Replying to LO24893
Juan's Anonymous Author said:
> We might as well treat capital as a fixed cost, to be paid for at current
> rates, and attribute profits to where the action is - people. Then
> empowerment will have feet, investments in human capital become
> meaningful, and we will need to evolve shared visions with all of our
> people instead of getting pseudo commitment in the form of "determined
> head nodding."
I think this is truly enlightened thinking. But for some reason, even
though there is acknowledged awareness of the above, very little seems to
be happening.
I came across a Workforceonline article a few weeks back written by Jac
Fitz-enz, founder of the Saratoga Institute, an HR benchmarking company.
Fitz-enz makes some really good points about some of the disconnects
between what business says it wants and what reality is:
"Nearly, but not quite, everyone now acknowledges that people are the
primary lever in the service oriented, knowledge driven economy. Yet the
management methods employed have changed little since the 1960s when the
human relations movement said, "Give people a sense of involvement."
The evidence is that
Few companies truly differentiate between better than average and
less than average performers when salary increases are doled out.
Training is often denied people by supervisors who won't let them
take a few hours off the job to learn
Top management accepts hearty bonuses and stock options while
holding annual salary budget increases to less than 5%.
Staff and line personnel are treated differently because staff
personnel are labeled expense centers; the most ludicrous of all concepts.
Who would create a function that does not add value?
When times get tough, what do we do with our "most valuable
assets"; we dump them on the unemployment lines."
These are some of the points I made in my original post. Our variation of
the last of Fitz-enz's points is that we've now announced a reorganization
which will inevitably displace some people...some of them will move to new
positions with new reporting relationships that have been "given" to
them...some of them will be offered a severance...ALL of us are feeling
the effects of this wondering:"will I like my new job....new
supervisor....? Will I even be here?"
If the human "machine" (asset) is as valuable as everyone says it is then
why is there seemingly little attention being paid to its maintenance and
long-term preservation. This is roughly analogous to throwing sand into a
bearing and expecting no consequences for that action. The "sand" is this
feeling of being disconnected and powerless, and as a consequence...less
willing to invest discretionary effort in an enterprise that seems to
regard employees as passive "things" to be moved about when someone
determines it's time to do it.
I guess I'm naive to believe that we truly can have the equity we say we
want. But on a small scale with my team I've seen the benefits of it. It
wasn't easy. Not everyone on my team is engaged the way I'd like them to
be, but we've produced some results that wouldn't have been possible if
they hadn't invested as heavily in our enterprise.
Jim Ross
--"Jim Ross" <jross@centurytel.net>
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