Comment by throwaw12
4 days ago
> The problem is a management pattern .... Short-term cost cutting
Absolutely agree with this. Most MBAs are taught to optimize and reduce the slack.
It works fine with machinery and materials, but not with humans.
When machinery is optimized and run thin, when one of them breaks, you can get exact same in couple days (you usually prepare for it earlier), but with humans, they train their brain and next person is different from the first person.
Humans also break in different ways:
* They stop caring - you wouldn't notice it immediately, they will close tickets, but give bare minimum thought
* Communal brain will not be trained when there is not enough room for experiments and learning - which reduces the innovation eventually
This is exactly the reason it is difficult for US companies to compete with Chinese companies in manufacturing, because their communal brain have already trained and produced very good talent.
Next is the knowledge, more you outsource, more you lose it
Perhaps US companies should invest more in their employees then? Advancement, promotions beyond %1-3% COLAs, career paths, etc would go along way to keep employees interested in seeing their employers succeed instead of jumping ship every couple of years. The would require some effort from the C-suite however and since they jump ship every few years as well, I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Unfortunately the Wall Street accountants who run our companies don't mind if you jump ship after your 2% 'reward' raise. Because when someone new comes and costs 10 % more plus recruiting costs, that latter person has 'proven' their worth in the market, similar to when a house goes up in value due to scarcity.
If you were to explain the costs of knowledge lost, of training, of taking a risk on a new unknown person, of relationships, there's no answer because it doesn't show up in any operating expense worksheet.
What you're supposed to do is find another job, and explain that you love this job so much, but the other offer is really good, can they come up close to it and you'll stay. Repeat this every few years or find a new job and move to it.
Invest in employees is very broad statement.
Before investing to employees I think it should revisit management practices and strategies, which starts in MBA and university.
Instead of teaching how to increase shareholder value in the short term, it should also teach how to increase value to the society in the long term as well (and focus on it highly) - not just say: if you win society wins kind of generic fluff.
Without changing management strategies everything becomes short term after a while
> teaching how to increase shareholder value in the short term
Problem is this is quite often a requirement for a public company, to maximize company value/profits above all else.
Also execs who are more right-wing are typically not interested in helping the larger society in general.
3 replies →
> Most MBAs are taught to optimize and reduce the slack.
With a myopic definition of "optimize". But as long as they are being rewarded for it, the incentives are broken.