The Commitment Problem - Part 2

If your employees are not committed - to your company, to your cause, to you - there's certainly a chance they'll embezzle millions as described so eloquently in The Commitment Problem. But it's more likely that, when employees are not committed, they'll just toe the line and give you exactly what's required of them, but no more. They won't go beyond the line, they won't offer extra effort to make the company great, they'll grumble when you ask anything extra of them.

Every moment of the work day, employees have the choice of giving to the company or taking for themselves, of thinking about the long-term or of living in the moment and thinking about what's-in-it-for-me. If your employees tend to choose the long-term more often than the short-term, things are probably pretty good. If they tend to choose what's-in-it-for-me more often than not, you're probably feeling the frustration.

When exploring the personnel policies of several companies that suffered from low commitment, it was interesting to see areas where the companies demonstrated the same lack of commitment towards their employees. A few example:

• The minimum vacation allowance in Saskatchewan, by law, is three weeks per year for up to nine years of service, four weeks a year for ten or more years of service. One company never considered allowing anyone more than the legal limit of vacation, no sabbatical options, no leave-of-absence options, no flex for an extended holiday. Not very committed to long-term work-life balance.
• In Saskatchewan, you're not required to pay people who are off sick from work. One company had a policy that said, if you're visibly or audibly sick, don't come to work, but they also wouldn't pay for sick leave. A bit of an impossible choice for employees. Not very committed to the financial well-being or health of their workers.
• Another company had very rigorous time-tracking methods, requiring employees to account for every 10 minutes of their day and allowing no overtime unless pre-approved. In plain words, they would pay for exactly the legal work day, but not a penny more. Yet, the owners were repeatedly surprised when employees would resist attending a company function in the evening or on the weekend - "on their own time". Not very committed to the ideas of mutual generosity, of helping each other, of give and take.

So, if you find that your employees do not seem very committed to your company. Take a deep look at whether your company is really committed to your employees, and make sure you look at it from their point of view, not yours.