Employee Relations

My interest in why individuals and groups succeed had its genesis when I was 10 years old and read a front page newspaper story about a Labor Union President who was assassinated by a car bomb. I concluded that the Mafia should not be allowed to infiltrate Labor Unions and that companies who allowed this needed smarter people. Not long after that I read the book “American Communist Goals” published in 1920 and concluded that we needed to elect smarter people to work in government.

In my work in Personnel I concluded that Labor Unions were unnecessary and have come to the same conclusion with Government.  The problem has to do with no accountability, power and corruption.

I have always believed in self-reliance and freedom and I was responsible in my work to install policies. I always encouraged employees to do what they loved. This is the secret to success for individuals. I knew if I could identify what employees loved and the jobs I needed to fill were compatible, it would be a good fit.  I knew if my companies could fill their ranks with employees who were successful as individuals and were given work they loved to do, the company would continue to succeed. The policies and processes I installed were compatible with my “world-view” and they worked. I recognized that work should be fun and employees should be able to be themselves.

Employee relations deals with the relationships between employees and employers, but it also deals with the relationships between employees. Job satisfaction is not possible if you can’t stand the people you work with, even if your work is what you love to do.  I needed to install processes to deal with this. The policies I had for work rules included the employee’s responsibility to “get along” with co-workers.

I showed employees a lot of respect. I knew they were there voluntarily as independent contractors selling their time and expertise. Most of my work was with manufacturing companies. I liked the focus on production and process improvement. I found manufacturing employees to be like-minded. I believed it was management’s responsibility to provide a good environment, good co-workers and good tools.

Employees counted on me to keep the “riff-raff” out and only hire people they would enjoyed working with. We needed to keep employees safe and provide talented and productive co-workers for them to work with. When I went looking for new employees, I found the “best fit” I could find. Manufacturing workforces were melting-pots of every race, sex, age and nationality and they “got along”.

When employees got on each other’s nerves, I got a visit

At EMS we had both older and younger women doing electronics assembly in open rooms. The young single “Hoochies” liked to compare notes about their wild weekends and the “Bible-Thumping Grandmas” were offended and complained.  I called their supervisor and asked him to talk with each group and arrange them so they could “get along”. This worked and all were pleased. The best work I did was stealthy. I didn’t charge down to the assembly lab myself and they appreciated my discretion.

I believed in honoring employee privacy and handled their dilemmas confidentially. I promoted meritocracy and results. I encouraged employees to be themselves. I like continual improvement of processes and pushed for equipment and methods that would increase throughput and quality. I discouraged cliques, gossip, politicking, whining, time-wasting and political correctness. I encouraged problem identification and correction.

My job included regulatory compliance and served as the trustee of the medical and benefit plans and owned the compensation and employment processes. I designed the plans and wrote the plan documents. I used lawyers and consultants sparingly. I wrote the policies, job descriptions and department charters.

I designed performance appraisals to include Accomplishments and Difficulties Encountered and had the employee write their own appraisal to compare with their supervisor’s separate appraisal. I handled discrimination claims myself. I used tests to screen applicants.

I assigned work based on what employees did well and it was also what they enjoyed doing. I had my staff cross-trained to handle coverage. Employees in the companies could work with whoever they wanted to in my staff.

I created an environment for employees to actually enjoy their jobs and designed the corporate culture.. I encouraged humor and injected it to keep everything real. I discouraged anything that was stifling. Noted consultant J Edwards Deming advised businesses to “not take the joy out of work” and he was absolutely right. Employees had a great time doing exceptional work.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader