Businesses owe their employees – the investors of years – the same consideration that they owe their investors of capital. Discuss!
However, before you do, you might like to read the blog "What do we owe an employee?"
This certainly is an interesting read and provides much food for thought. Is considering employees just some old-fashioned, liberal mumbo-jumbo that the massive culling of jobs we are currently witnessing gives lie to, or does it point to some old fashioned values that need to be restored?
As I said in my comment on the blog, perhaps the whole employee concept is outdated. While people have worked for reward for centuries, Gary Hamel's thought-provoking book, The Future of Management, states that the concept of an employee as we have come to know it is very much a 20th century phenomenon. Perhaps then it is one whose purpose has served its time.
Certainly the bonds that have cemented the employee relationship appear to be breaking. Neither party delivers the loyalty intrinsically expected of the other, while employee engagement statistics indicate that people are only giving a small part of what they could be. So maybe it is time for new solutions. And maybe my solution – valuing people as human assets, with its concomitant offerings – does offer a new way forward: a way of rebuilding the trust that will allow individual and organisation alike to go much further towards respectively maximising their potential, and creating greater happiness at work. I would certainly like to think so, but I would be most interested in your thoughts.