Sarah makes a valid point. Sure, during the COVID pandemic it’s nice that you can go into a restaurant and scan a QR code to view the menu instead of handling physical menus. I worked in a restaurant kitchen in college, I know how nasty some menus can get. On the other hand, are we teaching people to trust something they shouldn’t trust?
It just goes to show what I’ve always said, your company is not your family, it’s not even a friend, and it will always do what is good for itself first, second, and always. If something also happens to be good for you, great, but that’s never been the goal, so you have to make decisions based on what is good for you, not the company.
If you think that’s an overly negative thing to say about CEOs and upper management, go read those percentages again, and consider how many of those same people expect your loyalty, and your dedication during difficult times, without offering the same in return. Also, consider how many HR people have proclaimed themselves as being there for employees, and yet also think employees expect too much. It’s not overly negative when it’s true.
Do the calculation yourself. What do you ask employees to tolerate versus what they get from the job, and consider what you’ve asked them to put up with during the last year versus what they get from the job. The calculations have changed. As it turns out, those employees were watching you, and watching how much you valued their health and safety.
Consider the possibility that you didn’t show them what they wanted to see, and that’s why they’re not coming back, and why no one else wants to work there too.
Maybe they’ll come back to work when they have no other options, for a short time, but they’ll never be committed to you again. You’ve lost that, and in many cases, you deserved it.
I hope employers, executives, and managers can remember that the people who work for them are people, human beings with lives outside of work, and not just an expense to match up against productivity.
I hope. But I’m realistic too.
Lots of interesting stuff in this article about what Pew has found when it comes to how we are working now, and what it might look like in the future. How the Coronavirus Outbreak Has – and Hasn’t – Changed the Way Americans Work Obviously, there’s a lot of information about remote working. Generally, they…
According to this Psychology Today article, they matter because we are completely incapable of ignoring them. Even when we know something isn’t true, it still impacts our thought processes because our brains cannot unlearn information we take in. The example from the article is a good place to start: Now imagine this scenario: You are…