Work Values - a difficult ask?

why cant everyone just do their jobs properly? They should put their all in whatever they do…is that too much to ask?

I know coming from a professor teaching Organizational Behaviour, this title may seem out of place. But the frustrations we all face in any situation could be highly mitigated if everyone involved did their job properly.

I guess what it means is that the value system needed at work is about doing assigned work properly. The crux is to hire and retain employees who do.

I recently gave my car for servicing - it has to be driven 60km one way for this - and unfortunately so many things went wrong. One major issue was finding out a new problem on the drive back post service - the steering vibrated on high speeds - 60 kmph + +. Internet wisdom hinted at wheel balancing which incidentally was one of the service tasks performed that day. A very strong correlation indeed-that its fair if I blame someone not doing their job properly during the wheel balancing-leading to some wrong weights probably being applied to the wheels. Another issue experienced while driving back was a stray sound coming from the boot. Next morning I opened the boot to figure it out. Turned out that the spare wheel was just loose (not bolted down) and hence moving around at high speeds causing strange sounds. clearly this step was not paid attention to by the person responsible for it- leading to dangerous situation. what if someone tightening the bolts on the live wheels did this!!

Further, when the service centre was preparing the final bills, I gave the staff a discount coupon of INR 1,500/-; they accepted and got the same acknowledged and gave the counterfoil back. when the final bill was printed I asked the staff if the discount was applied - he confirmed. I did not validate that claim - as I was already irritated due to the wait of 4 hours in the service centre. (I probably failed to do my job as a customer by not asking for clarity on the bill & discount. On the other hand someone failed to apply the coupon (which later I had to write an email requesting refund, attaching cancelled cheque etc to get the excess money refunded (and that happened in 10 days time!)

Further, In those 4 hours at the Service centre I was not asked even once if I wanted something to drink or eat. I had my younger teenage son with me, at least that should have spurred someone's caring thoughts. Nope! Clearly some/all of the staff failed to do this part of their job- Thankfully they kept water bottles for us.

To me the values at work were missed out by one or all of the employees of the service centre. It would be very easy to avoid most of my bad experiences of that day -Taking care to ensure spare wheel is bolted in, keeping tab of the discount coupon with the billing section; enquiring with customer if they have been taken care of. the steering vibration could be again. an issue of values or something beyond.

Another incident related to this happened:

Just 2 days back I was at my two wheelers' service centre for picking up my scooter after service. At the moment of payment I requested that I will pay by card, & tried tap to pay, which didn't work, then gave her the card to swipe. She did the usual entering of amount and turned over the card machine to me to enter my PIN ? Usually at this point one enters the PIN and the presses a green button to confirm the transaction. so I quickly typed my PIN and pressed the green button but the the card machine popped up the box for PIN. I entered the PIN again without thinking and then at the last moment before hitting the green button I looked at the amount. shocking!! - It was the bill amount followed by my PIN. I immediately pressed the Red button to cancel the transaction-and informed them. I then realized that the lady had passed the machine to me without moving on to the PIN screen which is how store employees always work. Imagine I had that amount approved in my card limit or due to the negligence (& my oversight, I just went ahead! The hassles of getting the large amount back to my card would be paiful. Again, I feel this is about value at work - doing tasks diligently.

I know that this may not (and cannot) be the only reason for problems at work, but I bet it is at the top of the list Both employees and their management need to be cautious in ensuring the right work values exist.