PART2Why do bosses treat their employees like shit?!?

In the previous post “Why do bosses treat their employees like shit?!?” I didn’t have the answer to why a lot of bosses treat their employees like shit. In this second part, I would like to share what could be the answer to that question. Again you may agree or disagree, but feel free to share your thought.

To answer the question, let me tell you why I put up Richard Branson’s photo in the first post. A few years back when I used to live in Sydney Australia, I had a chance to have a chat with one of Virgin Music’s staff about his big boss (at that time, Richard Branson still owned Virgin Music).

Long before I met that guy, I heard stories about Richard Branson. One of the stories is about his principle in treating his employees. He believes that in order a company can be successful; a company needs to make sure that their employees are happy working for their bosses. His logic is very simple, if the staffs are happy, they will work to their maximum capacity for the company they work for, therefore the result will be a good one. It ain’t rocket science guys. He also knows that the only way to make sure that happens is by treating his employees’ right. In fact if I’m not mistaken, he will put his staffs before his customers.

With this knowledge, I made an assumption of why some bosses don’t do the same like Richard Branson even after a few bad experiences with their staff leaving. I think the answer is simple, they simply don’t understand why it is very important to keep their staff happy (or they never thought about it that way).

The second question is why they don’t learn from past mistakes? I can see it as a mistake, but they’ve never seen it as a mistake (simply because they don’t realize that what they’re doing is wrong). They simply put the wrong in their staff (because most people like to blame others than themselves). So I guess it’s all about perception. How we see things.

If you or the people you know keep losing good employees, let see it from a different angle. Let ask ourselves a question, “what could I have done better?”.

Why do bosses treat their employees like shit?!?

I don’t have the answer to that question. If you do have the answer to that question, feel free to drop me the answer. This is just a story of what’s happening in the world we live in. I need to make it clear that what I mean here is not how corporate treat their employees, but how a boss as a person is treating their employees.

This thought came to me when I first moved back to Indonesia which was 9 months ago after living in Australia for 10 years. I was “fortunate” enough to see that there are a lot of people treat their employees in a really bad way. What I mean by bad way is that they really get treated like shit.

Here in Indonesia, most middle up class family has servants. Some of them get treated well (one of my servant has worked for our family for 20 years, so I guess we treat her right), but some has to coped with verbal abuse (yes, swear words) and physical abuse every day.

Everyone has a limit. Once the employee can’t take it anymore, he or she will quit. Guess what happens next? I hear the same people who abuse their servant, complain how life is difficult without having a servant. Naturally they look for a replacement.

This is the part that I don’t get. Are you ready for this? Here we go, once they find a replacement, they start the old habit again, they abuse their new servant. They go back to square one. Why the f**k people do this? Are they f**king stupid? No, they’re not, because a lot of them are rich and running successful business (among other things that prove that they’re not an idiot). This is why I wonder why some bosses treat their employees like shit.

Naturally the same thing happens all over again, and again and again. I really hope these people learn from their mistakes, not only for the sake of their live, but also for the sake of their future employees.

The same thing applies to the big boys (corporate) out there. We have to understand that we need our employees regardless of their job title. They can be a CEO, manager, salesperson, servant or a driver, we need these people. Think about it for a while, what if your main salesperson leaves your company, sales will drop; company’s income will go down. I don’t think any of us want this to happen.

There is no different between a servant and a sales champion. We need these people! We probably don’t think about servant as much as our sales champion, because a servant doesn’t really affect your company financially. However he/she does affect your personal live.

Saying all that, we need to keep the balance between treating our employee right and taking a tough decision from time to time. I’m not telling you to treat your worst sales people or your servants who you caught stealing right. Obviously we can’t keep them as employees. What’s fair is fair.

This is just a thought by the way. In no mean I want to teach anyone how to run their business or life. You may agree or disagree with me (feel free to drop an opinion). Do I treat my employee right? Yes I do (I asked all my employees). Do you?