A New Work Ethic Abstract In the case done by James Sheehy, he worked undercover in a fast food restaurant that was owned by a relative. Most of the employees were teenagers and college students. He found the employees had contempt for customers, lack of respect for management and unrealistic expectations about what was expected of them. This paper will present my answers to the questions presented in the case 4. 4 “A New Work Ethic”, 1. How typical the attitudes that Sheehy reports appear to be in work environments I have experienced. 2.
Implications for the future of American business. 3. Is it more reasonable to expect workers to be more devoted to their jobs? 4. Why employees steal. 5. Why our culture of our capitalist society encourages attitudes like those Sheehy describes. A New Work Ethic 1. Describe how typical the attitudes that Sheehy reports appear to be in work environments you have experienced. In reading the case study “A New Work Ethic,” I began to notice strong similarities of my own experiences and the work environment explored by the human resource manager James Sheehy.
Based upon my experience, Sheehy’s report that the lack of employee commitment is generationally based are comparable to some of my own experiences but not always the case. I currently work for a corporation in a management position leading a team of off line customer service representatives. The current age range on my team runs from 24 to 66 as the oldest. The job responsibility and work load is the same for everyone on the team. I find the attitude Sheehy describes to be quite common in all age groups. For example the primary responsibility of their job is to process orders submitted by the customer by way of email communication.
Their performance is rated on how many emails they completed per hour. For the representative to receive an acceptable rating for the month they must complete 8-16 transactions per hour. My role as a Supervisor has gone from coaching and developing to monitoring behavior reports looking for how the reps had again found a way to beat the system. One of the most recent examples would be sending the email back to the customer stating they needed additional information when in fact the customer had already provided what they needed.
The outcome is customer impacting, delay in the request being completed, work is pushed off to the next person or as I call it work avoidance. Even a grown adult has a get-away-with-what-you-can attitude with no regards quality and service. And their views of leadership’s decision to set performance targets are unfair and out to get them. A New Work Ethic 2. Explain the implication of the work ethic Sheehy describes for the future of American business. With the way Sheehy implicated the ethics of his employees I have concerns about the future of American businesses.
Companies need devoted dedicated workers who love the job they do. The employees must have self motivation and a want to help with the continued success, growth and profit making of the business. Sheehy describes the work ethic of future American businesses as being populated mainly by college students who will maintain a no-holds-barred, trample-over-anybody, get-what-you-want approach. Sheehy believes that these college students really believe that this approach is a necessary and glamorous road to success.
Sheehy feels that there is a whole generation of workers with alarming new work ethics, such as contempt for customers, indifference to quality and service, unrealistic work expectations, as well as a get-away-with-what-you-can attitude. In the report, the implications of the work ethics Sheehy described could create a dramatic influence on American businesses in the future. If workers continue to behave like the employees in Sheehy’s report the small business owner will eventually no longer exist.
The impact on the small business owner would be loss of customer’s, decrease in profitability eventually the owner could be forced to close their business. In large corporations it could be the same result. The only advantage to a larger corporation in this situation would be the ability to develop self serve options for their customer as to eliminate customer interactions with their employees. In my current job our target for self serve is 90% which means 90% of all order from the customer will be automated and no human will ever touch them. As of today we are 85% we will reach our target on our next system enhancement. A New Work Ethic . Explain whether it is more reasonable to expect workers, especially in a capitalist society, to be more devoted to their jobs, more concerned with quality and customer service, than Sheehy’s coworkers were. Since capitalism would be ideally as an economic system in which the major of production and distribution is in private hands, operating under what is termed “profit” or “market” system. I would not expect workers to be devoted to their job, especially with all the outsourcing of jobs and resources being sent overseas. Personally I feel it is very important and reasonable to expect workers to be more devoted to their jobs.
The United States is in a recession and jobs are far and few between. This gives the business owner a larger selection of candidates to choose from when filling an open job position. I would suggest that people should be more professional, dress to impress every day, be on time, and have good work ethics, great customer service. In my company the days of mass hiring are over we have been given a directive to reduce head count by 13% due to system enhancements, the ability for our customer to utilize self serve options, elimination of duplicated jobs in several location down to 1 central location performing the task for the entire nation.
