Disrespecting peoples time
Employees unhappy at work is one of the many reasons that they leave their job or do not perform as they should/can. As someone who has worked for a fair few companies, I would like to point out that the amount of disrespect for the employees by organisations and/or managers that I have worked for or know about is sickening. It could be argued that it is bordering on modern slavery if not for the ability for the employee to walk away at anytime. Company’s gamble on the fact that people won’t leave their jobs if they ask them to stay after work for free to finish of tasks hoping that the employee wont realize, too scared to get fired or won’t care that 10 minutes a day 5 days a week is about 43 extra hours of work that they don’t get paid for. Even if you were to pay people the minimum wage (£7.20 here in London)on the extra 10 forced minutes it would amount to £309 ($422 usd) before tax that the company’s are getting away with not paying.
I will not go through all the ways that you can respect someone as I will be here for a very long time so lets keep to the subject of time.
I have witness many good employees leave their jobs because their employer did not respect the time of the individual. Company’s often ask employees to come in early unpaid (normally 15 minuets but it could be up to 45 depending on situation), stay around unpaid and come in for training on their day off unpaid without getting time back for doing so. I know of many company's that cancel or change peoples day off and expect them to just be OK with it, but when individuals comes in late or do personal things on the organisations time the business normally treats it like an act of treason if it is a reoccurring behavior, which is hypocritical if they are guilty of asking for peoples time for free. What normally happens is the average/lesser skilled employees stay and smart employees (the good ones) normally leave prematurely because they know deep down that they are very good at their job and there is no shortage of company’s that need skilled people, they know they don’t need put up with bad management and/or flawed company culture. After all the hard work in training and integrating the employees into the company, losing people over not understanding that the employees time is equally as important as the businesses time is a major flaw that I see made.
In my opinion working for a company is weirdly like being in a relationship and everyone knows that no matter how beautiful the person you are seeing is, if they do not respect your personal time it can affect all the other areas of your relationship with them. Being disrespectful is a fast way to destroying any relationship. Now I am not against people hustling hard at work, doing extra time or taking work home because they love their job, but I feel that a disrespect for peoples time is one of the leading reasons that company's lose their best workers. It may not be the main reason that people leave their jobs but it is one of the reason that matter when it comes to happiness in the workplace.
As a Founder of an early stage startup (Venue Hack) I know how I treat my future employees could be the make or brake of my startup, so it is important for me to learn from my experience and do my best to spread the word. Please respect the people that work for you from the cleaner to general manager and I know that productivity and happiness will increase and maybe just maybe you will keep the good ones.
