This morning as I was reading my Bible and various books, I had several different thoughts. These thoughts are easily grouped into two topics: What good commerce looks like and should be emulated, and bad commerce that should be changed.
The first group involves good commerce. There is a privately held Software Company named SAS which has an employee turnover rate of 2.6%, when compared to the industry standard of 22%, is quite impressive. Jim Goodnight, who is the CEO, has a motto “Treat employees as if they make a difference and they will.” To me this is a great example of how its business and personal. Employees are treated well, who in turn treat customers well, who in turn treat the company well.
Contrast that with a local company that seems to have a horrible management team. A major change was announced on a Friday not allowing any discussion about why, etc. The employees who were informed of this major change fell into two camps, those that liked the change and those that were devastated by the change. The individuals most affected by this change were the employees that had been with the company over 20 years. The options provided to these employees really were horrible, and the way these changes were communicated was horrible. I don’t know what the turnover rate for this company is, but it must be pretty high. Several employees have quit recently, and the company has been sued several times by disgruntled employees.
Jeffery Pfeffer writes that a company’s employees are its competitive advantage. It seems that Jim Goodnight understands this concept, while this other company does not. How long will this second company last? It seems to be hemorrhaging customers. Everyday this company gets letters of complaint. I don’t think this company has the will to change, and is only still is business due to the fact of its size. But the size is shrinking. Eventually the fixed costs will be too great to maintain desired profitability. I predict this company will fail.