It has been educational and interesting to watch the new show, Undercover Boss. Corporate executives pose as a new employee starting in the company. They work for one day at various jobs in the company in various locations to gain an impression of what their employees experience. Thus far each show has revealed some serious problems, as well as some very good situations.
Each executive has been surprised by their discoveries, believing that they had a much better idea of what occurred than they actually had. As one commented, when they visit an outlet or branch, everyone knows they are coming and they see only the best. Most of their input is normally derived from regional managers who get their information from area managers. Area managers receive their input from outlet managers, who are in contact with shift managers, overseeing the employees. Information is lost at each step of the process. Decisions are made which affect the most basic levels, but often unexpected results are not seen at the decision level.
When 7-11 CEO visited the store that sells the most cups of coffee of any in their world wide chain to see what the difference was, since the store sells several times as much as any other store. He was surprised to learn that the difference was the lady making the coffee. She used the same coffee but was very particular about how the coffee was made. She also chatted with the customers, calling them by name and showing interest in them, selling more than 2500 cups of coffee daily. Working with her, he discovered that the location of the sink made keeping up very difficult. He mentioned this and she said that she had made the same request repeatedly but that it had never been heeded, The CEO realized that changing the arrangement, and training other employees to deal with customers in a similar manner could have a huge impact on their coffee sales.
Another problem he discovered was that priorities of maintence were much different at corporate offices and in individual stores. Changing light bulbs was low in priority at the maintenance division, but store managers and employees saw that bad lighting increased the likely hood of injury, and led to mistakes and customer dissatisfaction.
Waste Management's CEO discovered that attempts to increase profitability sometimes resulted in loss of business or employee dissatisfaction, such as docking an employee for being late, or expecting other employees to take up the slack when someone quit. In one case one employee was covering what had formerly been three other employees jobs, with no additional pay. Stress was forcing her to consider finding another job. Constant evaluations of employees was creating anxiety and an increase in turnover.
In an effort to produce a consistent quality of product, White Castle Hamburgers had developed a policy in which a specific order of assembly of the hamburgers was required. Employees discovered that the sequence slowed production to a level that would not meet the orders. By changing the sequence they could do so. The supervisor lived in dread of losing her job because she was not following company policy or losing her job because the line was not producing enough.
Hooter's Restaurants discovered that their policies appeared to many to be degrading to women, and resulted in some managers treating women in a degrading manner. As a result, many women and families would not eat there, and some employees would not recommend it as a place to work.
The CEOs in each case had been unaware of these problems. In many cases they had approved these policies in an effort to prevent or resolve some other problem, not realizing the effect it would have on their business. Many times the needed changes were minimal in cost, but made tremendous differences in customer or employee satisfaction. Until they actually experienced it for themselves, the importance was not recognized.
We find a similar disconnect between our political figures and their constituents. Most of Congress's information is derived from state party leaders and political figures who get their information from lower ranking political figures, or government employees. Even sincere attempts to get grassroots information can fail because of filtering by party leaders, or a desire on the part of constituents to put their best foot forward when meeting such important people. Many times, people have become so used to problems they have just accepted that no change will be made, and don't mention them, like the location of the sink in the 7-11 stores.
Different priorities can result in failure to recognize real problems, like maintenance's failure to realize the importance of replacing light bulbs. For example, while some people cannot get insurance due to pre-existing conditions, far more cannot afford the price of health insurance. To pay taxes or higher prices for other's to be covered will only exacerbate the problem. Unfortunately, such a problem may be dismissed as minor by those in authority, because it doesn't affect them.
In large part, current dissatisfaction with political leadership stems from this disconnect. Like the CEOs, they have no idea what their constituents face each day. The five days undercover did not reveal all the problems, but it did show the CEOs that problems existed of which they were unaware. Perhaps a similar effort would make political leaders aware of their isolation from the daily problems of most people.
President Obama's reported family income of 4.6 million in 2007 was far lower than that of most congressional leaders, but it is more than 100 times as much as the average family in New Mexico earns. It is nearly 20 times as much as the lowest level of those who are expected to pay extra for the healthcare and bailout programs earn. The essential cost for a family of four should be very nearly the same, so the majority of difference is in discretionary spending, for a nicer home or car, etc. Mandantory insurance or increased taxes will affect him far less than it will the average person, or even the small business owner. It will affect some of the others much less than it affects him.
Going undercover might well enable our politicians to better understand the concerns of their constituents, although it would not reveal everything. The longer a man has been in politics, the separation from his people, and the more he needs to make such an effort to connect.
Donald Fishgrab writes the blog Being Christian Today to help others in understanding the Bible. Each post is in the form of a study connecting to the passages before and after. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Donald_Fishgrab |
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