I’ve had the opportunity to talk with many business owners this year. The conversations usually end up being about employees and customers.
I talked about the difficulty finding employees and the attitude towards customers in the first two articles in this series. In this article, I talk about the entitled employee.
A woman who owns a business catering to children must have a certain ratio of adults to children present when children enter the building. The children cannot be dropped off and left without supervision. The doors cannot be opened until the employee is there to let the children in. There is a set time for the employee to arrive to work.
Well, some of the employees don’t seem to care about rules or time. So, parents and children wait outside. Sometimes they wait in the heat and rain. I asked why the owner doesn’t fire the employee and hire someone else. She told me there isn’t anyone else to hire. She has a specialized skill set needed for her employees. She will train them if needed. The result of tolerating bad behavior is you get more bad behavior and an entitled employee. I’m not saying she doesn’t have a legitimate issue, but there has to be a way to create or find a pipeline of employees who actually think personal responsibility is a good thing.
An owner of a plumbing company fired a plumber for cause. This plumber applied to other plumbing companies. The owner of one of these companies called the first owner to ask about this employee. The report, unsurprisingly, was not positive. When the second owner told the plumber he would not hire him, the plumber threw a fit. He yelled, “What do you mean you aren’t going to hire me?! There is a shortage of plumbers!” Where is the disconnect for this guy?
A young women who works for a well-known department store was given a list of tasks to perform every day. She said they did not pay her enough to do all of the work, so she rode the elevator all day. I’ve heard other stories of employees saying they weren’t paid enough to do the work they were hired to do. The question then arises: Why did you accept the job and why do you stay?
There are many more stories. This has to start in the classroom. We can’t give passing grades to students who don’t achieve a passing score. We can’t give participation trophies. We have to instill a sense of personal responsibility even if some parents aren’t. We have to reward merit. Our business community will suffer if we don’t make changes now.