The Aberrant Wish for Employees to Work in a Company for Life

I start this article remembering when I heard a business owner say that a girl had been the best employee he ever had, she was “who generated more sales, an excellent person and also with an assistant salary”, however he mentioned that it was a pity that like all “millennials" she didn’t last in the organization, he mentioned the lack of professionalism and discipline of this person who for some strange reason had dreams in her life, besides having a underpaid position fulfilling someone else’s dream

I remember that in the conversation two “businessmen" commented how they were committed to the work they did and that now people only wanted to “travel and live without compromises, they do not even want to buy a house or a car anymore”. Which certainly was their dream too when they decided to dedicate their lives to work so that when they were older they could travel and live without debt.

This leads me to analyze how many times we all have the same desires, but who prefers his personal life to his job is qualified as lazy and who has worked hard and fails to balance his personal life is a loser.

Some political parties make us see as if employees and  business owners were enemies. The employees are those who come to steal work hours and the owners are the “lucky" or “fortunate" ones who “have had it easy". However no one has dared to assess the situation of the other and this gives open field to those who want to divide the masses to establish a political order; and they make us forget that in the end we all probably want the same thing.

The Goal of a Business

I will go deeper into this topic, starting by analyzing the final purpose of a person who starts their own business and hires employees. Some do it because they want to grow economically, others because they can’t keep up by themselves, others because they believe that money should flow and by providing work to other people money flows back to them, and finally, there are those who start a business because they see employees as tools that meet a schedule and must minimize their cost and maximize their production. If you are of the latter, I regret to tell you that it will not be a sustainable system for many more years.

But if we are one of the other three, then we will be able to recognize an extra value in our employees, in addition, nobody wants to be alone in the business world. Many times it is a lonely world and the only people who share it are those who work with us.

Considering that your business has a greater objective, it is easy to start the analysis of why we should not retain employees for life. Like us, they have a greater objective (or at least they should have it) which they will seek to fulfill through the business and once they are satisfied they must continue to grow and seek new goals. On several occasions I have worked with people who have been in an organization for years, without growing professionally, without any specific objective other than to survive day to day. Once they leave the organization they don’t even know their own essence.

Open communication

I remember seeing the recruitment processes of some companies, as if it were a struggle to see who gets more information about the other, whether the company or the possible new employee. Both parties without knowing what the other seeks initiate a series of almost ridiculous interactions where both sides discuss trivial issues, talk about processes, compliance and trying to get the most information without falling into a discriminatory or inappropriate question. They never spend a couple of minutes talking about the real purpose of each other. The employee often does not know why he does what he does and companies never know why the employee sought employment, it is true that many people seek any job because of the need, but from need arose toxic relationships.

Another aspect that strikes me is that both parts are usually not able to say if they are interested, once a recruitment process has begun, both leave without defining the steps to follow or without being able to define a “Yes, let’s go forward with the process"or “No, we will not be compatible in this".

If we only asked a little more about the person and less about whether they will answer the phone on Sunday at 9 o’clock at night, we would know what to expect from them and therefore we could build an action plan where both the company and the person can grow and benefit.

If we know the interests of a person, we know how to motivate them.

I remember that several years ago I was in a meeting with an institution that needed to keep its employees motivated in order to comply with the “Great Place to Work" certification, and although they had already obtained the certification in previous years, they didn’t have the slightest idea on how to motivate them. Among the attempts to discover what the employees wanted, they were asked what kind of training they would like to take, however, no one took the trouble of asking them what they wanted from their lives, who they were after 5pm. They had conducted work environment assessments and 360 assessments with different suppliers, to qualify the organization internally. However, I have seen that these evaluations often seemed answered by school students who focused more on who smiled at whom, than on the quality of life they had.

But how do we know what motivates a person if we didn’t not ask them since the beginning? Very easy, you just have to care. I remember a lady who traveled abroad with her son and worked practically all day, went home late and returned early to work. For her boss it was perfect, however, it was an unsustainable rhythm, until a leader of the organization began to pay attention and decided to approach her to know her better. He discovered that this lady had widowed and all she wanted was to be able to get her son to study, she didn’t know the educational systems of the country and she hadn’t dared to ask for help. The man picked up his phone and two calls later he had gotten him a place at a recognized school at no cost. This lady will be grateful to the organization and to this person throughout her life, however, there are people who still believe that the motivation is economical.

What would happen if we were all transparent for a day and shared our greatest motivation?

When employee turnover is a problem.

In a visit to a Latin American country, I had to get to know a telesales organization of the largest in the world. The biggest problem they had was the employee turnover rate, approximately 80% of the employees (those in charge of telesales specifically) left the company every year. Clearly, at these levels, the cost is very high and human wear is also high. In the visit process I was able to get to know the work area, the average income of the agents and to listen to some calls. The problem was there in front of everyone and no one was able to see it.

The employees were mostly people between 20-25 years of low and middle-low class families who wanted to pay for their studies and help their families.

The first problem was there physically, the facilities were dark and depressing. The employees appeared not to have taken a shower during the whole week and the disorder was huge. Telemarketing has always been a challenging job, employees face annoying customers most of the day and are urged to meet a goal and avoid customers from asking for their supervisor. The desire for a pleasant, nice or at least clean physical space to work was seen in all of their faces.

The second problem originates before joining the organization. The employees came from an educational system that, like in a large part of Latin America, does not strengthen the students’ abilities nor help them empower themselves, in any case, it guides them to look for a job and meet their basic needs to survive. These people, disempowered and without social skills came to face anger and even aggression from customers. Under these conditions, telesales become almost torture.

The third problem is based on remuneration. Most of the employees earned an amount X per month, we will consider that they earned $200. As we mentioned before, they looked for these jobs to pay for their studies and help their families. However, universities costed more than $1,000 per quarter. It was impossible for them to study, help their families and cover their basic needs with that income. However, in the organization they had never sought an agreement with an university. I am sure that any university that analyzed the number of employees that wanted to study could have created a curriculum that was accessible to them all.

By the way, the cost of the employees turnover was higher than the cost of financing their studies.

Employees turnover implies costs in the organizations, but mainly because it is not attacked from the root. Leaders don’t seek to resolve internal situations, but instead only look for people who will resist a little bit more.

Although I am a faithful believer that employees should not be stuck in an organization forever, I also know that high levels of turnover are not their fault, but the organization and its leaders’.

Business for Humans.

My main goal as a consultant is for all of us to recognize the importance of business in our lives. Owners, leaders, employees, suppliers, etc. We are all part of a market that will be sustainable as long as we are united and recognize that we are all human with personal goals and desires. As mentioned at the beginning, certain political / social approaches put entrepreneurs and collaborators as enemies, make them forget that they are all in the same market and in the same company, because they know that while they are divided they will not be able to reach their maximum potential. I invite the leaders and owners to understand their employees and the employees to understand their bosses, all as humans in search of a common good.