Thanksgiving Thoughts

I was thinking about Thanksgiving and what it is supposed to mean and I remember a former boss of mine that wore a shirt that had some Native Americans and a title that said The First Homeland Security or something similar. 

What irked me is that he wore it on Thanksgiving (why I was working on Thanksgiving is beyond me), and would always talk about how Thanksgiving is a marketing scheme.  That Thanksgiving is when we gave the Native Americans (according to him the perfect people) small pox, took their food, raped their women, and enslaved their children.  While I do agree that the interaction between the Settlers and Native Americans isn’t what it should have been, it wasn’t a victim/assailant scenario.

That is besides the point that I’m trying to make.  The boss was the most negative person that I ever knew.  He would always find a way to complain about everything.  He once said that on Thanksgiving everyone should give him a Thanksgiving card and be thankful that he gave them a job.  Besides the most negative person that I ever met, he was also the most arrogant.

He would also try to get an unreasonable amount of mileage out of everything that the company did for its employees.  An example is that he thought because there was a nice office, free-lunches, and that the people got paid they owed him more than just doing their jobs.  However when the employees would ask for something extra, like the day after Thanksgiving off, he would say that the agreement is that they work, he pays. 

Another example is that every time a subordinate would make up complaints against a Manager, they would investigate.  When they found that the Manager was falsely accused (usually true), they would hold that claim against the Manager for as long as they could.  He would go on and repeat at every evaluation that the easy thing for the company would be to have fired that Manager rather than spend time and investigate the issue.

I knew this was a flat out lie, because the company is responsible for investigating all claims and doing what is right (based on the employee manual).  Secondly it is harder to fire every Manager over every false allegation and then recruit a replacement, train them, and hope that their subordinates don’t make up stories about them. 

Hypocrisy is the word use to describe these types of people, what’s best for them at the time, and not what is consistent and ethical.  

So while this guy from New England believed that the founding fathers were terrorists and invaders, he also believed that people should be thankful to him for paying them, but he refused to be thankful to people for the work they did.  Because of this a company with a good benefits package, good compensation, nice office, etc. had one of the highest turnover rates because of the way he treated people.

This should be a lesson to every Manager/Employer out there.  You really need to understand quid pro quo (this for that).  You pay someone for services rendered under the conditions of paying them on time, rendering the benefits advertised, in the environment advertised, etc.  If they perform poorly at their job then they are fired, if you perform poorly at yours they quit. 

Almost every CEO and Business Owner understands the extreme challenge of Talent Management.  If you treat your people horribly then they will go someplace that they are not.  You have to be competitive with every business in the area in the total of your rewards system in order to be capture and retain top talent.  This includes the way people are treated.

You should be thankful if you have any talent working for you, and this holiday season should show that thanks.  Even though times are tough and business profits are low, really taking the time to explain that to your employees and express your thanks, it will go a long way to keeping them.