What Would Your Employees Say About You?

Saturday, March 12, 2005 | 0

by Brent Heurter, Chief Solutions Officer, ClearComp

A new study by Harris Interactive for Age Wave and the The Concours Group provides business leaders with some pretty devastating feedback. More than half of the almost 8,000 workers surveyed question the basic morality of their organizations' leadership and believe that they are treated unfairly. In fact, only 36% say that their managers are honest and act with integrity. Less than 30% believe that leadership cares about helping them advance their skills, and a third of the workers believe their jobs are dead ends. And the workers feeling most disenfranchised are the younger ones-the future of your organization. What does this have to do with workers' compensation? Nothing-and everything. Let me explain.

A company is a mirror image of the people who run it. Every company has its own culture--good, bad, or indifferent. What is the culture in your company? What do your employees say about the company and its leaders when you're not around? Is the culture one of apathy? Is the culture vengeful, full of employees who feel unappreciated and who want to get back what they believe is owed to it?

A vengeful culture-an outgrowth of poor management and failed leadership-is a culture that is conducive to filing workers' compensation claims. And it's also a culture where the domino effect occurs: after one employee files a claim, the rest follow. How do I know this is true? I witnessed it first-hand at our insurance brokerage.

We had all the signs of a company that was growing too fast and putting too much emphasis on the outside and none-or not enough-on our employees. Our turnover was atrocious-just like a revolving door in one of our departments. Our hiring practices were horrible. We didn't check references or conduct background investigations on any new applicants-we just needed the jobs filled. And when we realized we had made a bad hire, we didn't fix the situation-we avoided it. We took too long--way too long--to terminate employees. By the time we terminated an employee, he or she knew what was coming a mile away and was prepared for it-with threats and lawsuits. The atmosphere was more than hostile-it was poisonous.

Believe me, I'm not exaggerating-in less than one month, we were hit with two large workers' comp claims-in an office of only 27! At the same time, we lost two of our best employees, who were so unhappy that they quietly-and successfully-looked for work elsewhere. Never mind reading the handwriting on the wall-we were faced with neon signs spelling "trouble"! And we paid attention. Painfully, and with much soul searching, my partner and I realized that our failure as leaders had led to the problems we were having.

We realized something else during all of this: we wanted to be an employer of choice. We wanted to hire the very best, talented people and pay them very well, give them the freedom to approach their jobs with the end result in mind, not micromanaging the process in between. We hired more talented, experienced people to replace the two we lost and increased the salaries for several other key positions--and still ended up saving $15,000 annually in the process! And this time we practiced what we preached: we took the time to follow the best hiring practices we taught to our clients. The atmosphere in the office is now a breath of fresh air, and our current employees are disgusted with the two that filed workers' comp claims as their parting gifts to us. (And yes, we are using every one of the techniques we teach others to use to fight these claims.)

I suspect that, were Harris Interactive to survey our employees today, we would fare very well. Our company culture has changed completely. Our relationship with our employees now reflects the integrity and values that we have always practiced with our customers. The employees now have ownership in decisions that affect them and the suggestions we get now are amazing. Our employees are more productive and effective--and our clients are happier then ever.

Brent Heurter is the Founder and Chief Solutions Officer of ClearComp, a workers' compensation alternative for companies that desire to control and reduce their workers' compensation costs. Brent can be reached at 888-CLEAR-89 or email brent@clearcomp.com.

-------------------------------

The views and opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of workcompcentral.com, its editors or management.