THERE IS A HELL! - - - IT IS CALLED RETAIL NEVER TRUST AN EMPLOYEE AND NEVER IT'S BOSSES! | Page 3

NEVER

Trust an Employer or It’s Bosses
We also don't practice what we preach - executive incompetency is 'punished' by multi
million dollar parachutes while employees get pushed out with minimal severance packages.
I also agree that most managers aren't intentionally secretive at least at the middle levelswe don't share the information with them either and we don't give them the tools to manage
people.
Somebody once said ‘trust’ and 'loyalty' are reciprocal relationships. You got to give it to
receive it...
Back in the 1980’s many companies had a simple form of incentives for store managers
initially. The bonuses that managers received were to be 20% of the store profit. This is
easily track-able and there were many managers that made more in bonus than salary;
apparently too much. Then companies decided that they would create budgets to be
accountable to, so rather than giving employees a raw bonus based on performance, they
would set difficult budgets based on what they thought you should make based on their own
'expertise'.
When this precedent was set, numbers became subjective
and a layer of trust was removed from the
employee/employer relationship. When manager bonuses
dropped significantly, mistrust ensued. It had been the
'American Dream' in the sense that any person that worked
hard and was good at managing staff and running a good
operation was rewarded with a significant stake in their
own operation. It became something where people were
hired constantly as 'manager trainees' (basically an
assistant manager but making barely over minimum wage
with no benefits) with the simple incentive of a 6-12 month
plan to become a store manager. This allowed many
companies to have a constant stream of getting people in and out of store management. In
subsequent years, I have seen similar incentive programs altered to be in the best interest of
the company. The bottom line is, when an employer takes away incentives, the results will
always be that another layer of trust is removed. Those that either manage or sell for a living
can relate to this. The issue that I have seen in recent years is that similar incentives are
eroded, but since the economy and job market are so bleak, people are merely holding on to
their positions. My guess is that when the economy does turn around, many companies will
wonder what happened to their best people, because they will have left, and started work at
move reliable and trustworthy companies.

Trust is a two way street.

So why should most workers trust the companies they work for when the companies they
work for don't trust them. Trust like respect, and communications is a two way street.

History has provided us with the Jekyll and Hyde of Leadership.
dodie ste®eo p®odu©tion ™

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