Keeping in line with my previous ethical question, I've got a new one. Are companies part of the community? Should they be?
Should a company's policies be catered towards how the community benefits, or not? And by community, I mean the local people around where the company is established, as well as employees, customers, etc. The world, essentially. :-)
This question can be asked and answered many different ways. For example, a company has a responsibility towards its shareholders and should be doing things to make them happy. Those shareholders are part of the community. Likewise, the customers who buy a product are part of the community as well.
But what about employees? Should a company have an obligation to its employees to appease them? For instance, if I work for a company for thirty years, as an employee, should I have any entitlement to things like job security.
It's interesting -- I grew up in a small town where there were two major employers: Champion and DeZurik. I worked for DeZurik while I was in college. It had just changed hands from a local family-owned business to an offshoot of a corporation. So I saw people who had worked at this place their entire lives lose their jobs. One of the guys I worked with had put in over thirty years in IT. They fired him because he took breaks during the day to walk around the plant for exercise (he had health problems, and his Dr told him to move around more). He was about 5 yrs from retirement. The general consensus amongst the employees was that he was fired due to being paid too much, and being owed way too much in retirement. Since they fired him, they got to cut all of his retirement benefits out from under him.
On the one hand, I can understand that a company and its employees only have a legal obligation to do what's spelled out on paper. But on the other hand, I think it's wrong. If someone dedicates their entire working life to improving the company, I think the company had better do something kind in return for the employee.
Who should the company have more loyalty to: the shareholders, or the people doing the work? I realize that all employees are replaceable. But I don't think that should extend to your loyal employees unless there's good reason to. The bottom line isn't *that* important if you truly have an obligation to the community. Which brings me back to my original question: should a company have obligations to the community?
If the answer is "no", then why aren't we teaching our kids that there is no such concept as loyalty in the workplace? I know that when I was growing up, the idea was always taught to me that you'll someday find a job that you like, and work there the rest of your life. If that's pure bunk (which, sadly, I think it is in this day and age), then we shouldn't be setting our kids up to fail in it. Teach kids that you can't believe a thing any company says and be done with it.
Sorry if my prattling makes little sense -- it's been a long day.
Anyone who teaches his child that the way to succeed in life is to defer a huge portion of his compensation to thirty years in the future and entrust its safekeeping to a spoken contract with people who can be replaced any time by people he doesn't know who will then have the unilateral power to take it all away from him any time they please in year 29 without any accountability -- yeah, that's a failure all right. I guess it's wrong to take candy from a baby, but all the crying still gets to me sometimes.
The concept of 'Stakeholder' is going to bring a mighty rebirth to the understanding of consequence. Or in laymens terms: It's what's for dinner.
One of the companies I work for is a loyal citizen to the community...now, when I say that, what I mean is that they sponser softball teams, donate basketball equipment and courts to the High School less than a mile away -- things like that.
As far as employees go, forget it. These guys are only out for the money. Around here alliances with co-workers mean nothing, and if you haven't been here for 15 years(how long the companies been around), which I haven't, then you're always at risk of losing your job whenever the Secretary decides that she just doesn't like you. That being said, I'd never trust these people with my retirement, so I've made plans to leave here in more than enough time to put in my time somewhere more stable(unless I am able to go into business for myself full-time, but I've already been guaranteed that I will always receive a check from another company whether I work or not).
I'm curious to know if all small companies suffer these same afflictions. I'd hope not.
I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I think it's at least unethical to attract company loyalty by offering a long-term retirement program, only to cut the employee out at the last minute on a technicality. I think if you've been with the company at least 15 years (or some other figure), or if you're less than 15 years away from retirement (so it's hard to find another job), the company that fires you ought to offer at least a pro-rated retirement package, on the grounds that the employee had a fair expectation of receiving it, and its difficult to prove that the company was just using an excuse to get out of paying.
On the other hand, the company is a buyer and the employee is a seller: the company purchases labor from the employee. Why should the buyer be obligated to commit to the ongoing support of the seller after the seller can no longer supply the "goods"? Retirement is a benefit, not an entitlement, that the company offers in order to attract and retain talent. Planning for the future should be the employee's responsibility.
On the whole, though, I think that if the company does offer retirement benefits, it is at least unethical to create an atmosphere of expectation and then use trickery to avoid delivering the expected benefits. But then again there are two sides to every story--sometimes you have a piece of deadwood on the team, and due to HR regulations you have no choice but to resort to some technicality or other to unload him/her. (I've been a manager, I speak from experience ;)
Aaron, an interesting topic.
I think that you're really talking about loyalty between the company and its employees. I believe that this has to be earned on both sides and time in place isn't enough to earn it. Yes a company's first obligation is to its owners. They are the ones who have the financial risk so they are first in line. To fulfill that obligation a company needs to have loyal, effective employees. From the top down. The company needs to provide sufficient compensation to keep those employees and should be fairly ruthless about removing the ineffective employees. Compensation can take a number of forms but it is never a job for life. There does need to be a sense of security and stability but it isn't a promise of a job.
Problems arise when a company doesn't prune its staff. You end up with employees who have been with the company forever, feel a sense of entitlement, but don't contribute to its success.
Appeasement shouldn't enter into it. Employees always want a share when the company is doing well but sing a different tune when the company hits a down turn. If a company truly tied everyone's compensation to the performance of the whole company no one would work there.
Acquisitions are different. The new owners have no loyalty to the local people but do feel a sense of loyalty to their existing staff. To maintain the whole company unfortunate decisions sometimes have to be made. As well companies are usually purchased when they are doing poorly and not when they are doing well so the purchaser is looking for cost containment. Very few acquisitions work out. Culture shock (relating to work/management style) is most often the biggest cause for failure. I would also note that the rumor mill is often terribly wrong.
The era of a job for life is long gone. People would work in one place to earn a pension for when they retire. Unfortunately no company can afford a pension anymore. This theory only worked if you had an ever increasing work force. No one has that anymore. Look at all of the large companies that are in financial trouble (airlines, automakers, ...). There key problem is that they can't afford the pension program.
There is one exception to this. The small family business. In that model all of the family members are seen as the owners and the goal is usually to keep everyone employed. Unfortunately the company usually folds or is sold by the second generation.
This is a challenging discussion for a blog and would work much better or a couple of beers.
@Anthony, the things your company does are PR. I think that Aaron is think of the company itself as a community and not necessarily the company as part of a greater community. Most companies want a good community image. To answer your other question, I think you find companies that are run like this when they have a captive job market. In a competitive job market people would just leave. It would also have to have poor management to allow a staff to fire people on a whim.
Well, here's my two cents:
I miss the days when, as long as you did a reasonable attempt, most employers would show loyalty in return. It seems far too many companies see their employees as only a means to an end, not as the people that actually are. Far too many executives/managers/etc honestly believe that the companies success is a direct result of them, not of their subordinate workers who are the ones who actually work to accomplish those goals. Has any one ever been to a grocery store with no clerks at the tills, or butcher in the meat department, a baker in the bakery, or stock boy stocking shelves? It's the employees that make a company a success (REAL Software is a testament to that). If Microsoft was only composed of Mr Gates and the executive staff, without a programmer, sales rep, or tech support rep in sight, I don't think they'd be the success they are. Interesting isn't it, that the more successful (in revenue) the company, the more *EMPLOYEES* it has?
In my ideal world, companies would recognize the accomplishments of employees. The harder workers would get more recognition for their efforts than the slackers. Companies would work to make their local community a better place for that sake alone, not as a public stunt. They would also endeavor to be supportive of their employees and encourage their employees to also make a difference.
Unfortunately, I live in a world where I am of no more value than the laptop on my desk. Where my accomplishments are overshadowed by the "accomplishments" of the executive. Where the local community is just something to exploit for profit. Where the CEO is some one who is to be worshipped. And the profit is the goal, the balance sheet is the bible.
I honestly think that software companies shouldn't offer consulting services for the software they've written.
I believe the reason Lotus Notes is a huge chunk of crap isn't that IBM is utterly incompetant at development, but because since it's a huge chunk of crap they can make a killing selling companies high-priced "consulting services" to make it do what other email packages do out-of-the-box.
BTW, Aaron, I should also mention that kids *aren't* taught that. At least, I wasn't.
Bleb, I gotta stop typing these at work, I didn't mean to hit submit yet.
What I was trying to say is that when I was a kid I was told repeatedly that the average person would switch jobs, and probably even careers, during their adult life. I think your parents were just trying to screw you over.
LoL @ James -- it wasn't my parents who gave me that impression. It was schooling and the entire community.
As an example, I grew up near Opole where Polar tanks are made (anyone who does dairy farming probably knows what these tanks are -- it's the milk truck tank). Their average employee retention rate is "for life." I know people who are second and third generation to work there.
The idea that you can work for a company for your entire life is dying out here, but it was still present while I was growing up. It seemed normal to find a job you like and just work there forever (assuming you weren't a slack-ass).
Aaron, Maybe I'm a bit jaded now, and part of it is because I worked with some incredible people at one time, so seeing what the rest of the real world is like has disappointed me that much more. Most employers have little or no loyalty to their workers. Most consider every worker as an interchangeable drone who can easily be replaced or disposed of, no matter what their special talents or how much loyalty or drive the worker has exhibited. Independent thinking is not prized, even when it can improve the organization; especially if that thinking involves critical thought about how a plan proposed by the company can be improved or how potential problems can be avoided -- no, just praise the plan, no matter how bad it is.
I'm lucky that my retirement funds are directly deposited to retirement acounts, so my employer can never get it back.
@ Chris:
The staff doesn't fire on a whim, they just go running to the boss complaining. The rest is in my prior notes. lol
At any rate, I'm quite bewildered as of now...I received a 14% pay increase today "just for doing a good job"...they're up to something...I'm watching them very closely now...
Now I think that the only industry that you can almost guarentee to get your retirement benefits from is the government.
Look at the airline industry which for decades had some of the best benefits imaginable -- free flights, flight benefits for immediate family and sometimes brothers/sisters/mothers/fathers, great retirement packages, guaranteed pay raises, profit-sharing bonuses, healthcare, vacation package givaways from partners, high class Christmas parties, etc... But now with the industry as a whole hovering above bankruptcy all of those benefits are disappearing.
Almost every week you hear about another company that wants to take away the benefits from existing retirees because it is hurting the company profits. The same issue with healthcare... industries which always provided healthcare and which the employees never expected anything to change are finding that their contracts are being rewritten without these benefits and there is a take-it-or-leave-it attitude with the companies.
Basically the trend is that employees are on their own.
What the corporations do not realize is that since the employees have to look out for their own interests, they will not be looking out for the interests of the corporation. What happens next is that productivity falls, costs go up, and the corporation is in a position where they have to reduce the benefits even more to turn red ink back to black.
The only corporate benefit which counter-acts this trend is profit-sharing either through quarterly or yearly bonuses or by providing stock options to the employees. Corportations that the employees have a financial stake will be far more efficient with the day-to-day operations.