|
I was at a manufacturing plant in the great north a couple of weeks ago.
At 8:01 in the morning, as I was about to head out to my car for a nine o'clock start, I received an email from the General Manager of the plant. He had received an email just six minutes before and relayed it to me.
They have a kind of electronic suggestion box for employees to email ideas into. The General Manager wanted me to see this one. He started by introducing it to me:
I thought you would like this one... Completely supports your message on the impact of leaders not addressing the problem employees and what it does to the "good" employees....
He followed that with the suggestion from the employee:
Request: instead on [sic] concentrating on the whole group of employees, (our company) should look into the ones that are not pulling their weight. For example the one that spends 2 hours in the bathroom a day or the two that wonder [sic] around aimlessly "looking for parts" three to four hours a day, it really bugs the good employees when we are supposed to make up for the slackers that get away with it.
My response to the GM?
I love that! He is right on. Every leader here should see that suggestion.
And every one of them did.
Leaders work mainly for the good employee. We work largely for the employees who are productive, honest and well-behaved. At least we should.
The decisions we make, the rewards we bestow, the accountability we bring, all should be geared toward supporting the good employee. The policies we establish, the standards we set, the plans we carry out, should all be effected with the good employee in mind.
We want the good employee to be happy.
Good employees want to work in an orderly, disciplined environment. They want all the obstructions removed that would keep them from doing an honest, good day's work. They don't want to be encumbered by the stupidity that can sometimes surround them.
A lack of fairness is a motivation corrosive to the good employee. Slackers insult their professionalism and they resent them. Too, if they see others not pulling their weight it irritates them because they know more work will fall to them, they'll have to work longer hours and, once again, they'll have to bail the team out.
If the good employee spies the leader not willing to deal with the slackers, then they view the leader as unfair and weak. Their respect level for the leader drops and so does their desire to work hard for them.
Soon they will burn out, the culture of the place will get to them...and they will leave. And that is the main reason companies lose the good ones and keep the bad ones.
If you want the good ones to stay, run your organization primarily with the good employee in mind. If you lose the bad one you lose nothing but a headache. If you lose the good one, you lose gold.
And if you don't think the good ones are paying attention...you've got another thing coming.
| 
