The importance of employees…

I have always stated that a company is only as good as the people it employs. You can own the nicest shop frontage in the city, but if your staff are disgruntled, unhappy and unmotivated, they will ultimately not be interested in their jobs and drive away the customers in droves.

Late this afternoon I stumbled upon an article by Adam Lusher in Melbourne’s The Age Newspaper (direct link) entitled “Google’s Free Beer and Big Ass Barbies”. Essentially Google founders Sergey Brim and Larry Page, employed chef Charlie Ayers to provide free food to all its employees. The idea was to encourage the workforce to come in early and stay back late, by filling their stomaches with freshly prepared, and more importantly, free food. This was in 1998 and Ayers distinctly remembers them saying ‘we are not going to charge for food here ever’. Ayers was faced with a challenging mission, he had a captive audience and something to build on. The greatest part of the story is that Ayers didn’t just provide canteen style food free of charge, he developed a menu that encouraged workers to get a kick start in the morning, kept them energized after lunch and gradually moved them from a diet of fast food to salads and weekly lobster. He has released a book entitled “Eat Yourself Smart”, and has since sold a portion of his estimated 28.8 million of Google Shares, to buy a home. He has also left the company, and when he did, they renamed the canteen, Charlie’s.

Google aren’t the only ones realising that an empowered and happy staff base work better. Earlier in the year i had seen a short segment on the new National Australia Bank Headquarters in the Docklands, Melbourne. (There is also an Age Article here) The bank has redirected its corporate governance, by building a four energy star rated low rise building that features open play spaces, a large central sun lit atrium, large walkways above the atrium, a saw tooth roof which allows sunlight to replace electrical lighting sources and small bay windowed offices that poke out into the public space. NAB haven’t gone quite as far as say Microsoft, with free massages or on site pool or recreation facilities, but this is mainly to do with stockholders concerns. The move to a more environmentally friendly, more welcoming open plan workplace shows the emphasis on not only employees but on people in general.

In my opinion and from my direct observations, it isn’t essential to have a company sign onto some of the innovative and very modern schemes i have just discussed. It is more about the focus of the company, and the way it handles its workers. Workers need to be motivated to want to do work, or even want to show up. I believe working for a company should be a give and take. I believe each worker should discuss with their employer where they want to be in 1, 2 or 5 years. In my industry, the theatre industry, it is simple things such as staff training that will encourage employees to wholeheartedly commit to a company. For an employer to organize staff professional development is an effective and efficient way of not only building the skills of your staff, but investing in their future with the company. In the theatre industry there are a huge number of extra qualifications that you can obtain; scissor lift license, riggers ticket, truck license, fork lift license, occupational health and safety assessor and more. The costs associated with this are minimal. You cover the wages of the workers for that day, and pay a trainer to come onsite, which usually generates a significant discount.

In the end you need to motivate your employees and make them feel empowered within a company, it doesn’t matter what kind of initiative brings this about, the importance is the focus on your employees as you biggest asset.