Sharyn Abbott appeared on the Oprah Show where she was featured for her innovative concepts on positive communication techniques, and many TV and Radio programs. She believes it is an amazing privilege to be able to affect people in a positive nature through public speaking. Sharyn has more than 20 years of experience working in the corporate environment. Ms. Abbott has provided training in many of the Fortune firms in the Bay Area. Her latest venture is launching a high school in Belize for kids at risk in the US.
In the mid-80s I worked for a Fortune 500 conglomerate that demanded I work ridiculous hours, working through weekends, traveling a grueling schedule, and invading my time when I was at home. I continued to work with them for eight-and-a-half years. Then one day I was called into the office and sent home in a taxi because the CFO had made a tactical error and they had to lay off one person from each division in each territory.
It’s not an unusual story but it should be. I envied those who worked at Hewlett-Packard, which was in my territory. They have a beautiful campus that rivals any park in the San Francisco Bay Area. Then there’s Saga Foods who has a campus that competes with any museum with their artwork and collection of antiques. The receptionist sat at a Louis XV desk. Rolm had on-site daycare and installed a track for runners to use during their lunch breaks. They had a full gym with showers. They understood the two-fold benefit of employees being able to work off stress and feeling like they could maintain a physical routine. Imagine the simplicity of including daycare on site so mothers could spend their lunch time with their children.
Treating employees with respect and not invading their personal life in any way is the least an employee deserves. Employees are the most valuable asset of a company. They make or break a company. But the majority of companies treat their employees as though they are disposable. They use them up then kick them to the curb. The majority of companies somehow have adopted the attitude that there is nothing wrong with insisting employees work 70 to 80 hours a week, be forced to work through weekends, miss important family occasions or have the proper time to rest and rejuvenate.
I believe it is the downfall of the family structure. Children growing up without seeing their parents during the week or being raised by someone other than family creates an emotional disconnection for children which is very difficult to resolve. The most obvious fall out effect is children growing up clueless in how to be in relationships since they rarely see their parents together. The long hours also cause couples to become distance from each other, growing apart due to the lack of time they are able to spend together.
When an employee is replaced, it takes an average of $5,000 to hire a typical employee. That doesn’t include what it takes to integrate them into the environment and bring them up to a productive level. It can bring up the cost of replacement to as much as one-half to two full years of their salary. That is hard for a company to absorb when the average across the board is companies are replacing 20 – 45% of their employees every year.
Why aren’t companies looking at employee retention more seriously? In this day and age of a highly competitive marketplace for all companies striving to retain their positions, it should be one of the first issues an XO should focus on. Some companies bring in management consultants who make recommendations to increase the profitability usually by laying off employees. But according to the Institute of Heartmath, during the dot com bomb, not one company who engaged in layoffs became any more profitable.
In fact, investigators who infiltrated Boeing after their major layoffs in 2011, found that the workers who kept their jobs had higher rates of binge drinking and depression when compared to individuals who were laid off. The remaining employees are often inspired to brush up on their interview skills and update their resumes to look for a less stressful workplace.
I was fortunate to have worked for companies that treated me like an extension of their family and I never hesitated to make sure whatever they needed was accomplished. I was always inspired to improve what I had to offer my employers because I was treated with respect.
Now, as I begin to launch my next endeavor, I decided to create an environment where the employes would feel like they are appreciated. I decided to reverse-engineer every trait of the corporate environment I resented while working there.
Our project will have a mandate to limit work weeks to no more than 40 hours a week. They will have the choice of working five days a week or four days and 10 hours a day in order to have a three-day weekend every week or choose to take Friday off one week and Monday the next week to have a four-day weekend twice a month. They will be able to start their day on their natural time clock. Some people are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7 am while others might not have the fog cleared until after 9 am. It will be their choice.
Our policy is to offer employees the education and training to move to other positions in order to keep them challenged. We will have a Visiting Instructors program and all employees are able to audit any of the courses and make up any time missed during the same week.
The structure of our NPO is to allow a minimum of two directors per division who will work in tandem allowing each one to have the freedom to take time off without the stress of the demands of production.
Employees will experience an environment where they know they have support whenever they need it. They will be encouraged to take courses to improve their skills and broaden their knowledge of their field.
I’m looking forward to tracking the results of our employment relationships and the effect it will have on our productivity.