Here is a photo of our daughter, Rachel, at her place of work. She works at a chain restaurant that specializes in chicken. She has worked there for about six months. It’s not a particularly glamorous job. It’s not something that she loves. However, she is a faithful employee. She gets to work on time and does her job well and she likes interacting with the customers.
She’s quitting.
“Well,” you think, “of course she is quitting. It is a fast food, dead end job.”
Not so fast. It’s not what you think.
Rachel wants to be independent. She wants to live on her own and not with her parents.
This is commendable.
But, she has no job skills, training or education for higher paying jobs. At present, she is stuck in minimum wage jobs. Typically, this means working for fast food franchises.
However, believe it or not, that is OK with Rachel. She doesn’t need much. She lives with two other roommates. Her basic expenses are around $500 per month – give or take. For the sake of her privacy, I won’t divulge her budget here. But, trust me, she doesn’t need much to survive and be independent.
So, doing the math, she needs about 50 hours of work at $10 an hour to cover her basic expenses, not including Federal, State and Social Security tax withholding.
That equates to between 10-15 hours per week.
Easy peasy, right?
Wrong!
Even though her manager knows that she needs this many hours each week, Rachel receives between 4-10 hours each week. She averages 7 hours.
It doesn’t take long to start going in the hole with those kinds of hours.
Rachel is a gentle soul. Knowing her, even though she has discussed this with her manager, Rachel probably hasn’t been as forceful as she needs to be. She continually gets only a couple of hours a day for only a couple of days.
And they are the most miserable shifts. Typically 11:30 to 2:00. It’s right in the middle of the day. You can’t do anything prior to your shift because there isn’t enough time. And by the time you have ended your shift and cleaned up, there isn’t much of the day left. With a shift like this, you can’t get traction for the day. And all that trouble for a measly 2 ½ hours of work?!?
The work schedule is posted each week. Rachel is able to see what kind of hours other employees are getting. Other employees have regular shifts with predictable schedules. Her hours are random, unpredictable and paltry. She and a couple of other employees are obviously at the bottom of the chain for hours and schedule.
To add insult to injury, Rachel was not as timely in asking for time off during Christmas, so she was scheduled a lot during Christmas break because all of the other employees had asked for the time to go home. She finally got the kind of hours she needed but only because it was the time of year when everyone else went home.
So, Rachel gets treated like a second-class person during regular hours and then has to buoy up the franchise during the holidays.
That’s not right.
To make matters worse, word has gotten around that her manager has been dissing her. To be fair, word got around that the manager disses all of the employees.
She calls them incompetent and lazy.
Incompetence in employees is remedied by training from management and good leadership.
As I like to say, “When you are pointing a finger at somebody, remember that three fingers are pointing back at you.”
If there is a problem, it is with leadership.
Rachel does not want to quit. New things are difficult for her. She likes the status quo and will work to maintain it. If she had her way, she would get enough hours to pay her bills and she would be happy. She would stay.
But, she has little recourse but to quit.
She must have a consistent schedule with enough hours to pay her bills.
Either that or she moves back home. Ugh! (So says Rachel, not I. I like having her around.) Bully for her that she wants to be independent. I will support her.
Management could have avoided this. But, they did not listen and don’t understand Rachel’s needs. It’s not only about the franchise. Loyalty goes both ways.
After I retired from the Army, I worked for a time for a small tech company that made simulators. The company was growing, and we needed someone that knew business and could do the menial tasks that were necessary for that growth.
For example, we wanted to have a “giveaway item” for our trade shows. Something with our brand and something that was in line with our business. This required someone to go out and brainstorm ideas, get quotes, bring it to management for a decision and then purchase the items. Once the items are purchased, they needed to be stored and distributed out to various salesmen for different events.
This was one task. There were hundreds of tasks like these that needed to be done.
So, with our collective urging, management decided to hire a new university graduate who majored in Business, Greg.
Greg was fantastic!
He was exactly what we needed. All you had to do was point him in the right direction and he would go to “automatic mode” and get things done. He was incredibly productive for the company. He remains one of the best employees with whom I have had the pleasure to serve. Management was happy.
Then, one day, “out of the blue,” Greg quit.
Management was absolutely devastated.
“How could he turn his back on us?”
“Why would he leave such a good job?”
“He has betrayed us!”
Management didn’t get it.
Greg had an undergraduate degree in Business from a prestigious university. He did well in school, and he did well in this job. He knew he was going places. He had a plan.
A person majoring in Business usually goes out after graduation and gets a menial business job for experience. They know that they will be making between $30-$40K per year. But, that’s OK. It’s part of the deal. Then, they take that experience and go to get an MBA. Then, they take their experience plus their education and make some real money.
Simple, right? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this trajectory.
In fact, management was on the same trajectory. They had gone and gotten a Business-like degree, had gone to get experience, and then had gotten an MBA.
They KNEW this trajectory! They should have KNOWN that this would be Greg’s plan!
Greg worked for us for about two years. As far as I know, he was being paid within the range I have said. And he never, ever made it a secret of what his future plans were.
I talked to Greg regularly. He is a great guy. I needed him to do stuff and he would do it. He asked me for letters of recommendation for MBA programs and I happily wrote them for him. When Greg left, I knew that he was going. I knew where he was going to school. I knew that this was part of his plan. I was happy for him.
In fact, I recommended to management, on several occasions, that they shouldn’t let this guy get away. They should have helped him with school expenses. Greg would have surely done some tasks for the company while in school. Then, management should have been anxiously anticipating his return, at a position of much greater authority with a commensurate salary!
And, oh yeah, they should have replaced Greg immediately.
Instead, management looked upon Greg as a failed “experiment.” They couldn’t see the value that he brought to the company. The energy and enthusiasm!
So, they didn’t continue it. We got no replacement. All of those wonderful things that Greg was doing either were done by somebody else or were dropped completely.
Greg has now gone on to bigger and better things. I hear from him from time to time. He is doing well and will continue to do well.
Rachel will also go on to bigger and better things. She will survive. She will overcome.
What a loss for these companies! Valuable employee resources that were squandered because management didn’t understand their basic needs and desires.
These two examples are not the exception. I believe that they are much more prevalent than we think.
For instance, Mashed.com has a great article about fast food employees that goes along this same line. You can read it here.
If you are a manager or a leader, talk to your employees. Think of them as real people who have real needs and desires. You’ll be surprised that, in many instances, you have the power to help them realize their goals. And that, in so doing, you will also be helping your bottom line. They will be happier and more productive.
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