FOUR:
Employees Are Engaged As Individuals

This proposition is offered as a replacement for the old maxim: “Treat Employees Consistently.”

Before we knew were moving into the Information Age, the consumerism movement in America forced a radical change on Industrial Age businesses. These enterprises had matured as the masters of supply, providing identical products to sheep-like mass markets. In the 1970’s, emerging world markets gave consumers a true choice; we learned that quality did not necessarily cost more (maybe less) and that it was possible to get products as we wanted them, when we wanted them. American consumers began buying their cars and other products from other countries. The industrial enterprises that survived learned that they were servants to their customers and not masters. The ones that have thrived learned to customize – even custom make – products their customers wanted, and to make the experience of doing business with them a real pleasure. When 800 numbers and the Internet came along, the new way of doing business was sealed: customers were now freed from local suppliers and could buy just as easily anyplace in the world.

The End of the Age of Policy. In the previous era, a company in conflict with a customer could end most any dispute with: “It’s our policy.” That meant, “You should give up now because we treat all customers the same way. You have no choice.” Customers no longer stand for that… they find new suppliers.

Only the most clever and aggressive new employees (who learned the lesson as consumers) will no longer stand for “consistent” treatment,– even if it’s policy – when it fails to meet their needs. They will find new employers.

Business enterprises are learning to engage customers as individuals. We’re now just beginning to learn to treat employees the same way. It is this motive that drives some Information Age businesses to delight the people who work there with all those incredibly outrageous benefits.

We can no longer treat consumers as a mass market, whose desires and needs can be averaged and only generally addressed. Nor can we apply the old Industrial Age standards of treatment to the labor market. There is no mass labor market. Increasingly, employees are making independent, individual decisions about what they require from their employers. And, the very best of your knowledge workers can find employers who respond to their requirements. How? On the Internet, of course!

But, It’s Against the Law! American employment law is hopelessly archaic. In many aspects, it requires employers to act as fair “masters,” caring for the child-like, unsophisticated people who labor in their shops. The law was written for the mass labor market, which no longer exists.

Just as laws follow – rather than lead – real social change, businesses that only follow these antiquated, paternalistic employment laws will also follow their innovative competitors into the new millennium.