feel like reading your proposal (after all, they control the money and the work schedules, so they get to decide) or thinking about it any longer. "This will never work," the might decree, if the idea has real merit and there's no easy way for them to steal the credit. "I don't like this," they might tell you, if you've demonstrated that your idea saves money, takes less time than existing methods, and works perfectly.
Chances are, you've just run into one of the worst things that can possibly befall an original idea: Not Invented Here Syndrome. Sometimes this means literally, in cases where the company has taken on a bunker mentality, and anything their own management team didn't dream up is seen as a threat to their way of life. Other times it indicates a manager who has come to view any subordinate with brain activity as a threat, who is maintaining control over the work group by attacking all ideas that he or she didn't personally invent and then blaming the employees for a lack of initiative and creativity. And sometimes it indicates that the person you are dealing with has fallen deeply, madly in love with their own idea or their own concept of how the business should be, and they can't bear to change or part with any of it.
I don't have any clever, magic-bullet ideas for how to beat this syndrome; it's one of the worst kinds of management failure, and may actually indicate that your manager is incompetent and/or in need of immediate replacement. You can prove the worth and value of an idea, and demonstrate that the concept will work, and still be met with comments like "You're right. I know you're right. But I'm not going to do it anyway." Trust me; I've seen it happen. If you have the power/influence with higher management, you may have to arrange an intervention by higher authority. If not, you might have to take whatever action you feel is appropriate to a supervisor who has gone mad and is going to destroy the company around you -- even if that means handing in your resignation and fleeing the scene.
To my fellow managers, I can only say that before you dismiss any idea, you should ask some logical questions. Will this idea work? If it does, will it make money or produce some other positive value for the company? What are its Net Present Value (NPV) and its Internal Rate of Return (IRR), and are they appropriate to the company, the current situation, and the characteristics of the idea? Can you personally gain by becoming the sponsor of this project and the mentor of the bright young person who came up with it? Is it, in fact, an artifact of how you nurture sharp young minds and the original ideas they produce? Or, at least, can you get YOUR boss to believe that it is? And, of course, if your subordinates fear bringing you new ideas to the point where they never do, how will you ever know when they ARE working on something that will enable them to take over your job?
It's worth thinking about...
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Why Not the 'Net?
The Castle Press newsletter for last month had an interesting news item on it about why large companies are avoiding Internet advertising -- and why they should stop avoiding online ads and embrace them. I found that both sets of arguments (the ones Castle Press is using to advocate Internet advertising and the ones described as the reasons why many companies do not) say more about the businesses and their management teams than they do about advertising or the 'Net...
First off, it is believed that the majority of consumers today will make use of Internet research before making a purchase, in order to inform themselves about the product choices. This is probably true in the strictest sense - if we include in the description of "research" all of the people who merely see/hear about a product online and decide that because they saw it on the Internet it must be true. It's like saying that people use television ads to "research" product choices: they do, in the sense that "research" means "gain information about." But Internet research is becoming more difficult at time goes on, not less, and gaining information online that actually applies to what you are trying to do (especially credible information) is becoming more and more of a professional skill.
Then there's the fact that Internet use makes up 30% of all the media exposure the average person gets, but most companies are only spending 7.5% of their advertising budget on online ads. This sounds completely incompetent, doesn't it? But the problem with Internet advertising is that there are so many places available to put it. In most cities you have only a half-dozen television stations, twenty or thirty radio stations, and two or three newspapers. Just a few choice ad placements can be expected to reach virtually everyone in your territory who would buy your product in the first place. Local cable advertising may offer hundreds of additional channels, but the ability to target your ads more precisely (for example, placing ads for a kitchen supply store or gourmet wine shop on the Food Network) more than makes up for this.
By contrast, there are literally thousands of web sites available on any given subject, and no way to know which ones your particular customers will even look at. A quick Google search for "news," to take the obvious example, yields 3,600,000,000 hits. That's right, folks; over THREE BILLION Internet news pages, and your customers could be on any one of them, depending on how they phrased their search. Or, they could be the type who prefers to get their news from a talking head in a box in their living room and only read Internet entertainment pages (of which there are a much higher number). Even worse, unlike television or radio channels, there is no rating system for Internet sites. Counters are no help; they're too easy to manipulate, and even if they weren't there would be no guarantee that 100 hits is actually 100 people going there, as opposed to one hacker swinging by every few minutes (or a pirate link sending people to the site against their wishes). Until you can measure the benefit to be gained by Internet ads, no rational businessperson is likely to spend money on them.
Of course, there are also internal objections to Internet advertising, ranging from senior management who don't trust the entire medium to cynics who doubt the effectiveness of specific ads and placement, to companies that simply do not have the in-house ability to create web ads or place them anywhere. Too many people believe that Internet advertising is only practical for online and e-commerce companies, worry about the drain on the advertising budget for unproven marketing channels, or fear change in the form of disrupting their existing business model, breaking existing business relationships, or losing loyal customers. Needless to say, some of this can be mere empire-building, or managers objecting to new concepts simply because someone else thought of them (the infamous "Not Invented Here" syndrome)...
But that's a post for another day.
First off, it is believed that the majority of consumers today will make use of Internet research before making a purchase, in order to inform themselves about the product choices. This is probably true in the strictest sense - if we include in the description of "research" all of the people who merely see/hear about a product online and decide that because they saw it on the Internet it must be true. It's like saying that people use television ads to "research" product choices: they do, in the sense that "research" means "gain information about." But Internet research is becoming more difficult at time goes on, not less, and gaining information online that actually applies to what you are trying to do (especially credible information) is becoming more and more of a professional skill.
Then there's the fact that Internet use makes up 30% of all the media exposure the average person gets, but most companies are only spending 7.5% of their advertising budget on online ads. This sounds completely incompetent, doesn't it? But the problem with Internet advertising is that there are so many places available to put it. In most cities you have only a half-dozen television stations, twenty or thirty radio stations, and two or three newspapers. Just a few choice ad placements can be expected to reach virtually everyone in your territory who would buy your product in the first place. Local cable advertising may offer hundreds of additional channels, but the ability to target your ads more precisely (for example, placing ads for a kitchen supply store or gourmet wine shop on the Food Network) more than makes up for this.
By contrast, there are literally thousands of web sites available on any given subject, and no way to know which ones your particular customers will even look at. A quick Google search for "news," to take the obvious example, yields 3,600,000,000 hits. That's right, folks; over THREE BILLION Internet news pages, and your customers could be on any one of them, depending on how they phrased their search. Or, they could be the type who prefers to get their news from a talking head in a box in their living room and only read Internet entertainment pages (of which there are a much higher number). Even worse, unlike television or radio channels, there is no rating system for Internet sites. Counters are no help; they're too easy to manipulate, and even if they weren't there would be no guarantee that 100 hits is actually 100 people going there, as opposed to one hacker swinging by every few minutes (or a pirate link sending people to the site against their wishes). Until you can measure the benefit to be gained by Internet ads, no rational businessperson is likely to spend money on them.
Of course, there are also internal objections to Internet advertising, ranging from senior management who don't trust the entire medium to cynics who doubt the effectiveness of specific ads and placement, to companies that simply do not have the in-house ability to create web ads or place them anywhere. Too many people believe that Internet advertising is only practical for online and e-commerce companies, worry about the drain on the advertising budget for unproven marketing channels, or fear change in the form of disrupting their existing business model, breaking existing business relationships, or losing loyal customers. Needless to say, some of this can be mere empire-building, or managers objecting to new concepts simply because someone else thought of them (the infamous "Not Invented Here" syndrome)...
But that's a post for another day.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Take Your Gun to Work Day
It had to be Florida, didn't it? There's a news story out of West Palm Beach about two supermarket employees who foiled what turns out to be not so much a robbery attempt or a takeover/hostage situation as a "shopping rage" incident because they were both carrying guns while on the job. You can read about it above if you want to. Now, I will admit that I have spent a few hours in retail management, down at the pointy end of a general merchandise retailer (a drug store), and in that position you find out very soon -- usually within hours of manning the Customer Service desk for the first time -- why the uniforms do not come with side arms...
In fact, this is a big part of why so many companies do not permit employees (other than licensed security personnel) to bring ANY weapons to work with them; because no matter how good you are at customer service, managing stress and holding your temper, eventually there will be at least one customer so obnoxious that you will have all you can manage not to shoot him or her. Admittedly, the company is probably also worried about the possibility of you accidentally shooting someone, shooting an annoying coworker, "accidentally" shooting someone who stands between you and that promotion, or doing in a supervisor who you think has torpedoed your career, and then being sued down to their underpants for failing to provide a safe working environment, but annoying customers and "street justice" are definitely on the list...
I'm not going to argue in favor of an armed workforce; as with society as a whole, gun ownership only works if the owners are responsible people, and I have worked with (and continue to this day to work with) people I wouldn't trust to operate a pea shooter in a responsible manner, let alone a firearm. I'm just going to point out that either of the gun-toting grocers in this story could easily have been killed if they hadn't been armed; that the night manager of the convenience store next to my drug store WAS killed during a robbery in 1995 while unarmed; that a single Sky Marshall with a single firearm could have prevented any one of the 9/11 hijackings from succeeding; that a single professor with a single firearm might have stopped the Virginia Tech killer in his tracks...
I’ll also point out that while this is something of a slippery slope argument (if we start allowing some employees in some companies to come to work armed, where will it end?) the lines are not as easy to draw, and the solutions are not as easy to invent, as people seem to think. No one wants to have armed security personnel everywhere in our society; I certainly don’t want them in my office while I’m working, or in the classroom if I’m teaching (or studying). Many small businesses could not afford such protection in the first place, and even if they could this type of solution takes us one step away from converting our society into one giant open-air prison. One quite small step, in fact.
Of course, there are security measures short of actual armed security guards that a business can take, such as the bulletproof partitions you see in some banks and gas stations, for example. A company can install silent alarms, make sure employees do not carry cash, and make sure that cash is collected from the registers and dropped into the safe on a regular basis. But there’s really not much you can do about some lunatic walking into your place of business, becoming offended by some kind of “rudeness” (real or imagined) and deciding to retaliate by shooting you or some of your employees. The only thing you can really be sure of in that situation is that everybody who hears the story will know exactly what you should have done to prevent the situation.
And that none of it will make a bit of difference after the fact...
In fact, this is a big part of why so many companies do not permit employees (other than licensed security personnel) to bring ANY weapons to work with them; because no matter how good you are at customer service, managing stress and holding your temper, eventually there will be at least one customer so obnoxious that you will have all you can manage not to shoot him or her. Admittedly, the company is probably also worried about the possibility of you accidentally shooting someone, shooting an annoying coworker, "accidentally" shooting someone who stands between you and that promotion, or doing in a supervisor who you think has torpedoed your career, and then being sued down to their underpants for failing to provide a safe working environment, but annoying customers and "street justice" are definitely on the list...
I'm not going to argue in favor of an armed workforce; as with society as a whole, gun ownership only works if the owners are responsible people, and I have worked with (and continue to this day to work with) people I wouldn't trust to operate a pea shooter in a responsible manner, let alone a firearm. I'm just going to point out that either of the gun-toting grocers in this story could easily have been killed if they hadn't been armed; that the night manager of the convenience store next to my drug store WAS killed during a robbery in 1995 while unarmed; that a single Sky Marshall with a single firearm could have prevented any one of the 9/11 hijackings from succeeding; that a single professor with a single firearm might have stopped the Virginia Tech killer in his tracks...
I’ll also point out that while this is something of a slippery slope argument (if we start allowing some employees in some companies to come to work armed, where will it end?) the lines are not as easy to draw, and the solutions are not as easy to invent, as people seem to think. No one wants to have armed security personnel everywhere in our society; I certainly don’t want them in my office while I’m working, or in the classroom if I’m teaching (or studying). Many small businesses could not afford such protection in the first place, and even if they could this type of solution takes us one step away from converting our society into one giant open-air prison. One quite small step, in fact.
Of course, there are security measures short of actual armed security guards that a business can take, such as the bulletproof partitions you see in some banks and gas stations, for example. A company can install silent alarms, make sure employees do not carry cash, and make sure that cash is collected from the registers and dropped into the safe on a regular basis. But there’s really not much you can do about some lunatic walking into your place of business, becoming offended by some kind of “rudeness” (real or imagined) and deciding to retaliate by shooting you or some of your employees. The only thing you can really be sure of in that situation is that everybody who hears the story will know exactly what you should have done to prevent the situation.
And that none of it will make a bit of difference after the fact...
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The Ethics of Family Leave
There's been a case in the news lately that points up just how thorny the whole "family leave" situation really is. If you're pro-business you probably regard these laws as putting the good of the individual (and their family) ahead of the company, the other employees, the economy, and society as a whole. If you're anti-business you probably regard these laws as the only thing standing between evil company owners who would skin their employees and sell the hides for footballs if they thought they could get away with it and basic human dignity. As usual, the truth lies somewhere between these extremes...
The case in question seems a bit far-fetched, and the fact that it's being reported by the New York Post does not help. According to the story, the employee was working 60 hours per week up until she began experiencing difficulties with her pregnancy, her doctors required her to spend several months on bed rest, and then only return for 30-hour weeks or less, but the company was not willing to agree to short work weeks, stating that the position was exempt and they would therefore work the poor woman for as many hours as they like. Almost makes the company's managers sound like they should be wearing black capes and twirling long mustachios, doesn't it?
The company isn't commenting on pending litigation (of course there's pending litigation. What made you think there wouldn't be?), but you can imagine how the other side of this story would go: it's a key position; we can't afford to pay two people to work it; we cooperated with the three months plus of family leave and vacations, but we can't just screw around for an undefined number of additional months/years; we understand the importance of family (and health) concerns, but we also have an obligation to our shareholders and the rest of our workforce (who will be unemployed and uninsured if we tank the company); it's not fair to our other exempt personnel, and so on.
So is it a case of somebody trying to achieve work-life balance and being screwed by their (now former) employer, or is it somebody who wants to get paid for 60 hours a week but only work 30, and also sees the opportunity to sue for a huge punitive settlement if they don't get their way? I can't tell you without seeing the actual documents of the case, but it does raise the question of what would you do if it was your company -- and your money? All else being equal -- the hours and working conditions are industry standard, and the employee isn't just trying to scam the company -- at what point do we have to declare that employing this individual is not practical, and request that he or she find another job?
I think we can probably agree that some jobs just aren't well suited to new parents; something that takes you away from your family for 60 hours a week isn't a good choice if you want to maintain a normal family life, and if you've just had a baby it's not likely to work out. By the same token, there are going to be some jobs that can't be split up among multiple employees and require an irregular (and large) number of hours each week. My question is, if you're the owner (or CEO) of a company with that problem, where would you draw the line? And how many people on either side of this issue will be flaming you on the Internet and burning you in effigy in the parking lot, regardless of where you draw it?
It's worth thinking about...
The case in question seems a bit far-fetched, and the fact that it's being reported by the New York Post does not help. According to the story, the employee was working 60 hours per week up until she began experiencing difficulties with her pregnancy, her doctors required her to spend several months on bed rest, and then only return for 30-hour weeks or less, but the company was not willing to agree to short work weeks, stating that the position was exempt and they would therefore work the poor woman for as many hours as they like. Almost makes the company's managers sound like they should be wearing black capes and twirling long mustachios, doesn't it?
The company isn't commenting on pending litigation (of course there's pending litigation. What made you think there wouldn't be?), but you can imagine how the other side of this story would go: it's a key position; we can't afford to pay two people to work it; we cooperated with the three months plus of family leave and vacations, but we can't just screw around for an undefined number of additional months/years; we understand the importance of family (and health) concerns, but we also have an obligation to our shareholders and the rest of our workforce (who will be unemployed and uninsured if we tank the company); it's not fair to our other exempt personnel, and so on.
So is it a case of somebody trying to achieve work-life balance and being screwed by their (now former) employer, or is it somebody who wants to get paid for 60 hours a week but only work 30, and also sees the opportunity to sue for a huge punitive settlement if they don't get their way? I can't tell you without seeing the actual documents of the case, but it does raise the question of what would you do if it was your company -- and your money? All else being equal -- the hours and working conditions are industry standard, and the employee isn't just trying to scam the company -- at what point do we have to declare that employing this individual is not practical, and request that he or she find another job?
I think we can probably agree that some jobs just aren't well suited to new parents; something that takes you away from your family for 60 hours a week isn't a good choice if you want to maintain a normal family life, and if you've just had a baby it's not likely to work out. By the same token, there are going to be some jobs that can't be split up among multiple employees and require an irregular (and large) number of hours each week. My question is, if you're the owner (or CEO) of a company with that problem, where would you draw the line? And how many people on either side of this issue will be flaming you on the Internet and burning you in effigy in the parking lot, regardless of where you draw it?
It's worth thinking about...
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