Make It Easy
Make It Easy
It is summer and we are seeing all the newly minted, "lei-dened" graduates at the airports leaving for new lives. It occurs to me that many have not been taught how to be employees. Workers would
do well to embrace
profit motiveSo, here are a few tips on how to succeed at being a happy, healthy and useful employee.
>> First a primer on business: Profit is not a dirty word. It is how the company keeps you as an employee, and how it can afford to buy things like desks and chairs for you to use. When you are hired, it is so you can add to the profit that keeps the company in business.
>> Your job is to make your boss look good, make your company look good, and make your company successful. Why else would you be there? I asked a group of new front line employees once why they thought their company was in business. One bright young lady immediately raised her hand and said, "To employ people?" Wrong. The reason your company is in business is to sell stuff. Period. If it doesn't sell stuff, it files for bankruptcy and you, my friend, will be out on the streets interviewing again.
>> Businesses need inventory to stay in business. Just because you see an invoice that says an item "cost" the business $1 and you see it is being sold for $5 does not mean the company is "cheating" the customer or the inventory is there for the taking. There is more to the cost of the goods than you see. Out of the sale of that $5 item, salaries are paid (including yours), as is electricity, insurance, workers comp, rent, taxes, and other overhead such as supplies and services.
If someone takes a $1 item and the company is operating at a 1 percent profit margin, that means the company has to sell 100 of those items to make up for the one that was taken. So, take care of your boss's bottom line. That means no freebies to your buddies, no 5-finger discounts, no taking home a few pens and notepads "because they have so many of them they won't miss it."
Beth Terry is president of Pacific Rim Seminars.
This column is excerpted from her upcoming book,
101 Ways to Make Your Life Easier. Send questions
on management, customer service and other issues
to beth@bethterry.com.