It's Never that Serious...: An Open Letter to Employers

One week into the month and for most, this is the time they have the most purchasing power. Although I don’t know if I can use this ‘most’ loosely because turns out MANY people are not very happy with their employers, although in some of these cases the employers may be as disgruntled as their employees (which could have been avoided as I will explain in a bit)

Most of the people I know are under 30 (no offense but older people are so yawny and will ask things like why you have not bought shares on the stock exchange. SMH! I have NOTHING to say to you) or so they say; and have at least once or are currently in a situation where agreements were made with their employer to increase pay or tap into fringe benefits like insurance or other such arrangements after a time t.

How someone’s health insurance is considered a bonus is beyond me? A supplement? A privilege. It’s too early in the week for me to begin weeping.

May be the people who raised a generation that is considered worthless if they are unemployed are to blame (I know, parents need to catch a break but mehn) or the ambition that stirs in the generation and makes them restless enough to make these ‘deals’ in the first place are the problem here but I am sure the unemployment statistics in the country do NOT help even one bit.

One might think I am referring to people that have been newly employed and one would be wrong. Employees will work for about 3 years on a promise that has not been honored, will bust their bleep (excuse my French) off, lose friendships because of their dedication to a job that’s not dedicated to them. Of course a genius will say that it is a choice they make and some other things like but I am not emotionally equipped to get into that right now. May be some day when I am sipping chai on a beach in a different time zone, on a Monday morning.

I feel like I am getting lost somewhere yet I need to wrap this up and double check my status reports because that’s how organized individuals like myself roll… Yup!

Why make an agreement to give more at a later time t, then go on to act like amnesia is your middle name? Here is what happens when something like this occurs;

1. You are destroying your employees’ trust in you: I am talking about professional trust here, the one that comes with believing in your boss and organization as a whole and thus exerting your energies in a more ‘us’ way because when the boss looks good the company looks good.

2. You are killing the employee’s passion: You know those employees that keep 8-5 hours as per the contract and grumble if they have to stay even a second later, yeah those ones. Well they worked for someone like you and the passion got worn out, a lamp can’t after all light a room if it doesn’t have fuel.

3. Bad PR: For every time someone goes to bed hungry, has to push their resources to extremes that a human being should NOT have to; there is a listening ear on the other end. May be they can’t do anything ‘real’ about it today but you just never know with life.

If push comes to shove and hands are tired, management has made their decision and nothing can change that; have the courtesy of explaining to the employee why things will not be as was earlier agreed. You would be surprised what difference that makes.

For those that are not happy with their employee; if it comes to a place where you do not value the employee anymore, please tell them what has led you to that position, whether it can remedied and the like because even the least ambitious of them all expects a raise, bonus or promotion of sorts. At least. Better that than the employee approaching you for a better arrangement and your explanation is that their performance over the past 6 months has been below average. There is NO justification for ‘using’ someone, they’d probably thrive more if they were given more direction or elsewhere.