I’ve been talking with some employees of another company in the past few weeks, and I”m amazed at how poorly their employer treats them. Amazed. The list of affronts is fairly substantial, and their redeeming qualities are pretty much nonexistent. It took me twenty minutes to work through the list of complaints and less than five seconds to gather up all the positive comments about the organization. Seriously.

The Super Secret Strategy

It sounds silly to say it out loud, but this has become my “secret” formula for talking with these kinds of employees: I treat them with basic human dignity. Yes, it’s amazing to behold the response I get. After being “mushroom employees” (they’re constantly kept in the dark and fed crap all the time) for so long, any0ne exhibiting the basic tenets of human decency looks like a freaking knight in shining armor.

Wow.

Again–I’m surprised I have to say this out loud. It sounds like something archaic, yet it’s still surprisingly common. Think this isn’t happening at your organization? Ask your employees. Check out each manager. Make 100% sure that there’s not a version of this playing out under your roof. You don’t want to be that company. Trust me.

Back to work!