Social Commitment Is Good Business
I am not normally a fan of McDonald's. But franchisee Greg LaPat is doing something right. During a four-month renovation of his McDonald's restaurant, he managed to retain every member of his 30-person staff.
How did he do it? Well, faced with an extended period of time in which he didn't have work for his people, he had a few options. He could have fired them and hired new people -- it's relatively easy to staff up a McDonald's -- but that would have been completely out of character. His staff have been with him an average of six years, some up to 18 years. He could have put them on furlough, not paid them and kept his fingers crossed that they would still be around four months later. He could have paid them to sit at home; no doubt some people would have appreciated the opportunity to watch 12 hours of uninterrupted CSI episodes every day.
Or he could do what he did: continue to pay them, and loan them out to social organisations like Hospice and the Red Cross.
The social organisations loved it. The people helped by the volunteers loved it. LaPat's accountant loved it -- the business got a tax break on the salaries paid towards volunteer time. Most importantly, though, is that the staff loved it.
Management guru Peter Drucker points out that, in today's knowledge society, we no longer have the physical community of old, driven by barriers to mobility. Japan spent several decades trying to develop a replacement community in the factory, one mostly driven by fear of losing your job. Drucker, though, says the true replacement community is where people feel needed, where they're able to use their talents for the good of others.
This is a feel-good story, and it may seem like fluff. The critical point, though, is that people lie at the heart of every initiative. Every learning strategy, every induction programme, every knowledge management system is driven by people with hearts, hopes, dreams and fears. Historically, businesses have shied away from discussing people in emotional terms; they're 'resources' and 'assets' and 'capacity'. Such coldhearted terminology, though, doesn't change the vibrant reality of the human beings in question -- it just masks it.
Visionary companies know this. In their book 'Built to Last', Jim Collins and Jerry Porras showed that those organisations that have stood the test of time and excelled for more than a century are united by one primary thing: they all have a clearly articulated purpose and values. What could be more 'human' than a purpose? What could be less 'resource-driven' than values?
As LaPat, Collins and Porras have proven, tapping into the genuine humanity of your 'resources' can make the difference between a workplace and a community, with outstanding, measurable results on the bottom line. This stuff isn't tree-hugger. It's integral to becoming extraordinary.
Posted by Kaila Colbin at February 20, 2007 09:09 AM
