At 9:15 PM 1/22/96, you wrote:
Replying to LO4943 --
Reply to: Paradigms and Shared Vision LO4943
Beth Clark writes:
> technologies (thanks to "Anonymous") have flattened the hierarchy and
reduced
> the workforce. Despite record profits and skyrocketing executive salaries,
> lower level employees have seen very little real gain in salary. Speaking
for
> myself and many of the colleagues, we appreciate recognition for a job
well
> done. But we also want management to "put their money were their mouth
is" and
> give us more than a 3 or 4 percent raise a year.
I think Beth has hit upon a principal reason why few companies really
arrive at the goals they have envisioned at the outset of a change
initiative. We look long and hard at how we do things, but seem to pay but
scant attention to others...such as compensation and benefits.
Companies are becoming leaner. Employees are assuming more and more of the
responsibilities that formerly were handled by managers, hence their value
to the organization is greater. Yet, for the most part, salaries and wages
have not reflected this increased value...they've gone down, in fact.
Not so for the executive suite. Even though we hear and read that more of
the decision making is being pushed down in the organization, which means
executives are doing less of what they formerly did and arguably have less
value to the organization (at least in this dimension), their salaries are
going up. This further exacerbates the perception that, despite all the
talk about the "new" way, the gulf between "us" and "them" grows wider.
Employees aren't dummies. They see this inequity, and in my opinion, won't
give their all to the company until this addressed.
Yes, we've made tremendous strides for the most part in involving more
people in the process, but until we're honest with ourselves about this
and other inequities, we shouldn't be too surprised if employees don't
quite arrive at fully buying into the system.
--
Jim Ross
Internet: JARoss@popalex1.linknet.net
I also think that as companies get leaner, they also get meaner (sorry for
tampering with this time-honored cliche). The problem is that they get
meaner toward their own staff. They raise the performance expectations,
lower the compensation, allow less and less decompression time on the job
and place greater and greater restrictions on such items as time off to
take care of family concerns, etc.
Peter
-- peterlin@uclink4.Berkeley.EDU (Peter Lin)