Emmanuel QuaysonA good company is one that values it’s workers just like a precious ornament or a gem of gold. To get the best out of your workers, you must give them the best incentives as possible. Undoubtedly, scientific management has proven that the best incentives or motivation for a worker is a good remuneration and condition of service.
What you are doing as an employer if you take over a chunk of the needs of your workers aside their salaries is that you are telling them to just work and give out their best to you but you will care for their needs. It’s only an unwise worker who in the face of this gesture will not put up their best in the company.
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A theory in scientific management has asked that workers be valued as fixed assets and placed on the balance sheet of a Company. This means you don’t see your worker as an expense but an asset to the company and by that you will start looking for better ways to treat your workers so that they don’t leave your organization.
Many companies are only interested in what they can get from you and not what they can give to you. Some companies in Ghana have the reputation of rewarding workers with scanty benefits and the government is quite about it because they themselves don’t value the human resources of the country.
A Company that pays you only salary with no benefits to your family, your comfort, your future and career development is just using you. Unless of course relatively there are very good reasons to hold on to that job you must keep searching for better opportunities. You must leave that Company to a better one or better still be preparing to set up yourself.
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May be there are future prospects for the Company to do more for you than just salaries or you are waiting on a promise or something just because the Company might be a start up or struggling itself then you must leave to a better one. I think you have heard the adage, time is money. Wasting your time with that company means wasting the opportunities to have real job satisfaction elsewhere.
Don’t waste your time with that Company because of unemployment. Still be searching and pray you will find a better one. Employees too have a choice to secure their future and their families. Good Companies go beyond your salaries. I have said it several times that any company that pays you only salary is just using you.
You have the right to choose well. Not because of unemployment you will just work for any company without considering you future needs. Your time is being wasted.
Things to look out for from a company:
- Good Salary
- Canteen Service
- Family healthcare and Insurance
- Pension and Provident Fund
- Access to loans
- Career development and training programmes
- Means of transportation
- Accommodation or good rent allowance (some even provide clothing allowance)
- Good Christmas package
- Leave package etc.
And even these are just the basics. Some go the extent to do more depending on the company. If these things are not there in the company you are working, keep searching until you find one or better still be preparing to set up yourself. And if you find such companies too, give your best to them by way of performance. You are working for the future of the company and the company must take care of your future too.
A Job is a two-way street
Sometimes I go for job interviews and one question that keeps popping up is, it looks like you don’t stay in one place on your CV. I always tell them, I have not found the right place yet. And then, they go on to ask, what is the right place for you and I tell them, the right place is where the company makes an impact on my life and I can also make an impact on theirs too. I continue by saying, as I work for a company I believe they are studying my performance before confirmation, as they are doing that, I am also studying if the company is good for me .
Besides, I tell them I am a professional and I am selling my services so I sell it to the company that will treat me well and if I get there and satisfied with the treatment I stay but if not, nothing in the world stops me from changing jobs. As an employee you must look for job satisfaction in the company you are working for. The relationship between employees and employers is not a master-slave relationship but one of mutual interest, you better my life, I better your company, it’s as simple as that.
Mostly you will find out that the companies that have very terrible conditions of service, they stress you the most because their mind is let’s use them and squeeze out all the energy in them and leave them dry. Companies that also have age ceiling are also very exploitative. What has age got to do with what a person can do unless the work involves manpower. If they want to squeeze all your youthful strength, then they go in for age limit.
Unless there is, you have no contract or obligation to work with a particular Company for a particular period, it’s entirely your choice to move or to stay. Being with a company for long number of years does not in anyway show you are a faithful employee, it’s a big lie from the pit hell. It’s either you are comfortable there or you yourself you don’t have anywhere to go because you did not develop yourself or the company did not allow you to develop.
A company that will not allow you to school or transfers you when they realize you are taking up a course somewhere, just leave that company. It’s a very bad company. A company that does not have your future at heart is not a company worth dying for. The fact that people have worked there for ten, twenty, thirty years doesn’t mean you should do same if conditions are not right for you.
You must move to a different company, if that place too is not good for you, you keep on moving. Life is not stagnant, it’s all about movements. I once said this to an HRM and she was shocked. Later she called me back for the job and told me, young man you are very brave and confident and I like how you think.
She said infact the truth is as a young professional, it is not good for you to remain in one job for a long time, you must keep on moving to acquire as much experience as possible. When you have acquired enough experience as you want then you can decide to stay at one place and a good place that should be.
I told her well, I didn’t read about that anywhere but by my personal judgement, I knew that was the right thing to do. Maintain the worker and provide his needs and he will have no reason to move out again. You don’t treat your employees badly and expect them to stay with you forever or be faithful throughout. Some will stay but others will leave.
Better Moving than Sorry
You must keep on moving till you find the best you are looking for. If you have to suffer a little while to search for the right job, so be it. Employers can read this and decide otherwise, I really don’t care but I have made my stands absolutely clear on this matter and the truth must be told. I don’t see the sense in an employee moving to a different company if he realise his future is secured with your company and why won’t you want him to tie his future to your company?
Don’t compare your company to the lesser bad ones, compare your company to the good ones too out there that are doing the right things and taking good care of their staff. Some even pay for you to go and study abroad if they realise you are good and as for you, you want to use the worker till he dies and you even have no funeral benefit for him and his family.
Google pays half of your salary for 10 years to your spouse and $1,000 every month to your children for their upkeep if you die. It is better to remain unemployed and fight hard to get a good job than for you to use all your time and energy for companies that use you and dump you.
Can you imagine a Company once told a close relative of mine to resign and reapply after she has delivered. Do you call this kind of organisation, one to die for? If your company thinks about you and have you at heart, you do same but if they mistreat you and their condition of service is that of a slave, my brother, my sister, resign to a better place and secure your future and that of your family.
As of today some companies are still struggling to pay the Social Security for their employees so you will ask yourself what will the employee retire on? Those of us who are not so interested in politics so we can as well loot the public purse and retire well, how do you expect us to cope with life if we retire?
The government and labour commission needs to look at these matters on company to company basis and ensure that the future of employees and their families are catered for not just written laws that no one supervises or not even appropriately applied to the interest of the workers.
Writer: Emmanuel Quayson
Dada Joe
