Comparisons between how two different companies deal with various things:
Badges -
- One method is to have a badge for the full time employees and the rest are considered “inferior”. They control by exclusion. In other words, they don’t allow people to enter the building if they aren’t qualified (not a US citizen). If you aren’t a full time employee, you get a badge without a picture and basically have no rights (can’t come in early into the building or work on the weekends without escort). It is a “all or nothing” approach.
- The other approach is to have a variety of badge types with color coding that is significant. For example, red signifies something you really want to pay attention to. A band has the different security clearances. This way people feel validated no matter what level they are coming into the company. Let’s face it, if you’re there working, you must have some significant reason to be there and therefore you should be valued.
Computer Access
- One method is to treat the employee like a child and block access to the sites where they can waster their time – Yahoo, Google mail, etc. and all streaming video, eBay, etc. Also to instill a sense of fear that somebody is a always watching you. The Big Brother approach.
- The other approach is to trust the employee. They have unlimited access to all sites and are even instructed on the best way to use them by the IT department. They offer applications such as McAfee and Microsoft Office for free or very cheap to use at home, knowing that they are interconnected (what you do at home and work are seamless). The hours that people work are flexible. Operations hourly employees don’t even clock in. This is risky and puts more pressure on the managers and peer pressure but in this high stress world we live in, it allows for sanity in an insane world.
Access to buildings
- One way to keep control is to make people enter and exit through central points and go past a guard. It gives the presence of authority and keeps people under their thumb. Also, it does not take advantage of new technologies.
- The other approach is to have many access doors and have them electronically monitored. Make it easy for employees to enter and exit and let the computer do the work.
 Time
Time is a very real part of our lives, especially in the new 24/7 world. We are just beginning to see, as a culture, what the horrible side effects are on our health and well being. In defense time is measure in at least two ways – time cards where as a government contractor it is important to track every minute you work and charge it to the appropriate project number. The second way is how time is measured during the day – what time you come in, when you leave, when lunch is taken, how much time is eaten up by meetings and playing power games and politics.
- First company – clocks are on all the walls. Nobody works unless they get a charge number. There are non-stop meetings all day long for the managers and leaders and the rest are kept in the dark with no updates on anything.
- Second company – no clocks on the walls. You are on you honor to arrive and leave work so that you work 8 hours a day. Work is performed as needed with charge numbers supplied. The bosses attitude, at least in my group, is “walk and talk management”.Â
Computers
- In old fashioned companies, they withold computers as rewards or badges of power or position. Only the ones in charge,the chosen ones have laptops.
- In new companies – everybody gets laptops because they are cheaper and more flexible. Power is distributed more widely in order to get people to be empowered.
 Respect for the Individual
Both companies seem to have great respect for the individual, i.e. they don’t argue about time taken off or demand that you work no matter what. That was something that came more from the start-up medical companies where I worked.
Aside note:
Power can be obtained from getting the job done or from pushing people around. Which one is real power?