Who do you really work for?

Who do you really, really work for? (Sung to the tune of "what do you really, really want?")

This may seem like a strange question, but it is a serious one, with enormous implications. Common usage suggests that "Who do you work for?" is identical with "Who are you employed by?", but there is actually a big difference between the two. The latter is a straightforward, ultimately rather superficial question, with a simple one dimensional answer that can be easily corroborated; "I am employed by XYZ Organisation." "Who do you work for?" however, is open to interpretation and thus more ambiguous. It could refer to the organisation you work for, the individual you report to, your departmental head or the executive who heads up the particular division in which you are employed.

More than that though, it also works at a deeper psychological level, and so has profound personal and organisational implications.

The fact is that ultimately everyone works for themselves. Whether your work is merely your livelihood, or whether it is your vocation and the fulfilment of everything you want in life, absorbing the bulk of your passion and commitment, it is ultimately an important part of your life, and controlled by no-one but you. You choose the type of work you do and the organisation you work for and therefore you cannot deny that ultimately you work for yourself.

As I said, this has organisational implications and is something that, if you are a manager, you need to be more alert to. Why? For two reasons:

1. The recession might have created a lull in the war for talent, but the need for quality people has ultimately not diminished and thus there is a continuing need to pay greater attention to employee engagement.
2. The global competitive pressures may, if anything, have been exacerbated by the recession, which (apart from offsetting the aforementioned lull) means that people are going to play an even more role in establishing your organisation's competitive advantage.  

Consequently, you need to rethink what "employer branding" means and move away from the traditional view of 'master and servant' employment contracts. While this ought to be an inevitable consequence of the shift away from 'command and control' management, it not only necessitates a more democratic approach, but a greater adherence to the Golden Rule, "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you."As a manager or business leader, you have to start considering managing people more in the way you yourself would like to be managed.

Comments

[Derek Irvine, Globoforce]

Excellent point on the importance of retention and employee engagement - especially in a recession.

McKinsey recently said: “Companies like to promote the idea that employees are their biggest source of competitive advantage. Yet the astonishing reality is that most of them are as unprepared for the challenge of finding, motivating, and retaining capable workers as they were a decade ago. Since investments in talent intangibles are expensed rather than capitalized, managers may try to raise short-term earnings by cutting discretionary expenditures on people development. This tendency may turn into a vicious circle: a lack of talent blocks corporate growth, creating additional performance pressures that further divert the attention and thinking of executives toward the short term."

Much more on this topic available here: http://globoforce.blogspot.com/search/label/employee%20retention

[Eva22Bartlett]

All people deserve wealthy life and credit loans or just short term loan will make it much better. Because people's freedom relies on money state.

[Bay]

Eva

Loans certainly have a useful part to play in our lives. Very few of us would even have homes without lending/borrowing capabilities. The point is that borrowing with its concomitant obligation to pay interest invariably means we pay more in total than we otherwise would. Therefore by defintion it makes us less wealthy than we would otherwise be. The point is therefore to keep one's borrowing to a bare minimum.

Remember too, that wealth is so much more than our possessions and what we have in the bank! Remember, "It is the things we get for free that nothing can ever replace."