Have Corporations Transferred an Unfair Amount of Risk to the Employees?
I recently had the pleasure of hearing David Altig, Senior Vice President and Director of Research, for the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta speak on the economy. He put forth two very intriguing hypotheses on the current job situation.
1. Corporate America kicks their employees to the curb having transferred an unfair amount of risk to their employees.
2. Americans work smarter being able to do more with less.
He based his hypotheses on research he had conducted of other industrialized nations during this recession and noted that the U.S. economy had suffered the least and at the same time incurred the highest unemployment rate. During the same period U.S. production had accelerated where in every other instance, production had dropped with the drop in labor force.
His conclusion is that we are seeing a faster than normal transition in the U.S. in skilled versus unskilled labor pools. The labor force in America is going to look very different in this recovery than in past history. While I agree with this statement, I am not so quick to dismiss his first hypothesis.
I believe we have seen a dehumanizing of the labor force over the past 15 years. I believe both sides are to blame. Executives in their pursuit of short term gains, in some cases pure greed, have looked at the labor force as just another tool on the line, one that can quickly be trimmed if need be. The labor force on the other hand has become somewhat complacent and allowed attitudes of entitlement to creep in to their performance levels. Gone are the days of my father and grandfather where they worked over 30 years for the same company and took pride in their work, craftsmanship and employer. Right, wrong or indifferent, much of their identity came from who they worked for.
We have found a new market of solopreneurs that we are helping to get started in new business ventures. Helping them build businesses for the first time. Many of these men and women are in their late 40′s to early 50′s. We are committed to helping them succeed and build companies that deliver great services and products with integrity. At the same time I can’t help but think it didn’t have to be this way. Opening up a new business should be out of choice not a forced survival endeavor.
At AmeriStride we are striving to help small and medium businesses capitalize on this oversight by corporate America. Today’s available talented work force is looking for balance. They want to join a company that is on a mission, that holds similar values to what they value. A company that stands for something greater than the almighty dollar, where responsibility is shared throughout the ranks, where rewards are shared proportionately to the risk taken and no one goes unaccountable.
By: Terry L. Massey