Find Success Through Empowering Your Employees

Most make minimum wage – for students, that’s $9.60 an hour; liquor servers make $8.90 an hour.

So, if you get good service, most people happily dig a little deeper for a tip.

The only snag is that recently some restaurants have been “tipping out” – a practices that forces staff to share their tips with managers and owners of the restaurant.

It’s petty, it’s cynical, it’s essentially feudal – I give you the privilege of working for me, you even get a salary; you owe me for that privilege.  I’ve written previously about this dominance-model mentality where the boss sees themselves as a feudal lord, entitled to do whatever with their employees, who are essentially beasts of burden.  In today’s economy, this generally takes the form of employers telling employees that their carrots and sticks will be determined not just on the quality of their work, but their ability to find new directions for a business/company to pursue.

Here’s the thing; though we tell ourselves that whoever has the gold makes the rules, the reality is there are social and motivational laws, almost like gravity, that trump any of our impositions.  We don’t motivate employees the right way, because we can’t be bothered to think of them as equals.  When one’s eye is so firmly fixed on the bottom line, you miss the opportunities you have to raise the bar.

If you want more money out of a business, don’t give your employees less and pressure them to do more.  That leads to poor service, higher turnover and lost customers.  Empower them.  Train them.  Give them skin in the game – make them feel like it’s as much their business as it is yours.

This is even truer in the creative sectors like consulting or policy.  Employers, fixed in their ways and uncertain where tomorrow’s opportunities lie are turning to employees and pressuring them through carrots and sticks to come up with new ideas and new markets.  They’re making it a competitive game between their teams to see who can be the most creative and get the perks.  This is so counterintuitive as to be comedic.

It’s also a trend that’s dying out.  Whether employers like it or not, the rules are changing further still – social media is empowering the individual in ways we’re just starting to grasp.  Knowing their personal brands are at stake through association, young folk are demanding more from their employers in terms of accountability.  Smart employers are realizing this trend now and twinning an increasing demand on employees with workspace accommodations, flex time and skin in the game.

People are spending more and more time working – as such, they want to enjoy what they do and feel that it means something.  In this world, success won’t be found by nickel and diming your employees, but by empowering them to share their two cents.

The Business of Governing

I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.

  - Mitt Romney

 

Holyday said the senior management has helped cut costs and trim the workforce, steps that were needed to put the city on a sounder financial footing.

  - From the Toronto Star

 

Reward the elimination of others?  You can only think this way if you've never had to worry about money yourself.

This, folks, is where "government as business" becomes problematic.  See, when you own a business, you are focused on the bottom line - generating revenue, managing expenses, seeking out opportunity for growth.  Period. 

While I agree it's important to keep our governing institutions on sound financial footing, there's more to government than that.  Employees are also citizens and more to the point, citizens aren't employees.  If anything, they're the employers.  If I hire a company to, say, take out my garbage and find that it's happening less and less regularly because that company culled staff to save costs and "save me money" I would not be impressed.  I'm paying money to get my garbage taken; if that doesn't happen, why should I be paying, period?

Then there's the fact that Holyday thinks senior bureaucrats deserve to get higher salaries for cutting the income of other Torontonians.  At a time when unemployment is on the rise and EI is being gutted.  What message does this send?  What model is being encouraged?  Would a young Torontonian think twice about taking a job with the City if they figured they would be pilloried for being civil servants, have their value questioned by the Mayor and possibly end up being let go, anyway?  Are people going to move here for that and a reduction in services, to say nothing of the transit mess?

There's more to success and sustainability than just dollars.

Richard Majkot takes this a step further:

“The salaries aren’t competitive,” said Majkot, executive director of the City of Toronto Administrative, Professional Supervisory Association (COTAPSA).

“What do you want to do, hire second best? This addresses a big hole that the city has and I hope the council realizes that.”

He's not referring to the best here, but the most cutthroat; the ones who don't mind breaking other people's eggs to make omelettes.  The best aren't in it for the money.  The types of people who deliver creative solutions to problems want skin in the game, legacy.  If they feel that's going to be tainted by association with people who are going to give quotes like that to the media, that's yet another reason to think twice.

Instead of getting the best, this hyper-competitive, carrot-and-stick mentality attracts the types of personalities that have brought Goldman Sachs, ORNGE and SNC Lavalin recent notoriety.  Which brings you back to the headlines, tarnishes your brand and undermines confidence in your leadership.

Creative destruction, indeed.