How ONE staff member can save your bacon

I had a courier parcel of mine end up at my neighbours place. They kindly brought it over. The next month when this item arrived again it was taken to my other neighbours place. They kindly brought it over. Our street number is very clearly stated - I don't see how the courier driver could get it wrong TWICE! It's not rocket science! The item is also worth about $300 so is 'signature required'. Both times it was taken to the wrong addresses no signature was sought. It was left on its lonesome at the door. I emailed the courier company asking what the rules are about 'sig required' packages and if it goes astray would they replace the item. I also told them it had been delivered to two different wrong places WITHOUT a signature. I waited two weeks and nothing. I emailed again, still nothing. I called - they said they'd find the email and respond. Finally I got an email from a lady at the company. She said she'd look into it (didn't answer my questions yet). I waited and nothing. I emailed her 3x asking her to attend to the email. I then emailed the customer feedback email address to complain about this staff members lack of follow up. I waited a week and still nothing. I found another contact in my citys office - forwarded her the whole chain of emails which showed how many times I'd made contact to no avail. Within two hours she had answered all my questions, apoligized, and sent two lots of feedback to separate departments. I had previously been so so annoyed at this (what I was calling stupid) company, but with by finding one staff member with a brain I was happy again. I was amazed at how many things can go wrong, how many different avenues and contact attempts can be unsuccessful, yet with one awesome person a customer can be made happy again - within two hours. Nothing like a staff member who actually gets things done. How many like this do you have?

What life is like for the workplace ‘junior’

I was a 'junior' once. It was in a hair salon (back in the days when I thought I wanted to work in the beauty industry) and I was 16. I have terrible memories of being treated like absolute crap just because I was the ‘junior’. For some reason that title magically took away any human right I had to respect. It mean I had to put myself ‘below’ everyone else and know I was ‘less than’ them. It meant I was unimportant, available to be walked over and any needs I had were disregarded.

Some of the real workplace stories in my book The Boss Benchmark are mine from this period:
*I was not welcome to attend the team meeting. I had to stay away from the staff room during this time as I was of such little importance, my attendance was of no consequence. I was also unwelcome because the meeting gave the staff a chance to talk about me. One time the boss came out afterwards and gave me a big telling off about something that was absolutely untrue which had been brought up in the meeting. I of course (head bowed low) was not allowed to talk, correct my boss or state my case.
*Another staff member gave me the silent treatment for a full 6 days. At the time she was 33 and I was 16, hindsight now shows me how silly this woman is – but at the time I thought it must have been due to me/my fault/how the workforce is. I was so new to the working world and it was quite upsetting that someone that much older was treating me that way.
*The business was in a real slump so 80% of the day the hair stylists just sat around (3 full timers). Though I was never ever allowed to sit – that privilege was only for them. One day I got the job of dusting a million products on these huge metal shelves (sounds reasonable). I did a magnificent job. Though the next day when there was nothing to do again, a hair stylist assigned me the same task to redo. It was ‘busy work’ not required work, just so I never became equal and received the privilege of 'sitting'.

I am very keen to hear any other stories people have about ‘being the junior’. I’d love to know if and in what ways this kind of treatment still goes on. I know some industries are worse than others are in this regard. I don’t see why being the apprentice is a license to be disrespectful and treat people as though they don’t matter as much. I had nothing against the cruddy, boring and grubby jobs I had to do – I wasn’t scared of the work, I just hated being treated as if I was worthless. It was my age and inexperience in the workforce that meant I knew no better way to deal with it or get myself heard. Being young is also not an excuse for bosses or co-workers to treat you as less. Entering the workforce can be a scary time (especially when the workplace you are in is absolutely dysfunctional). What is your two cents on this subject?

Why you should audit the secrets you keep from your staff

In the 'old days' there were plenty of things that management kept secret from staff. These days, any business that wants to really excel cannot afford to have that still be the case in their workplaces. In my book The Boss Benchmark I talk about doing a 'secrets audit'. I decided to write an article about how exactly one should go about doing just that. Check it out here.

Disgruntled employees=bad management

I’ve spoken time and again about LISTENING to your staff. CARING about what they say and ACTING on it. Working for a company that didn’t listen (but boasted constantly about how much they did) is how I got into staff surveying in the first place. It is UNBELIEVEABLY frustrating working in a place where your voice has absolutely zero significance, yet management bleat on and on about how much it does. Talk about out of touch with reality!

One employee did something about it. Ex-Virgin Blue employee Torsten Koerting designed a board game using Virgin Blue branding that criticises his former company's decision-making process. It is a modified version of "Snakes and Ladders" and was attached to a farewell email to his colleagues. That turned out to be just the beginning as the media found out about it (I read about it here) and boy did they love it! It seems Torsten isn’t the only disgruntled employee – but he is the only one that has spoken up about it.

The question now is what is Virgin Blue going to do about it? Will they use it as an opportunity to have a frank discussion with staff and find a way to make sure that convo is constant? From the outside looking in, Virgin Blue in Aussie and Pacific Blue in New Zealand have always seemed to exude a fun, funky culture – perhaps that was so at the beginning but it has dwindled now? Maybe the fun times of being thrown in the river are over?

Virgin Blue is just the one of gazillions of businesses full of unhappy staff that are sick of not being heard. 2008 and STILL companies haven’t got this right. What’s worse is that it is not expensive, difficult or time consuming to fix. All you need is a CEO that actually cares, not just says they do. It might however be scary for some. If the thought of listening to your staff scares the heck out of you then (sorry but) HAHA! It means you’ve been so lazy with listening for so long that things have really gone to the dogs. You really deserve the scariness.

If you want to figure out if your company is at risk of being thrown around the worlds media and blogosphere because one of your workers has hit the headlines, ask 10 random staff members “What is it about this company that frustrates the crap out of you?” If they can rattle off 5 things without so much as taking a breath you are in trouble so sit down, shut your gob and turn your ears on! Ignorance is NOT bliss!

Do your employees deserve milk?

There are plenty of workers around who think it’s a bit crap that their employers buy the cheapest coffee and tea possible for the staff room. It makes them feel cheap and unimportant. These feelings were even stronger at one workplace where there was special ‘managers coffee’. No I’m not lying, I wish I was! The managers were allowed to use this much nicer coffee while the workers could only gaze at it up on the shelf and dream.

As if this wasn’t enough ill feeling for the staff room of this workplace, then came the ‘milk episode’. In effort to save money, be assholes and show the workers who is really boss a sign was attached to the fridge that said “Milk is for tea and coffee only. Any use on cereals or for general drinking is forbidden”. Oh dear! So the workers who pay a fortune for an overpriced car park, that is still miles away from work, who leave home super early to get to it and then walk the extra 20 minutes to the office are no longer allowed to finally have their cereal for breakfast in the staff room upon arrival.

I love horrifying people with this story, because it demonstrates a workplace attitude that is so common. The words this story brings to my mind about these managers are mean, heartless and thick. That is not a ‘family’ based workplace. Where people are happy, comfortable and treated like humans. It is stern, cold, lonely and sad.

What topped this story off was the fact that this workplace was a newspaper. One of their columnists wrote a fantastic piece highlighting all of the above troubles. I’m thinking the only reason it made it into print was the managers were so busy policing the fridge, they didn’t have time to make sure word didn’t get out about how nasty they are! Something as simple as cheap and nasty coffee does affect morale. It is a message to your staff. Something as rude as ‘manager’s coffee’ is an even louder message to your staff. The bosses here were a cut above, and not part of the real team.What practices are in your workplace that are similar to ‘cheap and nasty’ or ‘manager’s coffee’? See that they don’t survive the week.

If you want to see what notes other workplaces have stuck up on noticeboards see this website www.passiveaggressivenotes.com