Stupidity Within Businesses Nowadays

I’m a graduate student, and in my 1st class, I learned that leaders never show weakness to their subordinates (The Longview: Lasting Strategies for Rising Leaders p. 64). However, businesses are taking not showing weakness to subordinates to the extreme, to the point of neglecting to use intelligence in their decision-making. I quit a job back in October because I got fed up with their nonsense. When I got hired the lead human resources guy told us that he’d do what he could to resolve issues to retain personnel; once we got hired the company forgot all about doing what it could to retain personnel and simply considered us disposable. Organizations consist of people carrying out processes at proficient levels; if an organization lacks this, then this organization is slowly heading towards closing. A lot of organizations are losing money by the boatloads, but their leaders won’t put aside their petty pride to even consider the notion that perhaps they may be doing something wrong. The company I left was losing untold amounts each month but rather than attempt to change to remedy this, the company kept trudging along all the while losing money; this is stupidity within the business. It gets brought up about the good old times when people were loyal to their companies; back then people were loyal to their companies because their companies took care of them. Nowadays, a business will have a position within the company which will require you to have a certain degree under your belt in order to qualify for the position. Furthermore, rather than the company pay for your schooling to get said degree it will have you go to school and pay for this degree out of your pocket so that once you get this degree, you can then apply for said position. The benefit of the position is you’ll make more money if you get it. The downside of this is that you’ll have paid additional money to essentially make your company even more money just so you can get an increase in pay. There has to be some reciprocity in here somewhere in order to inherit an employee’s loyalty.

Once the person does get their degree they usually immediately begin implementing an exit strategy because there isn’t a reason to be loyal to a company that doesn’t take care of you back. If companies can’t afford to pay for the schooling, then they can simply just promote within while side-stepping their usual degree requirement. Not doing one of the other actually costs businesses more money in the long run. I answered a discussion question where I stated these typed thoughts I’ve outlined here and someone commented on the post with the below text.

Derrick as always it’s a pleasure to read your thoughts. I agree. I wish that my job would offer at least some financial assistance for people that choose to further their education. Furthermore, they are the ones that benefit from the extra skills that the employee is currently learning. Also, it helps that particular company run more efficiently. A lot of companies do not recognize how both the employer and the employee could benefit. Not only that, I think that it would reduce the number of turnovers companies have when their employees obtain a better degree. I know we lost one of our head accountants that had been with our company for 17 years. When he finished his degree at Memphis, he immediately began to look for another job because our company does not pay you for your degree. He already had the necessary experience; he just didn’t have the degree behind him. Our company lost a great employee, and since he has been gone, we have been through 6 people trying to replace his skillset. So, our company really missed out. Moreover, I’m sure it won’t be the last.–Jessica Lyons

When companies begin penny-pinching and thinking short-termed like this, they end up losing even more money. Money is blown because of turnover, and more money is spent to hire and then train a new face. Furthermore, if the person was a quality worker, then that brings about another problem which is companies having higher standards than their pay constitutes. Quality work requires quality pay. Neglecting to pay your weight will result in turnover because quality people are intelligent and it simply isn’t that smart to work for someone that’s low-balling you; this causes companies to post high requirements while actually hiring mediocre to substandard personnel.

Mediocre breaks even while substandard loses money. Both of these result in your business shutting its door because just breaking even this year is losing money next year thanks to the constant rise of inflation on the economy. -Derrick Mills (January 21, 2015)

(You can pick up The Longview from Amazon here.)

The job I quit back in October just recently laid off over 500 employees and lost its contract with a major contractor. The contractor also lost a ton of money. This is what happens when you act stupidly while doing business. –Derrick Mills (May 7, 2015)

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