If "No One Wants To Work," Why Are Hiring Managers Still So Picky?
Last Thursday night, I was sitting at a bar near my house waiting for some guys to come watch the Bears game with me. The GM of the bar/restaurant I was sitting at came out of the kitchen, harried, wearing a hairnet. I asked him, “What are you doing back there?” He said, “Well, in the last week, I had two people quit and I fired two people, so now I have to cook as well.” I asked what their hourly for cooks was. Apparently cooks start at $11 at this place. That’s probably why they quit; at more-established venues, I know cooks who start at $17. But if people are already quitting and the GM has a hairnet on, why are you firing people?
At the same time, on Friday I was going to launch a small contract with a place called Sonata Learning, out of Chicago. One of their people sent me a LastPass invite, which didn’t seem to work (I have never had success with LastPass, FYI). I tried most of Friday morning into about 2pm Friday to make this log-in stuff work, and I couldn’t. This morning, I was told “Maybe this won’t work out for either of us.” Ha. Over a password? OK.
To go along with the COVID / work ethic / free money narrative, a big favorite (esp. of conservative media) in late 2020 and mid-2021 was “No one wants to work anymore.”
That was somewhat, but not entirely, true. The reality is most people don’t per SE want to work, but they have to work because they have other commitments and bills they need to meet, right? They would prefer to work for a place that pays fairly, trains halfway-decent, provides opportunities for growth, and is respectful. Unfortunately, most places aren’t that. Hourly pay comes in big here. If you are getting $11 as a cook and the management is terrible, why not go get $20 from a gas station where maybe the management is better and every eight hours, you’ll have $72 more?
The real issue, then, is: people generally don't want to pay fairly.
We want to work for places that are functional. We will work for other places, because we need to make our ends meet.
I can say the same about one place I’ve been bartending (out of 3–4 places). The Assistant GM of this place was burned by quitting, both among bartenders and cooks and servers. So, she over-hired on all fronts (which is good for the economy, I suppose). But as a result, each of us gets 1–2 shifts a week, and I’m sure that's on the lower end for me because I was trained quickly and still have areas for growth. So a few veterans might be getting 5–6 shifts a week, and I’m getting 1–2, but meanwhile the narrative everywhere is “We can’t find good people” or “We can’t keep good people.”
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This is not super complicated. All you need to do is:
If you do 2.2 of those four things, you will be able to retain more than you lose.
If you’re picky and want to fire in a time of quitting, that is completely your right — no one should per SE tolerate bad performance, no — but you also need to deal with the repercussions of firing alongside quitting, as opposed to just taking the people you were intending to fire and training them to be better at their jobs.
It’s hard to “have it both ways.” If you have labor concerns, and you’re not willing to actively train, you can try some mix of complaining about the labor market and firing based on 1–2 offenses, but that doesn’t solve your labor concerns. If you’re willing to train, or willing to look past a day of password mess-ups online, you can probably reduce your labor concerns. But the secret sauce is training, leading with empathy, and generally not being an asshole. If you don’t do those things, your labor concerns will always be there.
Well, until automation scales, right?
Music Teacher, Milano's Music
5 个月I would like to add in on this point. Corporate structures seem to have become obsessed with data. More then ever employees are being held to standards that chip away at their ambition and often impact their mental well-being. If quotas are almost impossible to meet, then why try? Also, the micro-managing has gotten out of control. Now every keystroke and every mile traveled on the job is tracked. Employees are told the must always be efficient, sometimes sacrificing customer service to do so. One example is the grocery store I use, one of the clerks confided in me that she had to stand in a specific spot to monitor all the self-checkouts and they didn't want her to move (presumably to prevent theft). She told me, it didn't matter anyway because she was too short to see all the checkouts from that spot. Another example is with a close friend who works for a government agency. He has to travel and carries a hand-held device that tracks his movement. A few months back he got in trouble for standing in a spot an extra 5 minutes. That was 5 minutes he was helping a customer find his merchandise. Instead of being thanked, he was criticized. Will someone please recognize employees generally want to do well at their work
It's just me
5 个月Because someone is lying, of which that skill is important at certain levels of management and above.