A few years ago, a new TV Series was making its way through US Television. “Undercover Boss” The premises of the show was, that the C-Officer of a company would go into the day to day work of the employees to discover the inner workings of the company. Hilarity ensured. However, the more profound message was, that the officers had no idea, what was happening within their companies. Consequently, the coffee chain president was surprised, that they served more than one type of beans and Airline CEO discovering, that pay cuts have an impact on workers life. Here are my thoughts on the disconnect between workers and bosses.
The Echo Chamber
When sitting in a board room or corporate office, there are often very similar people around you. Senior Management who spend long hours in the office or on the road. People who are very good at understanding the meaning of the various numbers. However, the bigger the company, the less likely have these people seen any of the day-to-day operations within the last ten years.
This disconnect between the workers and the top management creates a disconnect, which leads large corporations and even some midsize companies to focus exclusively on shareholder value. After all, dividends and stock growth are hard numbers, and employee satisfaction is a lot more fuzzy to understand.
The advancement of professional officers in many fields has only widened the disconnect between “the once up there” and the workers. After all, if a CEO can announce, that everyone, including him, gets a 10% pay cut, it is hard to sympathize with his remainder of 270 million if you are on the minimum wage.
Getting an inside into the day to day work of your employees and having an ear for your problem, will give most of us a new perspective. Even if it is just for a day or two a year, flipping burgers instead of numbers might bring us closer to the average employees, as long as we are willing to listen.
Leading by Example
The best motivator for employees and peers is a Leader who is setting examples. Nothing is more inspiring than someone to emulate. However, without understanding the day to day operations of the company, it becomes difficult to establish precedence relevant throughout the ranks.
Worse yet, if you do not practice what you preach, you will stand there as a hypocrite without any inbuild authority. We all remember the stories of the bankrupt retailers, Sears and Toys’R’Us, who paid millions of “consulting fees” to their owners’ companies, while effectively cutting their employees wages and benefits.
Only if you show the devotion and hard-working spirits, you expect anyone else to have, will workers genuinely feel part of the company. If we stay at compensation, even four years later, Dan Price[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/29/future-of-work-dan-price-gravity-ceo-cut-own-pay-to-give-staff-increased-minum-wage], the Seattle CEO who cut his pay to raise his workers’ wages is still a household name in Seattle Business circles. While undoubtedly useful from a marketing standpoint, it was probably the single best employee retention strategy out there. Suddenly, the employees were not lead by someone who couldn’t understand their financial situation, but by someone living on the same wage as them.
While he undoubtedly went beyond, what most employees would expect of their CEO, it nevertheless can serve as a real example the next time a board is debating cuts to compensations or work ethics.
Conclusion
Leading by Example and understanding the lives of your staff are two of the most significant changes we can implement in senior management. Unless we are ready to embrace a culture of understanding, we will only foster the us-vs.-them Mentality, prevalent in so many large companies today. Even small businesses and startups might run into the issue when CEOs and founders focus exclusively on venture capital instead of on their business.