Slashdot Mirror
The World's Most Modern Management System
NeoPrime writes "CNN has a story
about an Indian IT outsourcing firm HCL Technologies, whose president feels
that 'employees come first and customers second.' He further feels
that every employee should 'rate their boss, their boss' boss, and any
three other company managers they choose, on 18 questions using a 1-5 scale.
There is even an electronic ticket system to flag anything they
think requires action in the company.
The company president explains, 'It can be I have a problem with
my bonus, or My seat is not working, or My boss
sucks.' This ticket is then routed to a manager for resolution. The article's argument: India has the most modern management system in the world."
This sounds like a PR stunt.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
In an age when service is replacing manufacturing as the dominant segment of the 1st world economies, it only makes sense to see radical initiatives in the development of a corporation's human capital. Just as having the best factories enabled traditional industrial success, we might see some competition among service companies as to the development of their critical resource, the employee.
NOTE: This would presumably apply first to profit generators like consultants and specialists, as opposed to back-office support staff. Still, it's a step forward...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I guess. But does it improve productivity? Encourage employee retention? Perhaps most importantly, do customers see the difference?
Remember the Red Stapler.
Any system which fails to account for the chaos of human interaction and people running amock with their own personal agendas can hardly be called effective, never mind modern.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
People work for money, but they also work where there hearts and minds are. Companies have to make sufficient returns to stay in business, or no one has a job.
The corporate mentality in the 'west' mandates return on shareholder assets. What's missing is that employees are an organization's best assets.
That said, the propaganda machines are simply turning out fodder for an easily duped press. Twenty years ago, Japanese companies were the best run, and we know the end of that story: stagnation and dissatisfaction at virtually all levels, and an economy full of bad debt.
India has a long way to go, as do we all. But calling then 'best' in the context of the article is to succumb to a clever marketing person's pitch to a gullible editor. Go there and find the truth. It's not what's described.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
You might look at it in a different way: the employee in this case is really the _product_. All his customers need is a good experience for *their* customers, and of course low prices.
AC: Only on slashdot... could the sentence "My hovercraft is full of eels." be moderated "+4, Insightful
I'd enter this industry just to compete with this knucklehead. Imagine getting to come in with your sales team after the first team just told the prospect that their needs are not your companies' top priority. Buh-bye.
You want other players in other industries where employees come first and customers come second? Try GM in the auto industry, or United in the airline industry. Do they make/do anything you would willing buy? Didn't think so.
I can remember TV shows from the 80's that showed a Japanese factory worker alone in a room and armed with a club. The worker would pound on a management, effigy figure with his club. The worker's venting aggression on the effigy management figure was supposedly one of the underlying secrets to the success of Japanese businesses in the international market place.
From suggestion boxes to round tables it's pretty much all been tried in one form or another. Most likely the factors that make for successful operations are myriad and too complex to ever be set in stone.
just my loose change
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Seems like one of the least effective uses of technology would be to automate this kind of interpersonal relationship (leader/follower). There's no substitute for in person, face to face discussion of problems. This kind of system attempts to quantify and abstract things that simply don't lend themselves to such treatment. This proposed system smacks of fear of conflict and inability to mediate such conflict effectively. Maybe it's a cultural thing (India still does have some notion of caste system pervading their culture I believe) - but I can't see this solution being effective as a management strategy. Perhaps it will be used as a springboard to further exploration of problem relationships, that may not have been brought to light (in which case you'll have to engage in conversation anyway so you've not really bought anything), but to me it actually looks like another excuse for managers to become less involved in their relationship with those they supervise. "You had a chance to fill out the survey and there were no problems detected - so it's not my fault that you're unhappy." If the goal is to further treat your workers as cogs in a machine, and you equate that kind of functioning to efficiency, I guess this would make you happy. But I don't see it as a great way to manage actual human beings. I mean seriously - can you imagine trying to manage other interpersonal relationships this way? Give your significant other a fifteen item ranking survey on your satisfaction with your relationship with little to no extra explanation - let me know how that goes. I hazard to guess either you lie in your rankings, or you're going to have some serious 'splainin to do.
When I've got a problem with someone, I go talk to them. If I want to know if people have problems, I go talk to them. It's the most efficient, effecive way of carrying out interpersonal relationships.
Southwest Airlines Chairman Herb Kelleher has said before that employees come first, and customers follow next. This is mentioned on their press bibliography page under "LUV in the air". Today they have the highest market capitalization of any airline in the world and one of the highest profit margins as well. They are the third largest airline in the world in terms of passengers carried. 'Nuff said.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
A ticket can only be closed by the originating employee.
I dare them to implement tickets that can only be closed by the customer.
Hoo boy. Someone comes in off the street to do phone drone work, and they can hang a manager up indefintely because they don't like the food in sector 24?
Also according to TFA the managers are pretty well vetted & trained, and then have to put up with every whine from a new hire? Think of the hire you've seen that punched a hole in your least expectations in record time and is the low water mark of your work experience - now hand them a pile of tickets that they can use to complain about anything. Anything. Endlessly. And I mean anything. And did I mention endlessly? Is this annoying yet? How about now? Huh? Hello?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
What you probably fail to realize if that the chef (and the waiter you later mention) are in what's known as a "service organization" and as such their entire goal should be to "serve" their customers. Unfortunately your attitude is not at all uncommon; it's really leading to the decline of society in a number of subtle but important ways, but I digress.
Yes, some customers are morons, who don't know any better, and they would actually appreciate you letting them know that this is really not what you recommend. But others (non-morons) might make the same well-done request for non culinary reasons. Very few of these non-morons would be insulted if you gave an unsolicited recommendation that rarer is better, so that part is fine; and yet they may still decline to accept your recommendation and request it well-done anyway.
Now, your precious talents are not being wasted, and you as the chef have no place taking out your pent-up frustrations on your customers. Use your vast talents to create the best damn well-done steak you can. Be proud of your ability to improvise under adverse conditions. You are there to serve your customers, not to showboat as a whining elitist.
Yes, there are pretentious snobs who think this crappy service attitude adds a degree of class to the establishment. And the customers who prefer the same may even be willing to pay a premium for it. But ultimately this is a self-defeating attitude, as you will eventually lose sight of the fact that customers are occasionally (not always) right, and if you can't respectfully disagree, you're not going to be in business very long.
There are many "great chefs" in the IT industry (and elsewhere) ready to take your place, many of whom can actually be bothered to care about their customers more than themselves.
You want other players in other industries where employees come first and customers come second? Try GM in the auto industry, or United in the airline industry. Do they make/do anything you would willing buy? Didn't think so.
:)
Your examples are unions, i.e. worst-case examples of management/employee relationships. How about Costco or Southwest Airlines? Both of those actually said that they put employees ahead of customers (pretty much preventing a union from ever forming). And yes, they do make/sell/provide things that I willingly buy.
Personally, as an entrepreneur, I'm sold on the idea. My customer service employee knows that if there's a disagreement between him and a customer, I'm going to go to bat for him. The customers are almost always satisfied, possibly because he's happier and more comfortable in his job. Also he's more likely to be here in next year or five, which costs me a LOT less in training and recruiting.
I'd enter this industry just to compete with this knucklehead. Imagine getting to come in with your sales team after the first team just told the prospect that their needs are not your companies' top priority. Buh-bye.
If my sales team actually got to the point of telling a customer this, you're more than welcome to them. As in: we just kicked them to the curb because we weren't getting any value from the relationship and we're hoping that a competitor will get saddled with them while we spend our time and effort on more profitable relationships. We might even provide some sales intel to help get you the sale
Regards,
Ross
I was surprised as well. My first reaction was that it sounds great and I wish my company were more like that. Then I went to the comments, and at least 90% of them are negative. One thing I wonder if people aren't thinking about is corporate culture. If you had a company doing this, and the culture was such that abusing the system just "wasn't done" and tickets were taken seriously, then I see no reason why it couldn't work. It would definitely rely on such a culture, though. Just the IT system without the culture to back it up would fail miserably, and I'm wondering if that's what all the naysayers are assuming: typical US corporate culture, with a trouble ticket system laid on top of it. Obviously that wouldn't work, but that MIGHT not be what's going on in this case.
It sounds a bit like the /. moderation system.
-- QED