We had a morning tea recently in our offices for a staff member who was retiring. The remarkable thing about this particular farewell, was that the lady in question, had been with the company all of her working life. She had left and raised children, but had then returned to the same company to work out the rest of her pre-retirement life
A friend of mine had a morning tea recently in her offices for a staff member who was retiring. The remarkable thing about this particular farewell, was that the lady in question, had been with the company all of her working life. She had left and raised children, but had then returned to the same company to work out the rest of her pre-retirement life.
The very next day, my wife, as part of an HR audit she was conducting for another company, spent some time interviewing the managing director’s PA who also served as an HR officer within the company. Following some careful digging, Nancy discovered that this person worked an 11-hour day every day and got through an absolutely phenomenal amount of work. Yet she never complained and insisted that she worked the hours she did because she absolutely loved the company as well as the work.
These two seemingly unrelated topics got me thinking. How many people are out there who are really loyal employees, who quietly work away for the best part of their lives and never complain and never get noticed?
Look around your own office and see if you can see one or two of these hard working individuals that have been a long time between drinks of thanks. I’m not suggesting that they’re persecuted, or even mistreated – most of these people are usually embarrassed if they’re singled out for praise or thanks. I’m sure you know that types of people that I mean.
Contemporary management thinking is that the job for life is a thing of the past. You only have to look at our facts and figures page and there’s more often or not a news item saying something along the lines of managing directors average tenure is three years as opposed to five. Of course, you can substitute pretty much any position in the modern organisation above or below managing director and move the timescale by one or two years in either direction to capture the average.
So it’s well established that we are a far more transient workforce, and that nobody has any illusions about their job being safe for the rest their life. However, I’d suggest that there is a not insignificant proportion of the workforce that has decided that they don’t care if the employment contract has been broken. Until they get sacked, these people will keep on being loyal servants and serve out there time.
And guess what? A whole bunch of them aren’t getting sacked and are serving out their entire careers for one or maybe two companies.
When you think about it, it’s fairly logical – why would you get rid of one of these people? They work hard, they know what they’re doing; they probably know more about how the company works than any of their strategising bosses. They also embrace the culture of the organisation. They have seen the heroes, the good times the bad times through their own eyes.
Many, no doubt, would be wonderful storytellers able to relate thousands of positive anecdotes about why they’ve stayed with the organisation for as long as they have. In short, they’re often ambassadors of good will for the company, whose circle of influence over a forty-year period is difficult to quantify in the extreme.
Then, of course, there’s the costs on recruitment and the associated training and down time that hasn’t been lost because Mary has been in accounts payable for 35 years or Joe has been on reception. If the average tenure is five years, and someone has been doing a job for 40 years; well, you work in HR, you do the maths.
So, we have these loyal employees. We know how much money they’re saving us. We know how productive they are. What are we doing to thank them? Sure a morning tea upon retirement is nice, as the $200 Kmart voucher is thoughtful. Hey, even the global email from the managing director thanking Betty and Brad for clocking up 15 years with the company is a step in the right direction.
However, in this age where we are facing a crisis of knowledge workers as the baby boomers book their Queensland timeshares at ever-increasing rates, isn’t all of these years of service worth some really hard cash or other incentive beyond the token gesture?
I bet some of you are already doing it, write to me and let me know your strategy.
