They don't pay me enough to care.

Recently my wife ordered an iced tea from a local fast food restaurant. Nothing out of the ordinary during the ordering process.?

Wait in a long drive thru line and enjoy your patience being thoroughly tested.?

Speak extra loudly into a wall-sized menu.?

Repeat your order even more extra loudly into a wall-sized menu.?

Inch forward on the fast food assembly line.?

Wait for the double door windows to snap open.?

As the worker opened the window and handed Jamie the drink, she noticed something was wrong. The cup he handed her was a small and she ordered a large iced tea (we have four kids…so maximum caffeine is a must). No problem. Jamie politely told the worker that she ordered a large and handed the cup back to him.??

That's when things got interesting.?

He took the cup from her and without saying a word, disappeared back into the fast food restaurant as the double windows closed behind him. A minute later the windows swung back open and he handed her the iced tea. Without missing a beat, and without any emotion, he looked at her and dropped a bombshell statement:

“They don’t pay me enough to care.”

He said nothing else and Jamie pulled away in stunned silence after paying for her order. At that moment, a simple iced tea order became a mini case study in what so many employees experience in so many workplaces. This worker was just willing to talk about it openly…to a complete stranger…in a fast food drive through…with another customer getting ready to interact with him…and another…and another.?

“THEY DON’T pay me enough to CARE.”

In a simple, yet vivid way, this fast food worker articulated what the data says is so pervasive about trust in the workplace today: the further away an employee is from being a decision maker or influencer in an organization, the more they will distrust the leaders and the organization.?

If employees don’t have trust in their leaders or their organizations, their level of loyalty will only be based on the value they are receiving from the employer. When there is a complete absence of trust, the value derived is transactional. The value is derived from the hourly rate that is paid. Then, every disgruntled customer, every stressful interaction with a manager, every shift that drags on is measured up against the paycheck received every two weeks. Ultimately this is not sustainable because as distrust is cultivated, the following will happen:

• Job satisfaction will continue to decrease
• Employee loyalty will continue to decrease
• The employees willingness to refer people to the company will decrease
• The employee’s willingness to work hard will decrease
• The gap in perception of trustworthiness between the leader and the worker will continue to be a chasm…especially if profits for the company are acceptable to the leader.?

What was most striking to me about this worker’s declaration of distrust was that because the only criteria for satisfaction in his job was based on his hourly rate, his attitude toward the company turned into damaging behavior for the brand.?

He became a very effective marketing manager of one.?

During the most important activity of any organization, a personal interaction with the customer, his distrust in the company sowed a seed of distrust in the customer. The lack of care that he was experiencing translated into a lack of care for the company and a lack of care for the customer. At its core, this is trust breaking behavior. And this behavior at scale is incredibly costly for an organization.?

And…the solution to this is to not just pay the worker more. ONLY paying workers more is ultimately incomplete. The company must take stock in what is happening during the most critical interactions and take action in building...or establishing for the first time...trust.?