Beyond the Bottom Line by Joel Makower

Author:Joel Makower
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 1994-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE WORKPLACE AS WINNING EDGE

Creating a vibrant, committed work force is vitally necessary for nations as well as companies in today’s highly competitive global environment. Lester Thurow, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist, points out that in previous decades, national competitive advantage stemmed from access to natural resources, raw materials, machinery, or technology. Now, such access is far more widespread and attainable. The winning edge, he says, can only come from educated and motivated workers. And, he might have added, what’s true for countries is equally true for companies.

Former Stride Rite CEO Arnold Hiatt agrees. “One way of looking at it is to say, ‘I am not going to be able to compete with low-wage countries on salaries,’” he says. “‘I’m going to have to focus more on productivity.’ And if I am going to focus on productivity and high performance, I’ve got to have good people who are deeply committed and skilled to carry out that mission. Not everybody is going to be as productive as everybody else. If I am responsive to the needs of those employees or perceived as caring, I’m going to attract better people and retain those people.”

‘Organizations of the future are networks of relationships,” is how Healthy Companies’ Robert Rosen puts it. “And the relationships are what glue people together. We are really running human communities or human enterprises. The question is, how do we focus their energy, leverage the talent in there, toward a common goal? That is one of the great challenges of tomorrow’s leaders. It’s very different from running organizations in the past. Yes, product is important, and land and capital are important, but it’s the people who create and innovate and service the customer, and who come up with new ideas and learn and develop on the job.”

Companies’ workplace strategies are being given increasing weight by potential employees, the media, and the public, as a range of publications and organizations attempts to rate companies as “best places to work”—in general and for Hispanics, blacks, women, mothers, fathers, and working parents. In compiling their rankings, all of these listmakers rely heavily on assessing companies’ wage, benefit, and retirement policies, as well as their approaches to hiring, promotions, and the overall workplace environment.

Create a family atmosphere in the workplace, make the workplace a congenial, pleasant place to spend time. Communicate a sense of concern to your employees for their well-being. Create a sense of involvement in your company’s fate within the work force. To the extent that an employer can accomplish these things, the company will be more than repaid with employee loyalty, creativity, hard work, and concern for high quality.

—K EN LEHMAN,

president, sales and marketing, Fel-Pro Inc.

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