Thursday, January 27, 2005
Generosity as Part of the Business Plan
The Seattle Times has a great article on Costco and Dick's, a local restaurant chain, that do well in part by treating their employees well. I've always questioned the wisdom of companies that cut benefits and wages to the bare minimum. Treating your employees that way breeds dissatisfaction, disloyalty, and turnover.
I worked for the same local video store throughout high school. There were other jobs I could have taken but my boss paid me relatively well and allowed me to keep a very flexible schedule. As a result, I was loyal. So were at least three or four other employees who, like me, worked odd hours. In exchange for being flexible and paying slightly above-market wages, my boss got a stable workforce that was much friendlier and smarter (one of the other employees was an assistant DA working at night to pay off law school debts and the other worked on the weekends to pay for his college tuition) than what would normally be expected at a local video store.
I worked for the same local video store throughout high school. There were other jobs I could have taken but my boss paid me relatively well and allowed me to keep a very flexible schedule. As a result, I was loyal. So were at least three or four other employees who, like me, worked odd hours. In exchange for being flexible and paying slightly above-market wages, my boss got a stable workforce that was much friendlier and smarter (one of the other employees was an assistant DA working at night to pay off law school debts and the other worked on the weekends to pay for his college tuition) than what would normally be expected at a local video store.
