I was part of my company’s Social Committee – the team which organizes all those events for the company. The team is supposed to consist of 9 to 11 people but most of them are either busy or not cooperative. In the end, there were only about 4 people who handled the Xmas party (for 50-60 people).
It was very tiring.
I’m not very happy with those non-cooperative people, to be honest. Some of them said they don’t gain anything by getting involved and some plainly said they got other more important things to do. True, this Social Committee thing is not chargeable to any client. There’s no charge code whatsoever (if you’re not in consulting line, a charge code is something which you charge the customer…..in other words, if you’re able to charge to the customer, means you are doing billable work….which means you are helping the company to earn money). They rather sit there and surf Facebook, than actually participate in this.
I’m not happy but I can’t blame them. The company culture made them this way because in a consulting firm, if you are not doing chargeable work, it means you are not very productive. And this kind of thing does not just happen to consulting firm, it actually happens in other industries too.
For example, I heard of this company which used to reward the Employee of the Month with a trip to Phuket. Each month, there would be a different trip and only be 1 winner, and the winner would be the one with the highest sales (it was a retail store, if not wrong). What happened then? All the employees started to compete with each other and the competition ended in quite an ugly way when 1 of the employees argued with another over a customer. That employee claimed his regular customer has been snatched away. There was no teamwork whatsoever in this company due to the competition. The employees were to blame due to their over-competitiveness, but the main culprit should be the person who came out with this idea.
If that doesn’t convince you, think what would happen to your company if the policies below are implemented:
- You will be deducted RM50 for every MC you take.
- Only the person with the highest chargability rate will get 3 months bonus, the rest only 1 month.
- Whoever notices the mistakes in the documents prepared by his/her teammates, and report the mistakes, will be rewarded in the next performance evaluation.
- Asking a stupid question during meeting will earn you the boss’ wrath.
- Suggesting a business idea or submitting a business proposal to the boss will be turned down with immediate effect.
- etc, etc, etc
So the next time your employees start to act weird (too quiet, unresponsive, selfish, ignorant, etc), STOP and THINK for a while. Are you sure they are the one at fault? Are you sure you want to penalize them? Maybe it is the things you did or the policies you’ve set for your company. Maybe it is the culture which is causing all these things.
Think about it. Remember that if there are few people who are acting weird….then maybe they are just weirdos. But if there are a lot of people behaving strangely, then it’s either your recruitment process is flawed or your company culture sux.
As for me, I’ll be very very busy this December and January – rushing project and preparing for the company annual dinner. The entire committee will be left with 2 or 3 person since the rest will be away for vacation.
Tagged: company, culture, Employee, job, management, office, people
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3 Comments
yes it’s true…
in a punishment environment, mostly employees follow rules and less of initiation at work.. the morale are low too…
Lisas last blog post..Once a Con Man in my MBA class
Corp culture’s very close to my heart. I got a series of posts on the subject that I haven’t posted yet but you’re on the right direction. IMO culture’s partly nature and partly nurture. Sometimes incentives work, sometimes they don’t. For example I know one place where the employee of the month gets hammered by his peers for being “too good” or showing off which scared off people from doing their the best. It sounds juvenile but sometimes even manager levels are not spared of this mentality. It seems that while employers may want to shape their corporate culture, employees create their own subculture which is sometimes independent of anything at work.
And speaking of consultants, most change management projects fail without a matching culture change sgenda and yet most consultants I’ve met are terrified of going there. Anything but that, they say. I’ll probably start posting my thoughts after my break.
@ Lisa
Funnily, most local companies have that kind of culture.
@ Damien
That’s why the employers should pay close attention to the employees and the so-called “mood”. If they notice there’s something wrong after they implemented something, then maybe it’s better for them to consider to try and undo that something.
And there are also times when there’s this one group of influential people creating the negative subculture, and pulling everyone else into it. This group of people and their attitude are very bad for the company and what the management team is trying to achieve.