Sherry Gould wrote:
>I am still very skeptical that environments free of abuse are
> conducive to the profit motive. I want to believe that people will
>do the right thing because it is the right thing. But this nagging
>voice deep inside says, "why would the big boys want to give up all
> that power?" I have yet to see the evidence that it is more
> profitable to do business this new way, as opposed to same old...
Think of the ability to make profit in a large corporation in this
way. Much like a whale, it takes a big corporation a long time to
change direction, or implement new policies and new processes. But if
you have a lot of more independent parts, all focused on the group,
like a school of minnows, they can change direction, support each
other and keep the group intact and profitable a lot easier.
Especially when their compensations (or pay) is directly related to
their position, their contributions and the sucess of the
organization.
>I've said over and over that if a worker goes over 40 hours in a pay
>week, and an adjustment cannot be made prior to the end of the week,
>we MUST pay overtime. Closely related, workers have offered to
>"volunteer" to stay after hours to get their reports done, without
>pay. I have indicated, whenever the topic has risen, that this was
>NOT OK!
This is still playing by the old rules. Things are changing. The
labour laws apply to employees, not to the school of minnows I'm
referring to, the independent workers of the new economy. If people
are a paid salary worker, then these rules apply. At some point, you
must allow workers the freedom to work as they see fit. Telework,
flexible hours and other examples are all pieces of the new economy.
It's no longer what job you have, its what value you add to the
company and to society.
In your current situation, if a worker wishes to work late,
unauthorized, because they want to complete a job, or focus on some
particular project, and never requests the overtime, do you make him
claim the overtime? Or do you allow your workers the flexibility to
take responsibility for his own work and his own projects.
(A cautionary note I recognize is this could lead to the single
workers being more able (time wise) to put in more hours than a family
worker. This is where the role of the leader is so important --
recognizing the value of an hours work by a worker, rather than just
the output of work at the end of a week. )
Gary Scherling
Helping people help themselves
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/GScherling_GMS_TPN
--GSCHERL@fed.ism.ca (GSCHERL)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>