Workplace Issues

By the year 2015, 54 percent of contracting officers will be eligible to retire from the federal government. But it's not only the government that will lose senior employees.

All Baby Boomers, the large population bubble of people born between 1946 and 1964, will soon be eligible to retire. Among them are people who are sick and tired of reporting to miscreant bosses who routinely get away with their misdeeds. These retirees will be relieved to leave workplaces riddled with bad bosses; they're so soured that it's unlikely they'll want to work in anyone else's enterprise ever again.

But this demographic group is also composed of a bunch of bad bosses. So, if baby-boomer bad bosses retire, will the US workplace become healthy for younger employees? No, absolutely not. Why not? Because personality types are the product of both genetics and experience. Greed, insecurity and jealously, the most likely root cause of bad-boss behavior, are not exclusive to any particular age group. The same personality types continually emerge, even in new generations.

A scientific word describes this phenomenon: autopoiesis. The word comes from biology, from the study of living cells that continually replicate themselves to sustain the life of the organism. It is also used in systems theory to describe what happens in organizations. Organizations continue to replicate themselves and function as always as long as no catastrophic event forces them to change. The military and the postal service are examples of organizations that continue to function pretty much as they always have; they existed when you were a kid and they still exist today although different people work there now—uniforms and equipment may have changed, but these organizations still function basically as they always have.

So a catastrophic event would have to occur to change bad boss behavior in the workplace--higher-level managers would have to stop replicating themselves.

Here's something that's likely to raise your blood pressure, so make sure you take your meds before reading on.

"In many cases, raises are dictated by employment contracts or other compensation practices that have nothing to do with an executive's job performance…

"Executive employment contracts -- which usually range from one to three years -- often guarantee raises in salary or set a "minimum" bonus."

Didn't we just read last week that the Bush administration wants to give government bosses the power to lower the base pay of government workers based on performance? (See July 6 entry below, and this article.)

Do we all live in the same country? How can that be happening to workers while this is happening to executives:

"From 2003 to 2005, the median increase in cash compensation among the executives studied was 18.7 percent. Cash compensation is the executive's salary and bonus. The median is the midpoint, with half higher and half lower.

"When other forms of compensation are included, such as stock options, benefits and other forms of long-term compensation, the median increase was 23.5 percent over that time."

Now why would executives get such big raises when we read on July 3 that money is irrelevant to happiness? (See July 3 post below and this article.)

This contrast brings to mind a bit of history, something that began in France back in 1789. Oh, but we're a democracy—that explains the difference, right?

Here's a good example of what happens when people who don't really know what goes on in the workplace try to give advice (or make laws) about workplace issues: they think job evaluations are fair.

Job evaluations, when administered appropriately, are conducted frequently enough to help employees perform their jobs well. The intent is to develop employees so they will have successfully accomplished their tasks and advanced the organization's goals by the end of the year. But most managers in hierarchies don't like managing people—they find it boring and unrewarding. So they don't do it. And they get away with not doing it because their managers hate it, too, so they don't manage the managers.

At the very last minute, managers sequester themselves in their offices for the dreaded annual exercise of writing job evaluations. Because they haven't managed their employees all year long, they have no information to summarize about each employee's achievements—so they make it up. When evaluations are used to determine bonuses, bad bosses give good evaluations to their buddies and bad evaluations to the people they don't like—regardless of actual performance.

Base-salary structures have minimized the effect of this favoritism because annual adjustments have been associated with the position—to keep it competitive with similar positions at other employing organizations. Base salaries enable organizations to compete in hiring the best talent by offering comparable salaries to new hires. But now, bad bosses may be getting more power to abuse government employees—a way to discourage good employees who do not collude with their boss's dysfunction by not just withholding raises, but by lowering the base-salary for comparable positions to force compliance with a bad boss's personal agenda.

It's easy to think that it makes sense to pay people less if they are not performing well in their jobs; it even sounds logical. And in a system of integrity, it might work. But in a system with no checks and balances—in which no one is minding the store, in which managers aren't managing managers to make sure they're doing the job of developing employees—in a hierarchical system in the United States, this is just one more nail in the coffin of workplace justice.

The big issue in the minimum wage debate seems to be a question about where the money is going to come from to pay an additional $2.10 per hour to minimum wage earners. Basically, from a where-does-the-money-come-from perspective, there are only three types of businesses:

1. Entrepreneurships – the money comes from the owner(s) or increased prices to consumers for products and services, so either the owner or the consumer pays. If the owner pays, he takes a cut in pay. If the owner makes the consumer pay, the owner's competitors could keep their prices low and put the owner out of business—unless the owner is smart enough to come up with innovations consumers will buy.

2. Corporations – the money comes from investors or increased prices to consumers for products and services, so either the investor or the consumer pays. If corporate management makes investors pay by lowering stock earnings from, then stockholders might pull their money out of the business and run—putting the corporation at risk of going out of business. If corporate management makes the consumer pay, competitors could keep their prices low and put the corporation out of business, unless management is smart enough to come up with innovations consumers will buy. Or, highly paid management could take a cut in pay.

3. Non-profit organizations – the money comes from benefactors and contributors. If management asks the benefactors and contributors for more, they may stop contributing and put the organization out of business. Their consumers are often minimum-wage earners who go to those organizations because they can't afford to pay for services. Or, highly paid non-profit executives could take a cut in pay.

Then there's government – the money comes from taxpayers. If Congress asks taxpayers to pay more to fund their salary increase, we do. It's not really a request; it's automatic—the money is taken from us. No one gives us a ballot that says:

"Check here to have your tax increase directed to minimum wage earners" or

"Check here to have your tax increase directed to the salaries of members of Congress who already get paid more than 15% times the amount minimum wage earners get paid."

Perhaps there is a long term strategy, though. Could it be that by continually raising taxes and reducing salaries, benefits and lucrative job opportunities for American citizens, we might eventually become happy to work for a fixed, minimum wage? What's so good about that? It could solve the illegal immigration problem! American citizens could force illegal immigrants of our job market! That would be good because illegal immigrants don't pay taxes that Congressional members' can add to their salaries—so Congress can finally begin to take as much in salary as entrepreneurs and top-level managers at corporations and non-profit organizations without having to produce anything, compete in the economic market or innovate!

It 's always good to look at the big picture.