I’m working on a book; here’s why. If you have a job, you can be very secure if you are valuable enough to your employer. My book will give readers real life ways to become “layoff proof”. The other half of the book is directed to employers suggesting to them some simple ways they can develop the MVP’s who will improve the profitability of their business. If I can help even in a small way to reduce layoffs and improve some businesses’ viability, it’s worth the effort.
The economic crisis we have been enduring for over a year now has brought us to a crossroads. Businesses need to be more creative than ever before to succeed. They need to rethink much of what they “have always done.” At the same time, employees are seeing unprecedented numbers of job losses. Those who have a job, are asking themselves, “Will I be the next employee to lose my job?” The most valuable asset any business has is its people. Workers largely determine the success of any business, yet many may not be feeling so valuable in these turbulent days.
The book and its format addresses employers under one cover, and employees under the other. It’s an attempt to get both to exchange points of view. I believe that exchanging perspectives is the most powerful way under the sun to facilitate progress in anything. If you want to make giant progress we must change our frame of reference.
Bosses want top performing employees, yet he or she may not have taken the time to try to understand what their workers are most seeking in their job beyond the paycheck. We know that like air, a paycheck is necessary for life, but once you have air or the paycheck, there are many other things which effect how you feel.
Anyone can virtually insure their own job security by becoming very valuable to their company. This is done by increasing the contribution the worker makes to the long term success of the company. If you could walk in your bosses shoes and he or she could walk in yours, both of you would greatly increase the probability of getting what’s really important each of you.
We all live in our own frame of references and our personal perspectives largely define how we see the world. It’s no surprise that our astronauts come back from outer space changed individuals. They see the world in a way that’s impossible to see while their feet are on the ground. Anyone who has travelled abroad learns that the world does not revolve around the USA as most Americans assume it does.
As I was about to graduate from Officer Training School in the Air Force to become a Second Lieutenant otherwise known as a “ninety day wonder” the last stop was a visit with a tough old Sergeant who gave us the very best training we had received during the entire course.
Sarge pointed out that today we were trainees, but tomorrow we would be junior officers and as was the tradition, if we passed he would be saluting us. He further pointed out that the salute was out of respect for the gold bars we wore, not necessarily for the wearer. He further explained that non-commissioned officers like himself who earned their rank by experience, actually ran the Air Force. They largely determined the success or failure of each day’s mission.
The old sergeant went on to tell us that our individual effectiveness as officers would be determined by our ability to work with those who had the experience. If we insisted on believing and acting as if we knew everything, we would fail, and we would never earn the respect of those who we outranked. If, on the other hand, we were able to respect the experience represented by those who had been there and actually done the work, we would become successful leaders, and our careers and the Air Force would benefit from that leadership.
On graduation day, as we filed past the reviewing stand, there was the old sergeant saluting every one of us. I never forgot his message and his salute, and have tried to earn that salute by honoring the lesson he taught me about exchanging perspectives.
Trying harder won’t improve results nearly as much as exchanging perspectives between the workers and the boss. Truly, you have to walk in each other’s shoes to understand how working for mutual goals can insure that the company will survive to provide good jobs, and workers will have a much better chance of staying employed.
The current economy may have you scared to death. If you are like many Americans, you couldn’t survive long without your monthly paycheck. I know exactly how you feel. I once had a job which I needed badly. I knew that it was important to my financial well-being that I keep the job. I also knew that I was overpaid for the job I had been given. Due to a complicated set of circumstances, the job responsibilities had been lessened after the pay level was set. In other words, I was being paid more than my contributions were worth to the organization. It gets worse. Because of the job loss fear, I became less aggressive about doing the job I had been given. For the first time in my career, I was timid and unwilling to give the tasks at hand all I had. I’m not saying that I didn’t work hard and put in the time, but I just didn’t give it the benefit of my many years of experience. I could have performed better, but fear of losing the job was causing me to underperform. As soon as the first opportunity for a downsizing occurred, I was part of the downsizing. I feel particularly bad about the result of my less than stellar performance because others who worked for me were also downsized.
Every job, whether it’s sweeping the floor or being the CEO, has two levels of compensation which are appropriate for that job. The first level equals whatever the company would have to pay to get someone else to perform the job at a satisfactory level. The second level is the economic worth the organization gets from outstanding performance by the jobholder. Let’s say you are driving a truck and servicing the company’s customers. If you are making the expected number of service calls and successfully completing the calls, your pay should be at the level the company would have to pay to replace you. If, on the other hand, you are not only making your expected calls, but you are also leaving such a positive experience in the minds of your customers that they have a very favorable view of your company, then you are going above what’s expected, and you have actually raised your value to your company. Your employer might decide to raise your pay either by some merit pay for performance plan or just by recognizing you with a base increase. In either case, you will need to continue to perform at the current level or higher.
So, if you are following this example, you may say, “what about seniority?” Isn’t there a pay benefit for longevity? I would tell you that in our current competitive environment, the answer is no unless that extra experience translates into performance that helps your company compete more successfully. One only has to look at the American automotive companies whose pay practices from the plant floor to the boardroom were not supported by the same level of economic value to the companies. Companies who overpay their employees will not be able to stay in business. There is no doubt that the one significant factor in the millions of lost jobs is that, like me in the job I lost, the pay was greater than the benefit.
So if you want job security, you should strive to be underpaid; not overpaid. The book will help workers be able to gain practical ways to increase their value to their employer. Those who become MVP’s (More Valuable Players) will have great job security, and may find that the boss taps them to find out if they want a tougher, higher-paying job.
