I have to thank one of our local churches once again for providing
the ammunition for this post. They had on their electronic message board
in the front of the church yesterday the message “Behavior is the
mirror in which we show our image.” I fully understand to whom the
message was intended; however when we dig deeper into the message the
same concept can be brought to our organizations.
I have recently
returned from the HR Florida state conference in which several
presenters talked about being the preferred employer (i.e. Employer of
Choice). That is in itself a worthwhile goal, but what does it really
mean to the general public who are our customers? We become the
preferred employer because of the image we present to the marketplace.
We present the image that we are great place to work. We present the
image that we are an ethical place to work. The problem maybe, that
under the surface, we are not what we seem to be.
Just in the past
few days there has been a case where a CEO told an employee that she
was too fat and old to be with customers. As a CEO in today’s
marketplace you are challenged to find good employees. Not by your view
of what good is, but ones that can perform the duties of the position.
Since this has been all over the web, are they still lily to be the
preferred employer?
I receive the RSS feed every day from the EEOC
regarding legal actions they have taken and they read like every
organization is a bad apple. We hear of examples of outright sexual
harassment of employees; retaliation when the employee complains and
outright discrimination in hiring. I understand these situations are not
anything new. But the question it brings to the forefront is if
our behavior is the mirror that show our image, then what does the
mirror tell the marketplace who we are? What does the mirror tells us
about whether we deserve to be the preferred employer in our industry?
As an organization we need to carefully review our behavior towards our
employees, our suppliers, our customers and to each other as human
beings. We need to ensure that the behavior matches the image we want to
present to our marketplace.
Friday, August 30, 2013
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