Published 1994
Large organizations were proud of their employees' loyalty, dedication, and morale.
These were considered the key attributes of corporate success.
Times changed.
Total employment of Fortune 500 companies is much smaller today than it was 10 years ago.
Big companies shed millions of employees.
Lifetime employment is gone in America and shrinking in Japan.
Employees are aware that job security ain't what it used to be and are concerned.
Personnel surveys show low employee morale and low job satisfaction.
What's the solution?
It's a combination of extremes: temps and core.
Manpower, Inc. is the world's largest temporary employment agency with over 600,000 available workers.
They and others dispatch 1.5 million people to do various temporary chores, three times more than a decade ago.
But that's just a small part of the 34 million people who work intermittently as self-contractors, supplementals, perdiems, lessees, and peripherals.
Part-time workers are not all laborers.
They are also doctors, teachers, lawyers, engineers, scientists, accountants, computer specialists, and veterinarians.
A small firm specializes in placing temporary CEOs, COOs, and CFOs.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, almost 90 percent of part-timers would prefer a steady full-time job.
They're the involuntary contingent.
Practicality dictates the use of part-time employees to increase organizational flexibility and reduce the break-even point.
It's called accordion management.
The advantages and disadvantages are many.
The company saves on costs of benefits, training, severance pay, and firing hassles.
The adverse effects are also obvious.
The company faces lack of loyalty, continuity, incentive career advancement, and teamwork.
The solution is to compensate for the disadvantages with core employees.
They're your pool of talent for the core competencies absolutely essential in any business.
These people must be talented, dedicated, knowledgeable and loyal.
They are the people you must love, protect, train, overpay, and coddle.
They are the business.
They must be treated as individuals in a tailor-made manner.
Today's enterprises must operate on both extremes of company loyalty: none and high.
The middle is unproductive and dangerous.
It's a different world and a different situation.
Personnel executives must understand it, adapt to it, and act on it.
Do not underestimate the role and the importance of personnel management or compare it to the past.
It's a totally new ball game.
Amazon link: Management Alert: Don't Reform—Transform!
No comments:
Post a Comment