The Virgin Islands telecoms industry is the perfect model of what not to do in people management. Moreover, Jack Customer should never expect better from a business that treats its staff poorly.
Businesses that consider their people as cheap fodder — to be terrorised, kept insecure, and then discarded as easily as a bag of trash — will treat their most important resource, the customer, even worse.
The poor telecom services in the VI are a simple reflection of a Machiavellian management culture that wrongly places profits and physical assets above people.
Every day, as low-, mid-, and management-level workers in the telecom industry go to the workplace, most never know when the letter of termination will be handed to them for obscure reasons. Working for a certain telecom firm is a very insecure affair this 2014. One should pray that one’s child never ends up in that outfit.
Usually, the real reason for giving Tom Technician or Lucy the Sales Assistant the sack has nothing to do with business operations and strategy. They are sacked because Tom’s face is disliked by Mr. Boss Man — or, better still, because a crony has been promised Lucy’s sales job.
These are companies that believe Mickey Mouse marketing promotions and deceptive hype are more important than building a culture of great customer service and keeping staff who are happy and loyal to the businesses’ product, service and brand. How silly!
That is why these businesses have the fastest employee turnover rate in the territory.
HR model
These companies possess a human resources model more interested in creating workplace paranoia than in building a strong business brand and ensuring company loyalty among workers and customers.
Even within the HR departments of these businesses, the Machiavellian culture of deception runs rampant. Think of the number of personnel officers these companies sack each year. How on earth can they get their management model right if even the HR managers cannot keep their jobs?
The HR departments of these businesses are effectively staff liquidation units. The use of the term “human resources” is actually a gross overreach. They would be better off using the term “manpower control and reduction department.”
Bruce Kasanoff is a business speaker and writer who stated the following in a July 21 story in Forbes magazine: “You can’t cut your way to success if you forget that business is all about people. A firm that cuts thousands of employees to boost profits is applying a very short-term strategy. That business has forgotten that business is all about people. Those missing employees will have had numerous relationships with customers, partners and suppliers. Tons of information will disappear about those needs. As those employees depart, so will their insights and information.”
On the other hand, Mr. Kasanoff added, “When leaders realise that people are what matter most, everything else falls in line.”
Learning from NPOs
This commentator was engaged in conversation many moons ago with the president of a very well known organisation. The man was excited about his savvy in the management of processes and systems. However, the powerful executive failed to mention his most important resource: the people in his organisation.
Mr. Big Stuff would have impressed this commentator much more had his rendition been about his people and how he would get them fired up and motivated as part of his success strategy for the organisation.
Nonprofit organisations depend on sponsors, donors and volunteers for their existence. These organisations understand that their people are everything. The volunteer works for a nonprofit organisation out of a desire to contribute something of substance to the community in which he or she lives. In return, the nonprofit organisation — if it has an effective management programme — ensures that the volunteer is treated in a super special manner.
The relationship between the NPO management and the volunteer employee is based on mutual respect, understanding, consideration, and a proactive culture of mentorship and training.
The objective of most NPOs is to improve the communities within which they operate. The NPO understands that in order to impact the community with its core mission and vision, it must view the volunteer as critical to that community transformation.
In relation to people skills, purely commercial organisations should learn a thing or two from the NPO.
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